The simple life

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/travel/escapes/12ashrams.html?em

hijab ~ tudung ~ modest clothing

Sunlight and osteoporosis: The reduction of seafood in the diet (compared to a million years ago) plus habitually wearing heavy clothing (to reduce evaporation and to follow culture mores) means more sunlight is required to prevent osteoporosis.
http://www.moneduloides.com/?p=571

Trajectory in brain cortical thickening, intelligence: http://scienceblogs.com/developingintelligence/2008/12/how_the_temporal_trajectory_of.php


New fashion: Squid Scarf with mitten tentacles ... ?? [h/t pharyngula] http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/11/squid_hats.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890
(Not advertising, just PR!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What is the biological rationale for wearing the veil and layered clothing?

To reduce water (sweat) loss, advantageous for people without access to water eg. desert nomadic herders. "Covering your aurah" is equivalent to a mammal's fur layer, it retains body moisture preventing dehydration. reality 101. One advantage of our human ancestors living along seashores had was protection against freshwater microbial pathogens (virus, bacteria, fungi), which could not adjust to the powerful combination of direct sunshine (ultraviolet light), freshwater submersion and saltwater submersion, together with the paranasal sinus emitted Nitric Oxide and the cutaneous eccrine glands produced slightly basic urea/dermcidin/defensins and slightly acidic skin surface. http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=education_discussion/molecule_of_the_month/current_month.html



Chimps don't swim. Humans do. What are you?


Humans can swim before we can crawl, walk, run, sit or stand. Yet some people want to mimic chimpanzees, mentoring others to be afraid of water. That's the path to chimpiness and polluted oceans with no fish and dead coral reefs. As fellow Minnesotan Greg Hussein Laden says "Don't be a chimp!". I concur. Get in the water, learn to swim, dive, backfloat. Be human. If you are scared, ask me to help, I will, if it's not too late.

"Female primates love chatting: IT has long been known that it is a female trait to enjoy a good gossip. Now scientists think they could have pinpointed the reason behind the female tendency to chit chat – by studying monkeys. The researchers found that like women, female macaque monkeys were more likely to make friendly noises to each other, such as grunts and coos, than the males of the species." [The researchers obviously are unaware of Dive Song, the human-only language development during backfloating and diving between dive partners, which did not occur among other primates. DD]

They think the discovery could add weight to the theory that language evolved from the need to form social bonds, with females needing to build closer relationships than males. [Rather obvious IMO. DD] http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/Why-do-women--.4712406.jp

Menstruation causes brain flip: The female brain has a clever way of mitigating the stress experienced during menstruation: it flip-flops. Such a change could help women cope with the hormonal maelstrom going on in their bodies without causing huge behavioural shifts. Oestrogen levels levels, in particular, plummet around menstruation. http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2008/11/female-flipping-brain.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

color ~ warna ~ varini




trust me to teach you to swim, backfloat and dive. No fear. Fun, and safer than walking across the street. :)

ingatlah ni, a chimp in fine linens yakking on a cell phone in a lexus is still a chimp if she can't swim.

cuz it's biology, baby! and good for the ventricles too!

ps. if you don't have a sense of humor, go buy one. life is too crazy without one. wasalam.

~ daud di nor calif ~

floppy puppy in flight

last eve, the ephemeral scent of the vitalized seashore while walking around
this morn, the heavenly smell of baking bread molded into raisin bagel form

Ninja cat!

Reminds me of Chibi... (karate kat ... kucing yg zen master)
h/t to Gene E.
==================================================

Fly & Spider | Fliderspy?

by Terry at: http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/

pening...demam?

pening... demam... pedas? lapar sket.


had a bit of a tension headache earlier, took a few aspirin, now ok.
perhaps a slight fever? (update: better now I guess.)

===================================================================
Stathmin: motherhood, socializing, amygdala
fearless_mice_are_neglectful_mothers_but_social_butterflies

Brain asymmetry in vertebrates = multi-tasking
asymmetrical_brains_help_fish_and_us_to_multitask

h/t Ed Yong

Ampang Medikal = Amateur Medikal?

"jangkitan jaundice dimata"?

Is jaundice an eye infection? Of course not, it's a liver condition. The symptoms include yellow-orange skin tone & sclerae (white portion of the eyes) from accumulation of bilirubin pigment. My mother had jaundice when going through her cancer treatment, there was no "eye infection".

