Friday, January 22, 2016

7-Year-Old ‘Bionic’ Girl Is Immune to Pain, Hunger and Fatigue


He..llo! Cracker of a day, isn't it? It's back to Jolly Old England again today to meet a rather special girl.  As soon as you fill that mug you're holding with some black nectar and slide a virtual muffin onto your plate, I'll introduce you...

Meet Olivia Farnsworth, a British girl who doesn’t feel any pain and never feels the need to eat or sleep. At age seven, she’s able to go for days without sleeping and eating, and comes away from terrible injuries with nonchalance. In fact, she was recently run over and dragged down the street by a car, but she casually walked away from the accident without shedding a tear! 

Olivia has doctors baffled. They know she suffers from a condition caused by something called chromosome 6 deletion, but this is the first time they’ve witnessed anyone displaying three rare symptoms at once. According to her mother Niki Trepak, the little girl has no sense of danger because she literally cannot feel pain, and neither does she feel the need to sleep or eat. Her doctors have nicknamed her ‘bionic girl’, while her mother says she’s “made of steel.” 

“She got run over and dragged down the street by a car and she didn’t complain,” Niki said, shortly after the accident. “It was horrendous, I don’t think it’s something I will ever get over. I was screaming and all my other children were screaming as she ran out. But Olivia was just like, ‘What’s going on?’ She just got up and started walking back to me.”

Although she’s a happy child most of the time, Niki says that Olivia can suffer from violent outbursts from time to time. “She’s head-butted me, punched and kicked me and can have outbursts of swearing which can be embarrassing if we’re out in public,” the mother-of-five said. “It happened in a park the other week and people were wondering what’s going on. They don’t know what’s wrong. Everybody laughs because she’s so wild and extreme. She says let’s jump off here and all the other children are like, ‘That’s way too high!’” 

“This is why I want to raise awareness on chromosome 6 problems. To look at Olivia you don’t know anything’s wrong with her.” There are apparently 15,000 registered cases of chromosome disorder worldwide, but only 100 of them have the ‘6p’ deletion that Olivia has. 

“There may not be anybody out there the same as Olivia,” said Dr. Beverly Searle, former research biologist and chief executive of chromosome disorder support group Unique. “You can’t treat chromosome disorders but what we can do is alleviate the symptoms. We try to find matches and provide information for families, which can be great for friendship and local support.”

Niki also added that Olivia should have been severely injured by the impact as she had a tire mark over her chest, but she got away with only losing skin on her toe and hip. Her doctors think that she was able to escape injury because she didn’t tense up like other people normally would under such circumstances. And this isn’t the first time Olivia has acted strangely calm after getting hurt. “She also once fell badly and ripped her lip off and didn’t say anything,” Niki recalled. “She had to have major plastic surgery to correct it.” 

Getting Olivia to eat right is also a challenge, because she doesn’t get hungry. “She became a really fussy eater and would have nothing but milk shakes,” Niki said. “At the moment, it’s chicken noodles. She lived on butter sandwiches for about a year. She doesn’t feel hunger so I can’t threaten her like other children by saying if you don’t eat that you’ll not get this as she isn’t bothered.”  

Her third ‘superpower’ is that she doesn’t feel tired. “She once went three consecutive days and nights with no sleep,” said Niki. “As a single mum of five it’s really hard. She’s never tired. We have to give her medication to get her to sleep.”

Niki insists that her daughter isn’t a freak – she says that despite her superhuman toughness, Olivia is the most loving among her five children. “She’ll be the first to share sweets with you. She’s got the best personality. She’s just crazy, but in a good way.”

As far as I know, she hasn't yet sighed with Disney or Marvel Comics as a new super hero but I expect that will come. All in good time,  what?

See ya, eh!

Bob 

Sources: Huddersfield Examiner, Daily Express

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Man v Fat – A Football League For Overweight Men Looking to Shed Some Pounds

Allo! Allo! How are you then? I am tickled pink that you could take time from your busy schedule to drop in...from cyberspace. Pour yourself a nice beaker of coffee, have a cream slice or an English muffin and bring them over to the VIP table. We're going to watch a football match together...sort of.

There’s a special football league in England dedicated to helping men keep up their weight-loss resolutions each year. Aptly named ‘Man v Fat’, the league caters exclusively to overweight men with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. Teams win points for matches won, as well as pounds lost during the 14-week competition.

Based in Solihull, in the West Midlands, the league was started two years ago by 37-year-old Andrew Shanahan. Andrew said he came up with the idea because he was sick of traditional weight-loss classes filled with women. “There was no help for me, and all the classes seemed tailored to women’s needs. I remember going to a Weight Watchers meeting and I was the only guy there. It was embarrassing and I was so out of my depth. The leader was talking about when you’re on your period you can go up or down in weight and I just thought, that’s not my issue. That’s really not what’s affecting me.”

“I started Man v Fat because I was morbidly obese and experienced first-hand the difficulties men face during weight loss,” he said. “I was 17 stone in 2013 and now I’m just over 12 stone, but I was shocked at how little support blokes get for weight loss.”

