Prolonged exposure to comfortable warm temperatures may permanently reduce the ability to burn the bodyfat

 I was always suspicious, about the long term impact, from the artificially maintained warm  temperature. This tends to be true, to its potential. 

Though, milder in its effect - the generational transformation (Genetic Changes) has to be studied further.

People in Colder Climate, with continued usage of modern sophistic gadgets in maintaining warm temperature, are likely to suffer from disability to absorb brown fat in the body. 

Any comfort/ luxury keeping the body from the nature may cause some impairment in the long run. 

Moral - Try to be close to the nature/ environs, as much as possible; without the company of modern gadgets. Life will be simple, easy and safe to an extent.

Read on the report...

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Scientists have some chilling news for those using heaters at home - keeping our homes cosy actually prevents us from burning up calories to warm up our bodies.

Modern centrally-heated homes with efficient double glazing are helping to send obesity rates soaring, says a University College London study.

It is an increasing problem across the developed world where average indoor temperatures are constantly rising, the journal Obesity Reviews reports.

Fiona Johnson, who led the study at Oxford, said: "Increased time spent indoors, widespread access to central heating and air conditioning, all contribute to restricting the range of temperatures we experience in daily life."

And its impact on weight is made worse by the extra time we now spend indoors, whether working from home or shopping online, according to the Daily Mail.

Even when we do venture out, it is often via heated cars or other transport to offices and workplaces where the temperature is carefully controlled by air conditioning units. T

he research said there was a direct link between "reduced exposure to seasonal cold and increases in obesity in the UK and US."

If the body is already warm, it does not need to convert a ‘brown' fat known as adipose ­tissue into energy to generate heat, the study said. 

Brown fat was previously thought to be present only in infants, playing a vital role in keeping them warm, but recent research found it in adults as well.

This latest study suggested that prolonged exposure to comfortable warm temperatures may permanently reduce the body's ability to burn this brown fat.

Magnets can alter your judgement of Morality and Ethics

Be it a case of curiousity or fiction  or utility or mere fact.

Scientists, found that our sense of ethics/ morality and decisions based on that, can be altered drastically, with the usage of Magnets. 

Points to Ponder:

If that is true, we, the billions of people; depending on the electro magnetic waves; for our affairs, sustenance (in artificial sense) are affected to an extent??

In that case, the Degeneration of morality in the Society at large; is a result of this proliferation of electromagnetic waves, permeating all our air and surroundings.

Queer and mysterious phenomenon, indeed.

Read on the report

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Scientists have found a way to switch off your sense of right and wrong — by using magnets.

When special kinds of magnets are held up to a person's head they can skew the neural centre responsible for morality, tests showed.

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) first asked a group of volunteers to rate actions on a scale from one (morally forbidden) to seven (permissible), the journal Proceedings of the US National Science Academy reports.

Each subject was then asked similar questions while transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was being applied to their brain's right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ).

The researchers, led by Liane Young from MIT, found that participants were less likely to believe something that harms another is wrong, according to the Daily Mail.

It means that one day it may be possible to control people's sense of morality and convince them to things they otherwise wouldn't.

Researchers found that they could not switch off your morality sensors altogether - but they could drastically alter what you believe to be permissible.

Super resolution microscopy - OMX 3D SIM

Super resolution microscopy, is a powerful new 3D tool that captures cellular processes unfolding at nanometre scales; helps scientists to discover the way, Malaria Parasites, attack Red Blood Cells.

Imaging technology is constantly developing from Simple lens, XRay, to Sophisticated Telescopes.

• Satellite Images to Nanometre Scales in the molecules.
• Body Scans at Airports
• Luggage Scans
• CT Scans
• MRI Scans
• Endoscopy/ Ureteroscopy and similar techniques.
• Biometrics Scan
• Iris Scan
• Narco Analysis (Truth Test with Serum)
• Brain Alalysis
• Telescopes (Hubble etc.)
• (Ultra Sound/ Sonar Signals transmitted thru High Frequency Soungs are its siblings)

Deficiencies of Naked eye are made up with Optical Technology advancements and Brain Functionality Imitating Technology. Great to know the achievements and its utilities to humanity in the removal of afflictions.

But what about the insight, foresight, hindsight and farsightedness?  Though not related with the optical nerve and opthalmological aspect, sight of the mind is the concern here.

• Lack of insight handicaps several of our functions perennially and perpetually.  And materialistic.

•  Lack of Empathy, resulting from obliviousness to other's (at least rightful) concerns and expressions.
• Lack of Hindsight causes the repetitive foolish mistakes.
• Lack of Farsightedness, results in greedy destruction of values, resources.