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec10/ch135/ch135b.html

Ampang Medical, an attempted copycat of Grey's Anatomy, based in Malaysia, obviously needs professional medical advisors aboard. Nobody needs false medical information on public television, especially kampong folk that might think Ampang Medical is actually representing real doctors and hospitals.

'Ampang Medikal', Please seek medical help immediately. STAT. Good luck!

h/t bakawali

malaria

http://www.afreeman.org/2008/02/28/great-interview-week-scientific-serendipity-in-sydney-2/

Chromera velia, a unicellular photosynthetic symbiotic brown algae found associated with coral reefs, which leaves when the reef water becomes too warm resulting in bleached coral, has been found to be related to malarial Plasmodium and other apicomplexan parasites like toxiplasmosis.

Apparently, these blood-borne parasites derive from coral cell symbiont alga, and still contain vestigial chloroplasts (chlorophyll compounds, like in tree leaves that construct tissue from hydrocarbons using sunlight energy) , but now obtain energy from their animal hosts.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6468381.stm

Sunny windy day

Blue sky & sunny, but a very wintery wind came, from the north mountains.

Well September is here now, summer is flying south. Happy Labor Day!
~sehari cuti~

Blues by the Bay this weekend http://www.redwoodcoastmusicfestivals.org/

For a month now, I've been eating typically one lunch meal per day, for no reason.
But I won't mention about coffee consumption. uhum. nobody's perfect. salam selam...

I lost something precious recently, a belief thingy. nothing important.

I just found something this morning, a keychain thingy. nothing important.

I'm still breathing, and I still don't know why. Please forgive my ignorance, errors, faults.

~ Ramadhan Mubarak ~ daripada daud di nor calif, anak kanaka haoli, kuala walu wiki, US

Things fall apart

ARCH COLLAPSE

Gravity, erosion rob Utah of it's bedrock arches

erosion = body radiation due to chemical/physical plane/surface bond fracturing
gravity = earth's center density accumulates, pressurizes/displaces subsurface

arch based on compression of stone particles due to tension of earth's gravity, when enough particles have eroded (cement bonds broken), the matrix faults and shifts and eventually collapses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reading a 1958 classic book by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, called Things Fall Apart about a family of the Ibo tribe in traditional Nigeria, especially focused on the main character's relationships with family, village, clan, and foreign colonials. The book's plot is here: link. On page 57 at the moment, a challenging read, the title doesn't connect with the story yet, though I'm sure it will.

Shog bo Yoruba! Hausa! Ina su Igbo! Swahili! Ma dun belly full! My friends, brothers and sisters of Africa. Peace in your hearts, food in your stomachs, clarity in your sight.

While studying at Univ. Wisconsin, I had some Nigerian friends, I do miss them sometimes, especially Alaro (she & I worked one summer in dorm cleaning with other int'l. students) and Nnamdi (so much like Eddie Murphy), and recall Ene (he distrusted Americans, we enjoyed argueing) and "crazy" On'e who tried to kill me with a kitchen knife (I belly-laughed so hard, he joined me in laughter and put away the knife). The book's main character reminded me of him, I hope he has limited himself to killing goats. InsyaAllah.

Morocco imam competition link
call of the muzzein: survival of the fittest loudest? The clearest call surely comes from within. No need to electrically amplify, is not the high decibel traffic in the modern city already loud enough, especially near hospitals where calm is of the essence? I do like hearing the call, just hoping for a bit of balance in congested areas. An alarm clock should not be turned to maximum, that is a symptom of lethargy, sloth and lack of awareness, an unhealthy combination. Now I sound like I'm preaching, sorry, not my job.




Alhamdulillah waselamaleykumselam

daud di nor calif

hard core

Medical analysis: Bone deformity, mineral loss & joint pain due to hard floor praying

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article4412074.ece

Sema Yılmaz^{1, 3} , Hamide Kart-Köseoglu¹, Ozgen Guler² and Eftal Yucel¹

(1)	Division of Rheumatology, Faculty of Medicine, Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey

(2)	Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey

(3)	Vatan cad., Devrim sit., B/blok No:29/4, Selcuklu, 42040 Konya, Turkey

Received: 10 March 2007 Accepted: 24 September 2007 Published online: 10 October 2007