So Man v Fat, a free program, was started with funds collected through a crowdfunding campaign in January 2014, supported by the local council, major weight loss organizations, and celebrities like Jamie Oliver. The league now has 40,000 members, with teams like XL Legends, Beer Bellies United, Phoenix XXXL, and Inter Pies. 

“We’re working with ordinary guys who are BMI 30 plus, and we’re helping them to lose weight in sensible, normal ways through supporting them with what they’re eating and organising activities that they’re interested in doing,” Andrew said. “67 percent of men are overweight and they’re ashamed they’ve let themselves go, so give up football,” he said. “A lot of men want to get back into sport but it’s intimidating because clubs only tend to have one fat bloke on their team.”

Seats filled up rather quickly on Monday night for the first matches of Man v Fat Leisure League, which saw around 90 overweight men take to the field to score some goals and lose some pounds for their teams. It was a promising start to a very interesting weight-losing program.

According to Stephen Munday, head of Public Health at Solihull Council, the Man v Fat is a great initiative because it’s hard for men to find weight-loss support groups that actually interest them. “There is a national concern for obesity but it mostly centers around women and children,” he said. “This initiative is really exciting and something the council are fully behind.”

 During the halftime break do the players have Gatorade or pork pie, chips and a pint?

See ya, eh!

Bob

Source: The Star

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

What? Cooking in my dishwasher?

Well now I've heard everything! Hey there...great to see you. Help yourself to a mug of coffee, nudge a virtual doughnut or muffin onto your plate and bring them over here to the VIP table while I enlighten you on a style of cooking that has actually been around for about 50 years...in your dishwasher! Say what?

Believe it or not, you can actually cook meals in a dishwasher. It sounds kinda gross, but it’s a surprisingly popular cooking technique and actually produces decent results!

Dishwasher cooking has apparently been around since the 1970s, but the trend ‘caught steam’ in 2013, after Italian food writer Lisa Casali, a self-proclaimed dishwasher-cooking expert published a book on the subject. Cucinare in lavastoviglie (Cooking in the Dishwasher) was a big hit, and Casali also posted a series of videos online demonstrating how the technique works.  “It’s an easy technique within everyone’s reach and you can gain great advantages from it,” she says in one of her instructional videos. “All you need is a dishwasher and the will to experiment.”

Other food experts, like The Telegraph’s Xanthe Clay, are vouching for the bizarre technique as well. She says the best food to cook in the dishwasher is fish, because it steams rather well in the heat of the water. Salmon, for instance, requires a relatively low temperature to cook when compared to raw meat like beef or lamb. So it might be difficult to get lasagna right in a dishwasher, but steamed veggies and fish will turn out great.

As more and more people turn to cooking their meals in the dishwasher, an increasing number of recipes are being posted online. Oprah.com recently offered recipes for an entire lunch menu of noodles, asparagus, and salmon, while some of Casali’s recipes include couscous, roast veal in a mackerel sauce, sea bass fillet, and apple pie.

If you’re thinking of giving Casali’s dishwasher cooking a go, you should know that her book is only available in Italian, but you’re still bound to find plenty of info and instructional videos and even a Wikihow tutorial online. As the Italian cook says, all you need is the will to experiment.

When you think about it, why not take advantage of the heat generated by your dishwasher. Make it do double duty. What's next, I wonder? Tossing salads in the dryer? Fried eggs on the top of the furnace? Some folks already do it on their car during summer. 

See ya, eh!

Bob



Tuesday, January 19, 2016

The Five Minute Fix for a Bad Day



Hi there! How's your day going so far? Now that you're here it's going to get better. A nice mug of arabica coffee; a virtual treat to munch on and some talk about bad days. 

We all have bad days. Your alarm doesn’t go off. Your breakfast bar becomes smooshed after you sit on it in the car. You get stuck in deadlock traffic. And, to top it all off, you are callously berated for being late to work. Things happen—sometimes we have little control over our circumstances. But what do you do in these tough times? Do you just grumble and lean into the negativity that your life is pushing? Or do you launch a positivity counterattack?

Don’t just settle into a bad day. You attract whatever mood you are putting out. If you’re angry and negative, only more negativity will find you, while if you smile in spite of the difficulties, positive things will begin to take shape. The truth is, you can turn any bad mood around in relatively little time if you set your mind to it. 

What is the secret, you ask? The secret is immersing yourself in something you love. That’s right. All it takes is 5 minutes—5 minutes of complete and utter love. Find something that always make you smile, whether it’s your favorite song, a steaming cup of hot cocoa, a brisk jog or your favorite poem. Whatever it is, completely immerse yourself in that for 5 minutes. Do not wallow over your bad day—sink yourself into this positive activity. Blast your favorite song on your headphones or in your car and sing along and dance. Allow happiness to flood you and keep worries at bay for 5 minutes. Most of the time, this small break from the negative cycle is enough to turn your day and your mood around.

