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DRIFTWOOD ACUPUNCTURE & WELLNESS
A BLOG ABOUT TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE, HEALTH AND WELL BEING... Keeping you up to date with the latest news and research.
Wrinkles Can Predict Bone Density
A menopausal woman's face can provide hints about her bones, new study says
by: Candy Sagon | from: AARP Bulletin | June 7, 2011
As if those brow furrows and laugh lines weren't distressing enough for a woman, now a new study says facial wrinkles may be sending a message about her bone density.
A menopausal woman's facial wrinkles, particularly between the brow, could indicate low bone density. — Photo by Image Source/Aurora
Yale scientists have found that the more wrinkles a woman has in her early menopause years, the lower her bone density.
This is important because women over 50 are at the greatest risk for bone fractures from osteoporosis, the thinning of bone tissue and loss of bone density over time.
"Women need to be aware that our skin is giving us a glimpse of what's happening inside to our skeleton," Lubna Pal, M.D., a reproductive endocrinologist at Yale's School of Medicine, told the Bulletin.
She says the study found that those furrows between the brows, which are often the first target of Botox treatments, were the strongest link between bone density and wrinkles.
"Different areas of the face wrinkle at different rates and after adjusting for all the parameters, the strongest impact was with the forehead wrinkles between the brows," she says.
Although the connection between skin and bone might not be obvious, Pal explained that they share common building blocks — a group of proteins called collagens.
As women age, the changes in collagen that visibly cause the skin to sag and wrinkle are also invisibly affecting bone quality and quantity.
The study demonstrates only an association — not an exact cause — between decreased bone density and early skin wrinkling, Pal emphasized, but it still could give doctors a low-cost way of identifying postmenopausal women who may be at risk for bone fracture.
The Yale researchers studied 114 women in their late 40s and 50s who were within three years of menopause and not on hormone or bone density drug therapy, she says.
The scientists also excluded women who had undergone any cosmetic skin procedures or who may have damaged their skin by tanning beds or extensive exposure to the sun.
The scientists measured the number and depth of the women's forehead, face and neck wrinkles, as well as the skin's firmness or rigidity. They then tested their bone density by x-ray and ultrasound.
The findings, which were presented Monday in Boston at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, showed that women with the worst wrinkles had the lowest bone density.
Conversely, those women with firm skin and the fewest wrinkles had greater bone density.
The relationship was evident at all skeletal sites tested, including hip, lumbar, spine and heel, and was independent of age, body composition or other factors known to affect bone density.
The study is part of a larger, multicenter investigation into menopausal hormone therapy.
Pal says a longer, four-year study is needed to look at the relationship between wrinkles and the risk of bone fracture.
"We want to know if intensity of skin wrinkles can allow identification of women who are more likely to fracture a bone," she says, especially fractures of the neck, femur or hip — injuries often fatal to older people.
Posted by Anita Lang-Bakar L.Ac. at 10:13 AM No comments:
Heart Health: The Best Alternative Therapies
3 Ways to Make Yourself Heart-Attack Proof
Unleash the power of alternative medicine to help strengthen--and heal--your heart
By Catherine Winters
Could tiny needles, positive thinking, and slow-motion movement really be the ticket to a healthier heart?
Experts have long been equivocal, but an exciting--and growing--slew of new studies shows that alternative medicine can have a powerful impact on reducing heart disease risk.
Central to these strategies is stress reduction, but it doesn't stop there.
Research reveals that alternative medicine can augment the benefits of healthy behaviors--such as eating well, watching your weight, and exercising--to deliver results even faster.
They may even be what you need to keep you off medication or reduce your dose. "There is much more to the prevention and treatment of heart disease than pills and procedures," says preventive cardiologist Stephen Devries, MD, coeditor of Integrative Cardiology. Here, three therapies that can have big heart payoffs.
The Acupuncture Answer
Meet the newest weapon in the fight against high blood pressure.
Research suggests that weekly acupuncture sessions can slash systolic blood pressure by up to 20 points, producing results on par with prescription medications such as ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers.
By stimulating a few key acupoints near the elbows and knees, acupuncture releases neurotransmitters that travel to areas of the brain that regulate the cardiovascular system, explains John Longhurst, MD, PhD, a cardiologist and director of the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, Irvine.
Electroacupuncture, which uses battery-driven needles, is especially effective, says Dr. Longhurst, because it lets the acupuncturist standardize the amount of stimulation and adjust the frequency. Acupuncture can't permanently lower blood pressure, though. "Once you have hypertension, you have it for life," says Dr. Longhurst.
So just as you would with medication, you need to continue getting weekly acupuncture treatments to see results--but with very few side effects or risks.
The Positivity Payoff
Stopping stress in its tracks sounds good, but can people really learn to change the way they react to upsetting situations?