Abstract Prayer is one kind of worship that is composed of repetitive action during praying in Islam. The prayer is performed five times a day, every Friday, bairams and death ceremonies. The aim of this study is to search the role of this repetitive action on knee, hip osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. Forty-six patients who had been performing the prayer at least for 10 years, and 40 patients who had not performed the prayer, were included in this prospective study. Each patient was evaluated with standard questionnaire form, joint examination was done and various laboratory parameters were studied. Anterior–posterior radiography of the pelvis and weight-bearing knees of each patient were examined. Each film was evaluated by two investigators separately and first scored by using Kellgren and Lawrence (K&L) scale, then the width of the joint space of hips and knees were measured directly using a steel ruler and recorded to the nearest half millimeter. Bone mineral density (BMD) of lumbar spine and femur was measured. Patients having Heberden’s nodes, Bouchard’s nodes, and carpometacarpal disease were frequent in worshiper group. Joint space width measurements and assessment according to K&L scale did not differ between worshipers and non-worshipers. BMD of lumbar spine was decreased in worshipers and also decreased with patients having Heberden’s nodes, Bouchard’s nodes, female gender and age. Prayer has no effect on knee and hip osteoarthritis, and may be related with hand osteoarthritis. It seems to have negative effect on lumbar BMD, but further investigations are needed.

Keywords Prayer - Osteoarthritis - Osteoporosis

Perhaps tatami mats or a sandy beach in the shade of a coconut palm might be more healthy.

~peace~

la

=====================================================================================
:|

Is this an incorrect perception? Biased perhaps. Stereotypes are often biased.
maafkan ku kalau anda tak suke gambo tu. silakan kata saya. It was meant to tease, but not to hurt. Sometimes it is hard to know the difference, yeah? ok. [update: am i being too serious bout this? hmm, just lil bit]

I've been teased a lot at various times (like everybody, right?), been physically hurt a few times (ouch!), and emotionally hurt once badly it shattered me (took some time to recover from that). Life is complicated, sometimes painful, and sometimes tears are all there is. I hope I don't make you cry, but sometimes I hope you do cry anyways. Because some people cannot cry, they can only hate and harm themselves and others around them. sian. They may lose their humanity. Let's keep it. Real life ain't made for emo crybabies, but it ain't for robots either. [update: I hope that doesn't sound harsh. I meant that if someone is always weeping or never weeps at all, maybe they would benefit from rebalancing therapy or medical treatment. ok, now i sound like a softie. can't win for tryin.]
Earn your tears, face your fears. aite. jom. gambatte ne.

salam, dari daud ~ di nor calif

Floating hot tub hydrotherapy

http://www.tugtub.com/about_us.html
Floating Hot Tub


Do they have a canopy version too, like this life raft?

Is this great hydrotherapy? ME LOIKE! Imagine in chilly weather or cold water, can "chill out" in a hot tub? A few minutes dive into the cold water, then hop in the hot tub and warm up keeping steady breathing, kind of like a liquid Finnish sauna.

I like it for one reason: the ocean water here is so dayamn cold , one can't swim without a thick wetsuit. This floating hot tub seems like one could dive, then with a small side ladder climb in to warm up, then dive again. Strap on an electric trolling motor and go cruising around the pond or bay, what a blast!

If I had any extra money, yeah, I'd get one and keep it with my (future) sailboat.

I'm sure one can also use it on dry ground or in a house, so very convenient, multiple use. Neat idea...

Morons, mucus & microbiota

icosahedral Phage
Science Biology: Bacteria + viral Phage in the gut

http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/06/repost_morons_in_microbiology.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage
Note pictures, expecially the hexagonal space packing one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedral_symmetry
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/lehre/bza/virus/introicos.htm

Humans produce saliva-like mucus along the length of the GI tract, respiratory tract and the reproductive tract. Humans have ten times more bacteria cells than human cells in their bodies, only 10% of your cellular body is genetically really you.

Bacteriophages use 'morons' (novel genes) which cause diarrhea by excreting chemicals, this moves the virus (which had been inside the bacteria) away to new victims via fecal material, eg. E. coli.

"The bacteria only cause diarrhea because of genes encoded by phages!

'Morons' are genes that bacteriophages carry around which are unnecessary for the virus, but helpful for the host bacteria. Like the MORON toxins that encode Type III secretion effectors that make you poop when you're colonized by Salmonella or Cholera or the MORON toxins that make you poop when you eat spinach sprinkled with E. Coli.."