(Eyes, pump in information and mind has to analyse it properly and act in accordance. Let us hope our attempts at it)

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Scientists claim to have for the first time caught malaria parasites in the act of invading red blood cells, a major breakthrough which could pave the way for developing more effective treatments for the disease. 

An international team, led by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, has used new image and cell technologies to obtain the images of how malaria parasites attack red blood cells, the 'Cell Host & Microbe' journal reported 

Lead scientist Dr Jake Baum said the real breakthrough for the team had been the ability to capture high-resolution images of the parasite at each and every stage of invasion, and to do so reliably and repeatedly.

It is the first time we've been able to actually visualise this process in all its molecular glory, combining new advances developed at the institute for isolating viable parasites with innovative imaging technologies. 

"Super resolution microscopy has opened up a new realm of understanding into how malaria parasites actually invade the human red blood cell.

"Whilst we have observed this miniature parasite drive its way into the cell before, the beauty of the new imaging technology is that it provides a quantum leap in the amount of detail we can see, revealing key molecular and cellular events required for each stage of the invasion process," Baum said.

The imaging technology, called OMX 3D SIM super resolution microscopy, is a powerful new 3D tool that captures cellular processes unfolding at nanometre scales.

"This is just the beginning of an exciting new era of discoveries enabled by this technology that will lead to a better understanding of how microbes such as malaria, bacteria and viruses cause infectious disease," team member Professor Cynthia Whitchurch said.

Suddent Spurt of Disease (cancer etc.)

पूर्वजन्मकृतं पापां व्याधिरूपेण पीडितम्।। (1)

अत्युत्कटैः पुण्यपापै रिहैव फल मश्नुते।।  (2)

pūrvajanmakr̥taṁ pāpāṁ vyādhirūpēṇa pīḍitam.. (1)
atyutkaṭaiḥ puṇyapāpai rihaiva phala maśnutē..(2)
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There are two questions, which baffle humanity since time immemorial.

1) Why deseases (and Afflications) occur? Why should there occur in the life a person, with or without the family (gene) history.

2) Why should the desease become active, at a particular juncture, without any apparent reason.

Probability theory points out wearing out of the immunity mechanism to counter the desease, for the spurt; if not any external factors of viral attack etc.

But again, why should it wear out and lose its battle against desease at this particular juncture? Answers are hard to be found. Especially in life threatening ailments such as AIDS, Cancer etc. One fine (or bad) morning/ hourthe deseased person becomed deceased. (It is fine hour, because the soul decides to forsake this old obsolete body in search of greener pastures.)

But, why now; after all these hours/ weeks/ years. (A person with diagnosis of 99% heart's artery blockade survives years and many attacks, where as one single stroke ends life in another). 

Sudden spurt of pain, aggravates the situation further. Though researches fail to give adequate and satisfactory answer fully, the Sastra theory of Karma, explains this.

The Praarabha Karma shall be experienced, thru desease and affliction. 

For an example: If you cause harm to a disabled/ less abled person; rightly or wrongly with an intention of cuasing hurt; you are bound to enjoy the fruit. Even though the person, may not retaliate physically, you will have it in some other form such as a fall, desease, injury, accident etc. If the harm is too grave and high, the ill effect will be sooner. 

 (My own personal experience amply proved this.)

But, scientific establishment still gropes for an answer for this sudden spurt. Now, British Scientists, came out with a finding, which says that Cell Explosion causes sudden bouts of cancer. (But our million dollar question remains - why the explosion should happen at all? and Why now?)

Read on....

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British scientists have decoded the mystery of why 'instant cancers' seemingly appear out of nowhere.

The finding from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK contradicts the long-held theory that thousands of mutations over a lifetime cause cancer.

It also helps explain why some people are diagnosed with cancer only months after x-rays or other tests fail to detect traces of the disease, the journal Cell reports.

The discovery was based on the genetic flaws in 750 tumours. In most cases, the damage to chromosomes upheld the conventional picture of cancer creeping up over the years, according to the Daily Mail.

But at least one tumour in 40 didn't fit the pattern. Instead, the damage appeared to have been done almost overnight.

Researcher Peter Campbell said: "The results astounded us. It seems that in a single cell, in a single event, one or more of the chromosomes explode - literally into hundreds of fragments."

If the cell then botches the repair, stitching the fragments back together in a 'higgledy piggledy' fashion, the damage to its genome, or cache of DNA, leaves it ripe for the rapid development of cancer.

