“One man’s food is another man’s poison.” – Lucretius (99-55 B.C.)
Most people have this basic understanding of genetics: You inherit genes from your parents, and their DNA combines to create your unique genetic makeup. This can include more obvious traits such as eye color and height but also more complex traits that may involve multiple genes, such as risk of diseases including diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer, as well as all aspects of metabolism.
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The Human Genome Project — an international 13-year collaboration that mapped out all of the genes in humans — discovered approximately 50,000 variances (differences in the individual DNA code) in our genetic code that can make a difference in how your body functions.
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What many people may not realize is that there is a significant interaction between your environment and your genes, and your diet is one of the most basic and potentially modifiable components of your environment.
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Bacteria in our guts
Differences in the individual DNA code, in our genetic code that can make a difference in how your body functions.
Snakebites kill more than 200 people a day around the world, but Thai firefighter Pinyo Pookpinyo was one of the lucky ones.
When the tip of his thumb was bitten by a king cobra, he made it to a Bangkok hospital within 15 minutes. There, he was given a serum that stopped the venom, which can be fatal, from attacking his nervous system.
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“The doctor didn’t believe at first that I was bitten by a king cobra. I had to tell him that I was an instructor teaching about snakes; I’m very good at identifying types.
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“It affected me for about two months. I had to go back to the hospital to undergo surgery for another two times to remove dead tissues from my thumb.”
It had been more than two weeks that she had been lost in a thick Hawaiian forest, and Amanda Eller was at an end.
The 35-year-old doctor of physical therapy was at a place where she could no longer go forward because of the terrain. With a fractured leg and no shoes, she sure wasn’t going to go back.
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The area she found herself in had little to no food. She stayed there for a day and a half and, as Eller’s mother and a friend told reporters Saturday as they detailed the rescued woman’s ordeal, she began to resign herself to the dire possibility that she might die there.
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“It came down to life and death — and I had to choose. I chose life. I wasn’t going to take the easy way out. Even though that meant more suffering in me for myself,” Eller told CNN affiliate KHON.
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Amanda Eller 17 days in Hawaii forest on berries, river water and smarts
Bart Starr, the Hall of Fame Green Bay Packers quarterback who won the first two Super Bowl titles in the 1960s, died Sunday morning at the age of 85 in Birmingham, Alabama, the Packers said.
Starr, who won five National Football League championships for the Packers, had been in failing health since suffering a stroke in 2014, according to the Packers.
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“We are saddened to note the passing of our husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Bart Starr,” his family said in a statement. “He battled with courage and determination to transcend the serious stroke he suffered in September 2014, but his most recent illness was too much to overcome.”
Tolkien is a biographical drama directed by Dome Karukoski and written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford. The film is about the early life of English professor J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as other notable academic works. Tolkien is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures under the Fox Searchlight Pictures banner, making it the first film released by Searchlight after an acquisition by Disney. I wasn’t sure about Tolkien — I thought it might be a documentary, but it isn’t. The film was well done and I’m glad I got to see it.
Tolkien opens with young J. R. R. Tolkien (Harry Gilby) lying in a field of leaves fantasizing about two fully armored men on their horses, fighting amidst fire, with spears drawn. Reality sets in and he awakens as an officer in WWI who is badly…
The Palouse Falls lies on the Palouse River, about 4 mi upstream of the confluence with the Snake River in southeast Washington, United States. The falls are 198 ft in height.
For an aging population, companion or “social” robots have a lot of promise; they could assist with everyday tasks, help keep in touch with family and friends, and even combat loneliness. But it’s worth wondering whether we should worry about becoming too emotionally attached to a machine.
ElliQ is the latest sidekick to join this new brave new set of companion bots. Made by Intuition Robotics in Israel, ElliQ is described as a “social entity” that helps older adults stay independent, active, and engaged.
Its makers understand the bond formed with a companion machine is very different than one formed with a human, but striking the right balance between usefulness and personality in a companion robot is tricky, especially when it comes to a vulnerable population like the elderly. Where does the line between meaningful friendship and artificial tool lie?
In Japan, the secret to living a longer, happier and more fulfilled life can be summed up in one word: Ikigai.
In Japanese, iki means “to live” and gai means “reason” — in other words, your reason to live. This ideology dates to the Heian period (A.D. 794 to 1185), but only in the past decade has it gained attention from millions around the world.
The ikigai way of life is especially prominent Okinawa, in a group of islands south of mainland Japan. (It has also been nicknamed the “Land of Immortals” because it has among the longest lifespans and highest rates of centenarians in the world.)
If you were a wrestling fan on May 23rd, 1999, you were probably doing one of three things.One of those was watching WWE’s latest pay-per-view event, Over the Edge. Another was using “scramblevision” to listen to that event by tuning a TV or VCR without a cable box to the pay-per-view channel. Some fans were probably also watching The Jesse Ventura Story on NBC, which they doubtless regretted instantly. The low-budget Ventura biopic, made with cooperation for WWE’s rival promotion WCW, was an absolute catastrophe of a film and a rushed, obvious cash-in on Ventura’s upset win in the Minnesota gubernatorial election six months earlier. While bad and stupid in every possible way, the movie’s most enduring artistic legacy is the absurd amount of “creative license” it took, most famously through making Ventura a central figure of a scenario that was clearly based on Bret Hart’s last night in WWE.
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Owen Hart with his beloved Slammy Award statue in a 1996 WWE promotional image.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Snakebites: The hidden health crisis
Amanda Eller 17 days in Hawaii forest on berries, river water and smarts
Bart Starr dies at 85
An image of Palouse Falls
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Robot companions
Smiling Japanese elder
James' World 2 