'What is the advantage to an E. Coli or Cholera strain that makes me want to die as opposed to a strain that just hangs out not causing problems? The Backpacker'

"Because you poop and then bacteria can spread to new hosts, fecal to oral :) Poop is the key** Its like how influenza makes you feel like crap, but you cough/sneeze, which spreads the virus to new hosts! people die from this, if they don't have access to adequate medical treatment..."
=================================================================================

So it's the secretion of the bacteriophage that affects the ionic membrane producing diarrhea, while antibiotic treatment kills the bacteria, thereby killing the parasitizing virus. The bacteria itself is not toxic, and will sit in the body until time for virus reproduction, when toxins are released.

Wikipedia:

Bacteriophages can be found in all reservoirs populated by bacterial hosts, such as soil or the intestines of animals. One of the densest natural sources for phages and other viruses is sea water, where up to 9×108 virions per milliliter have been found in microbial mats at the surface[2], and up to 70% of marine bacteria may be infected by phages.[3]

They have been used for over 60 years as an alternative to antibiotics in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.[4] They are seen as a possible therapy against multi drug resistant strains of many bacteria.

Membuatkan Nature-Path "Housepital"?

Note: this post is better with a grain of salt.
===============================================
Nature-Path differs from both natural path and naturopathy, as defined by wikipedia.
اهدِنَــــا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيمَ ihdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭ al mustaqīm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy
http://www.the-natural-path.com/
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/05/a_perfect_storm_of_quackademic_medicine.php
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/06/doctors_of_naturopathy_in_minnesota.php?utm_source=mostactive&utm_medium=link

They focus on herbal remedies and "cleansing" of often imaginary toxins from the body, as well as vegetarianism and yoga and other techniques, many of which are more or less placebos.

Basically, nature-path is individually optimal health and wellness or eunoia, not just simply stasis, and the opposite of disease and illness.

I formerly worked at the National Wellness Institute at the University of Wisconsin system, for Dr. Bill Hettler, assisting in establishing their wellness network database, where I learned of the medical industry's dilemma: the propensity to treat patients by killing the pain and quieting the symptoms rather than to heal by tuning into and magnifying (not increasing) the pain and symptoms for analysis and treatment.

http://www.nationalwellness.org/

If you ask a typical medical practitioner, what is apnoea or paranoia, they will respond immediately with the right answer, but if you ask about eunoia, they may need time to recall, because they are so completely focused on returning a patient to average (not optimal) health stasis, thus allowing unhealthy habits (which may have caused the disease) to be retained.

But if one's attention zooms in on treatment of the negative symptoms, one cannot effectively treat the whole person. It is the positive equilibrium which actually heals the body, the drugs and surgery only assist it. (Obviously, I'm not including acute traumatic injuries, chronic genetic defects, etc. which require specialized conventional medical treatment at some stages, but still gain long term advantage with holistic treatment such as naturopathy.)



Eureka Eunoia Ecostay: organic foods, sea shore rehab, radioscopy, fitness, balance.
Locale: adjacent to the Wharfinger (= syahbandar) building and marina.
There has been interest in developing an eco-hostel here, but how about an eco-hospice or eco-hospital?
http://eco-hostel.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=26

not sure why, i have this feeling to design and construct an eco-hospital & human physiology complex. There are already 2 conventional hospitals nearby, mad river hospital and st. josephs hospital, which serve humboldt county.

{i call this one a pipe dream, since there is no financial funding for it.}

there's a veterans memorial clinic, and a red cross blood bank clinic, a skin health & beauty college and two hotels (closed- empty) very near here. this all could be converted to a pro-active health center spa complex.

basically, featuring less chemical medicines and invasive surgery and more health-focused lifestyle adaptation, including dietary habituation, fitness habituation, socio-mental stress reduction (surfing through the peaks and valleys of life's challenges), with a view that "the body heals itself when allowed and encouraged", rather than pumping bodies full of artificial chemicals from Big Pharma or even worse, pushing homeopathic snake oil (unnecessary colonic cleansing) and ritualized magic cures (this pill/herb/prayer/chant/suppository) will cure anything!). mostly people don't need to be cured, just rebalanced.

the local billionaires might be induced to support this, and there's another one, a malaysian indian real estate moghul that might also, named roy i think. i won't ask warren buffett, he's too busy buying hydroelectic dams that destroy the salmon fishing for local native tribes (dayak merah).

(ps. wearing my brown slacks, brown summer sweater, tan sports jacket, grey sox & white sneakers and a camouflage baseball cap "hunting and fishing news"; fashion police jangan datang lah...hehe)

pps. this tea is yummy: evening in missoula herbal tea, from missoula, montana, usa linky

What's in your genes?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080526/ap_on_sc/woman_s_dna_1

Woman's genome sequenced.