Campbell said: "They attempt to reconstruct the unreconstructable and they wind up with a disastrous genome that shortens the road to cancer."

The phenomenon is particularly common in bone cancers, where the distinct pattern of damage is seen in up to one in four cases. But it is thought to be to blame for more than one in 40 of all cases of the disease.

Trasparent Cement

Italian architects have made transparent cement that lets light flood into a room.

The material, called i.light, has dozens of tiny holes in it, which lets light pass through it without compromising the structural integrity.

Up close, the 2-3 mm gaps make a startling pattern and from certain angles or at a distance appear exactly the same as normal concrete.

But on a sunny day, the effect inside a building made from the new cement is akin to a little more than a light mesh on the wall filtering the light coming in, the Daily Mail reported.

The cement has been formed by bonding special resins in a new mix created by Italian architects Italcementi.

So far, it has been used only for one building, the Italian pavilion at last year's Expo in Shanghai, but it has already been suggested it could save electricity that would otherwise be required for daytime lighting.

Italcementi used i.light for around 40 percent of the 18-metre high Expo pavilion, or 3,774 transparent panels and semi-transparent panels made from 189 tonnes of the product.

Italcementi Group innovation director Enrico Borgarello said: "The transparent cement made from plastic resins is much cheaper than the one made from optical fibres."

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In India, Zuari is the brand (acquired from Birlas), owned and operated by the Italian Company. Let us hope for better times for the world.

Female or Male Baby? What do you want?

Conception of  a Male or Female Baby -

 

 

This issue has so far eluded science. There are few references to this subjects in the Vedic scriptures. There is a symbolic ritual, to be performed in the 2nd/ 3rd month of pregnancy - called Pumsuvanam. Even there, the concept has not been fully proved/ explained.

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Now Dutch scientists, claim that Food with more Calcium and Magnesium (Green Vegetables, Fruits etc.) could lead to female foetus.

 

(Calcium Foods - http://tinyurl.com/2vvzymm and 

Magnesium Foods http://tinyurl.com/2v2b8zn)

It is further suggested that Potassium and Sodium laden food (Banana, Potato etc.) could lead to Male Foetus formation.

 

Potassium Foods - http://tinyurl.com/4cxsjy

Sodium Food - http://tinyurl.com/yzo6hrm

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Well, then go on a fruit and vegetable diet and have a girl, suggest Dutch scientists.

They found that women could increase their chances of giving birth to a girl by consuming food with high levels of calcium and magnesium, such as green vegetables, in the weeks before conception.

Of a group of women who followed a diet drawn up by the researchers, 80 per cent went on to have daughters.

By contrast, foods rich in potassium and sodium – such as bananas and potatoes – would be likely to help women who want to have sons, although this has yet to be tested.

The researchers are convinced that following the right diet can help couples increase their chances of choosing the sex of their child, although they don't know the exact role played by other factors such as the timing of conception.

They spent five years working with 172 couples, all of whom wanted to add girls to their families – between them they already had 358 sons and just two daughters.

Each began a diet rich in fruit, vegetables and rice in the nine weeks before they planned to attempt to conceive to increase the levels of calcium and magnesium in their bloodstream.

In addition, they were given daily tablets of the key minerals, had regular blood monitoring and had to learn asaccurately as possible their moment of peak fertility each month.

At the end of the trial, out of 32 couples who completed the programme, 26 mothers gave birth to girls and only six had boys.

"People now know that if they do everything we have suggested, their chances of having a girl will improve dramatically," the Daily Mail quoted Annet Noorlander, a biologist with firm Gender Consult, as saying.

"This method is experimental, but we have proved it works."

Her company carried out the research with teams from Delft and Maastricht universities.

The study has been reported in the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online.

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Aspiring parents, may try these hints, for a change???

Happy Trials.

Sleep - Some facts

Adequate Sleep is the most Important Ingredient of a Healthy Life Style

 Because, the mind gets charged fully in the Jeevaatma Shakti.

 

Swam Apeeto Bhavati = Swapiti. (Sleeping)

This is one definition of Upanishad about sleep. As you sleep you mind experiences the grea SELF and merges into that consciousness, without the feel of separate entity. Thus, it becomes energised and gets the strength to function for some time. This is quite similar to a Mobile Phone Charge in current day context.

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 Some inputs from Neuroligical point of view, giving impetus to the concept of Upanishad.

Why do we sleep and why is sleep so important for us? 

Through ages, the curiosity and the mystery associated with it still baffle many.

Neurologist Pankaj Gupta said that sleep is the biggest casualty of the urban way of living. 