Can’t access your go-to favorite things? There is another simple action that can turn a bad mood swiftly around. It lies in the magic of your smile. By forcing yourself to smirk or smile for a few minutes, your emotions will start to follow suit.


“Charles Darwin first posed the idea that emotional responses influence our feelings in 1872. ‘The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it,’ he wrote.” (Scientific American)

By exhibiting happiness on the outside, it can cause you to feel the actual emotion within. Studies have shown that those who have had botox injections, which make frowning difficult, experience more happiness than those studies who did not receive injections and could frown freely. So, if you’re having a rough time, keep a grin on your face and everything will feel a heck of a lot more manageable.

Fitting something you absolutely love into your schedule is a quick remedy to invigorate any bad day. It’s very similar to meditation, in fact. Try to make it a regular practice—much like (and perhaps in replacement of) your 3 o’clock caffeine or sugar fix. Whether you’re smiling, dancing, sketching or indulging in a small mocha, you will be amazed at how powerful 5 minutes of pure positivity and love can be.

Besides, getting yourself stressed out over things is not good for your heart. The first step in my mind is to recognize what is happening. Once you do that, you can take the corrective happy measures mentioned above.

Yeah! Happy! Happy! Happy!

See ya, eh!



Monday, January 18, 2016

Meet Hyperion, the World’s Tallest Tree

Hi ya! How's it going? Got a few minutes for a mug of coffee, a virtual treat or two and some palaver?  Of course you do. Well get ready to climb to new heights...

Up until August 2006, the tallest known tree in the world was a 369-foot California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) nicknamed ‘Stratosphere Giant’, located somewhere in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California. To give you some idea about its massive size, that’s twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, minus the foundation.

But the Giant lost its status when two naturalists, Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor, stumbled upon group of trees in California’s Redwood National Park that were taller than any they’d ever seen before. They made preliminary measurements using professional laser equipment based on goniometry, and found not one, not two, but three trees that were taller than the Stratosphere Giant.

The tallest of the lot, named Hyperion, was found to be a good 10ft taller than the Giant, standing at a whopping a 379 ft. When Atkins and Taylor announced their discovery, a team of scientists led by Humboldt State University ecologist Steve Sillett arrived at the park to measure it again in September 2006. They were aiming for more accuracy, so they actually used a tape this time. They actually climbed to its very top and dropped the tape to the ground. The epic stunt was filmed for National Geographic.  

Up until August 2006, the tallest known tree in the world was a 369-foot California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) nicknamed ‘Stratosphere Giant’, located somewhere in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California. To give you some idea about its massive size, that’s twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, minus the foundation.

But the Giant lost its status when two naturalists, Chris Atkins and Michael Taylor, stumbled upon group of trees in California’s Redwood National Park that were taller than any they’d ever seen before. They made preliminary measurements using professional laser equipment based on goniometry, and found not one, not two, but three trees that were taller than the Stratosphere Giant.

The tallest of the lot, named Hyperion, was found to be a good 10ft taller than the Giant, standing at a whopping a 379 ft. When Atkins and Taylor announced their discovery, a team of scientists led by Humboldt State University ecologist Steve Sillett arrived at the park to measure it again in September 2006. They were aiming for more accuracy, so they actually used a tape this time. They actually climbed to its very top and dropped the tape to the ground. The epic stunt was filmed for National Geographic.  

Scared of heights? I'm not but I don't think I'll attempt this one. In fact, It has probably been at least 50 + years since I have done any tree climbing and I plan to keep it that way...though I don't mind turning over a new leaf every once in a while.

See ya, eh!

Bob

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Easy Change to Tableware Can Help You Eat 30% Less



Well hi there! Great to see you as always. WASSUP?  Y’know…one good thing about dropping in to my virtual cafĂ© is that there are no calories. Help yourself to a steaming mug of coffee and load as many virtual muffins and doughnuts as you want onto your plate. Not a calorie in a carload…unlike real life, eh! 

If you are watching your weight then here is a trick that helps. Using a plate that’s 30% smaller really does reduce food consumption by 30%, new research finds.

It’s been a controversial topic for psychologists, with over fifty different studies published on the topic over the years. Some studies have found smaller plates help people eat less, others not.

Now, though, a new survey of all the research finds that the trick works, as long as people:
  • serve themselves,
  • and are unaware they are being monitored.
Over the years scientists have tested all kinds of foods, including snack foods, rice, fruit, cereals and popcorn.

The effect of using smaller plates — as long as people serve themselves and aren’t aware they are being monitored — is usually the same.

They eat less.

Reducing the diameter of a plate by 30% is enough to reduce consumption by 30%.

Dr Natalina Zlatevska, one of the study’s authors, said:
 
“Just changing to smaller plates at home can help reduce how much you serve yourself and how much you eat.”

If you’re watching your weight, then, it could be time to get some new, smaller, plates.

Hmmm…definitely something to think about. Me? I’ve started my slimdown process by giving up wheat…i.e., bread mostly. It does make a difference. I’m down 4-5 pounds already.

See ya, eh!

Bob