I was wondering if they'd ever get around to that, after sequencing men, chimpanzees, monkeys, cows, platypuses, etc.

I mean, goodness sakes, they are human, yah?!

jom !

Dr Taj Hargey, chair of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford:

"The only requirement is that when women swim they should be modestly clad."

"The Prophet Mohammed pbuh is recorded as saying that it is a Muslim's duty to learn to swim as it could save his or her life".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's right girls, learn to swim, in a safe way. But ... even gorillas and orangutans can swim. (The pygmy chimpanzees seem scared to swim) Only HUMANS can dive and backfloat, so better learn that too! I can teach if u want. Jangan jadi chimpanzee oy.

even the desert camel can swim... and the long tailed macaque and big nose proboscis monkeys can swim better ... pompuan muslimah jom ... dive like the beautiful dolphin, backfloat like the happy sea otter hehe jangan takutleh jom jom

selamat selam jom kita berswimming & berdiving & berbackfloating

Brains and Bits (part deux)

Einstein 's Brain, Watson's Genome

follow up from John Hawks: Watson's DNA

home :: topics :: humor :: quotes :: rosalind-franklin-genome-watson-2008

The teaser to this post on Science Blog:

The next generation of genome sequencing has been published using the DNA of James Watson. I'll bet they used Rosalind Franklin's DNA as a test drive and didn't tell us.

(DD: ahaks! Good one JH! Watson & Crick discovered the geometrical structure of DNA, but not without Franklin's research)

Why do humans have big brains?

GEOFFREY MILLER is a man with a theory that, if true, will change the way people think about themselves. His idea is that the human brain is the anthropoid equivalent of the peacock's tail. In other words, it is an organ designed to attract the opposite sex. Of course, brains have many other functions, and the human brain shares those with the brains of other animals. But Dr Miller, who works at the University of New Mexico, thinks that mental processes which are uniquely human, such as language and the ability to make complicated artefacts, evolved originally for sexual display.

One important difference between peacocks' tails and human minds, of course, is that the peahen's accoutrement is a drab affair. No one could say the same of the human female psyche. That, Dr Miller believes, is because people, unlike peafowl, bring up their offspring in families where both sexes are involved in parenting. It thus behoves a man to be as careful about choosing his wife as a woman is about choosing her husband.

Both sexes, therefore, have reason to show off. But men and women will have different criteria for making their choices, and so the sexual-display sides of their minds may differ in detail.

Testing this hypothesis will be a long haul...
[Economist, Aug. 2007]
http://blogs.usatoday.com/techspace/2007/08/coffee-break--2.html?csp=34

(DD: Perhaps, but only if specific nutrients are present in the diet such as Iodine, Selenium, Omega 3 oils, etc. Else, cretinism, hypothyroidism, goitres occur.)

Brain scaling: “what rules differ across orders of mammals, and thus might account for phylogenetic variance across groups?” After doing some calculations, they found that if the same cellular scaling rules for rodents applied to primate brains, “a brain comparable to ours, with approximately 100 billion neurons, would weigh >45 kg and belong to a body of 109 tons, about the mass of the heaviest living mammal, the blue whale!” [Evo Fresno]

Sacred Biology: brains and bits

" Among the 17 tissues, the highest similarity in gene expression patterns was between human brain and testis, based on DDD and clustering analysis. Genes contributing to the similarity include ribosomal protein (RP) genes as well as genes involved in transcription, translation and cell division. Conclusions: Present results provide evidence to support the proposal that human testis and brain share the highest similarity of gene expression patterns."

http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?doi=10.1159/000076290


This surprised me, apparently testes and brains have some strong genetic similarities.


I was aware that during embryogenesis and fetal development IIRC, male gonads (testes) move internally from somewhere around the cephalic-cervical region (head-neck) towards the abdomen to the caudal-urethral region, producing a weak area susceptible to hernias. Is it possible that the testes are comprised of isolated homologous brain tissues, and are thus secondarily affected by bio-chemicals meant for the brain? Do treatments for brain disorders affect the libido? Do female ovaries also have brain-like tissue?

Sort of a Poem

i still don't understand
the words written by her hand
been born in a distant land
can't walk there, hardly stand
the sea washing away
her footprints in the sand


....


....II______