Everyday as an urbanite rushes for work, shopping, socialising not to mention the necessary evils of TV-computer-mobile, he/she finds himself/herself cutting or pruning the sleep time as never before. 

"Without realising the harm we are doing to our mental and physical health or to the error of judgment, we are more prone to the aberrant behaviour its link with chronic sleep deprivation," he said. The urban population looks upon sleep as a passive act when irresistible mantras like `shop till you drop' and `work hard and party even harder' are the new buzz word.

Little does the unsuspecting denizen realise that an epidemic of insomnia and host of medical conditions are afflicting the adult population. Sleep scavenges the dust accumulated during day time in our brains as neurons work hard during sleep to repair the day time wear and tear, he added. Memory codes are formed during sleep, which lays the foundation for long-term memory.

Sleep prepares our brains for working normally the next day or act like an anti-virus software which mops the virus for its proper functioning, he said.

Inadequate sleep could make us irritable, irrational and clumsy. Our concentration, judgment, memory and hand-eye coordination gets affected.

Chronic sleep deprivation causes us to have `micro sleeps' during daytime. These are small periods during the day when our mind gets shut off though our eyes maybe open and we may look awake. Micro sleeps are the cause of twenty per cent road accidents. Prolonged deprivation of sleep decreases our immunity and makes us prone to infection and increases our weight.

Talking about day-time sleepiness, Gupta said that this may be a symptom of some serious ailment. If somebody talks of increased sleepiness, we think that the person is less motivated and sloppy rather than thinking it to be a symptom of a disease.

Millions of people world over may have to work during night like those of industry workers, peoples working in transport industry, policing, doctors etc and these people suffer from rhythm sleep disorders. Since such people feel groggy during their work time and awake during their sleep time, this sleep disturbance nearly doubles the risk of a fatal work accident. Higher rates of cancer, cardiac diseases, gastro-intestinal and reproductive disorders are seen in night shift workers.

We are born to sleep for a pre-decided number of hours. If we sleep less than that, then the deficit will give us micro sleeps or make us sleep more during Sundays or other holidays, Gupta added.

5 Groups of Draavidas

Draavida/ Gouda

 Traditionally People were groups as Pancha Draavida and Pancha Gowda combinations.

These comprised Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi communities.

These are said to be the residents south of Vindhya Parvata.

North of Vindhya are said to be Pancha Goudas. (Five Sects - Bengali,/ Assami Orissa, Gujarati, Hindi and Kashmiri).

(For sectarian convenience, marriages were between these sects, were allowed at the most by elders of the earlier era.)

Now, we have the scientific evidence to back this up, stating that Maharashtrian communities are closely genetically linked with South Indians. Thus, we can conclude that the Pancha Draavida tradition is based on the evidence.

 Read the assertions of CCMB, a premier institution of Government, based in Hyderabad.

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Decoding the genetic mysteries of Maharashtrians, the city-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology has found that the population of Maharashtra has a closer affinity with South Indians than Central Indians.

The CCMB analysis suggested that people from Maharashtra state are largely derived from Palaeolithic ancient settlers. However, a more recent (about 10,000 years older) detectable paternal gene flows from west Asia and is reflected in the residents of Maharashtra. 

The CCMB findings reveal movement of people to Maharashtra through the western coast, rather than the mainland, where Western Ghats-Vindhya mountains and Narmada-Tapti rivers might have acted as a natural barrier.

“Comparing the Maharashtrians with other South Asian people reveals that they have a closer affinity with South Indians than with Central Indian populations,” said scientist Dr K. Thangaraj.

Maharashtra’s geographical location necessitates the study of the dispersal of the modern population in South Asia. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the cultural, linguistic and geographical affinity of those living in Maharashtra with other South Asian populations.

The genetic origin of populations living in this state is inadequately understood and had earlier been described at a low molecular resolution level. 

Besides the state’s strategic geographical position in the Indian subcontinent, the origin and migration of those living in various regions in Maharashtra and their affinity with other contemporary South Asian populations has not been explored, so far, at the high resolution level.

CCMB believes that Maharashtra works as a bridge with central, northern and southern India and could provide some clues about the inhabiting of the Indian subcontinent, especially with reference to coastal route migration.

The CCMB team analysed the control-regions and partial coding-region sequence variations of mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA which denotes maternal lineage)and 20 Y-SNP and 17 Y-STR markers of Y chromosome (male lineage) in two tribal populations (Mahadeo-Koli and Thakur) which live along the western coastal region of India and compared the results with the available data on contemporary populations.