If so, can this response lower blood pressure? Yes and yes, according to a study by the Institute of HeartMath, a nonprofit research and education organization.
The researchers showed that practicing "positive-emotion refocusing"--a technique that teaches you to interrupt your typical stress response by redirecting your attention--can significantly lower blood pressure in hypertensive patients after just 3 months of daily practice.
The results were promising: All participants saw their blood pressure drop, 12% were able to reduce their dose of blood-pressure-lowering medication, and one went off the pills altogether.
Stress triggers a cascade of hard-on-your-heart hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline--and positive refocusing sparks a counterflood of energizing feel-good hormones, short-circuiting the stress response.
Positive refocusing is easy to learn. When you feel anxiety coming on, identify what you're stressed-out about, then hold the thought in your mind like a freeze-frame of a movie.
As you do this, breathe deeply for several minutes and focus your attention on your heartbeat.
Now identify a positive feeling, such as appreciation for a pet or a loved one. "This calms your emotions and shifts your attention away from negative thoughts," says Deborah Rozman, PhD, a behavioral psychologist.
Though it can be tough to let go of negative thoughts when you're fuming, regularly practicing this positive refocusing technique can result in fewer stressed-out moments overall. Even if you can't find the recommended 10 minutes a day for positive thinking, a couple of minutes here or there helps.
Silent Signals You're Stressed
TLC Through Tai Chi
Tai chi (a Chinese martial art) combined with qigong (called the Chinese yoga) is more than just a gentle way to work out.
Practicing these ancient disciplines can reduce stress and have a powerful effect on metabolic syndrome--a cluster of five conditions that ups your risk of heart disease--reducing systolic and diastolic blood pressure and trimming waist size by at least an inch, according to a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
One reason? These slow-mo sports can burn as many calories as moderate-intensity activities, such as walking--but the mind-calming benefits of tai chi and qigong increase its heart-healthy cred.
Tai chi is sometimes described as "meditation in motion," and research shows that because people find the meditative component relaxing and enjoyable, they tend to stick with it--which is important for any heart disease-prevention strategy. "Sustainability is very important if you want to see ongoing effects of the practice," says Xin Liu, PhD, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland's School of Medicine in Australia.
Published January 2012, Prevention | Updated January 2012
http://www.prevention.com/health/health-concerns/heart-health-best-alternative-therapies
Posted by Anita Lang-Bakar L.Ac. at 8:15 AM No comments:
Tai Chi Eases Depression in Elderly
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Robert Spencer for The New York Times A tai chi group practicing in Pawtucket, R.I.
The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi appears to relieve symptoms of depression in older people, a new study shows.
The findings, published this month in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, are the latest to suggest that the slow movement, breathing and meditation of tai chi results in meaningful benefits to patients with chronic health problems.
Other recent studies have shown that practicing tai chi may provide benefits for patients with arthritis and fibromyalgia. But the newest research is important because depression is notoriously difficult to treat in older people, many of whom are already coping with other health problems and are less likely to respond to drug treatment.
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, studied 112 older adults in whom major depression had been diagnosed, including many who had been struggling with the illness for years. Their average age was about 70. Everyone was first treated with Lexapro, and 73 exhibited a partial improvement but still scored high on depression scales. The rest of the patients dropped out of the study, including just one patient who had a full remission after drug treatment.
The remaining depressed patients were randomly assigned to either a 10-week course of tai chi or a health education class, which included 10 minutes of simple stretching exercises. Both courses were given for two hours once a week.
After 10 weeks of tai chi, 94 percent of depressed older adults showed marked improvement on depression scales, compared with 77 percent in the health education group. And 65 percent of the people in the tai chi group experienced remission, compared with 51 percent in the education group.
The tai chi group also showed marked improvement in measures of physical function, cognitive tests and blood tests measuring levels of inflammation.
"Altogether the effects were pretty dramatic,'' said Dr. Helen Lavretsky, lead author and professor of psychiatry at U.C.L.A. "If a psychiatrist were to add exercise like tai chi, which is very nondemanding and easy to access, that would be a very beneficial thing instead of adding another drug."
Dr. Lavretsky said one reason both study groups showed improvement was that all the patients probably benefited from spending time with other people, whether it was in the practice of tai chi or the group education class. "I'm sure the social aspect contributed to the improvement in both groups,'' she said. "In the control group we see improvement, and that was purely because of the social interaction and bonding that occurred."
But the marked improvement in the tai chi group suggests an additional benefit from tai chi. Research has shown tai chi can improve physical function and quality of life, relieve stress and anxiety and lead to improved sleep quality, the study authors noted.
The study used a form of tai chi called T'ai Chi Chih that uses 20 simple exercises that are nonstrenuous and easy enough to be performed by older adults.
Dr. Lavretsky said the findings are exciting because depression is so difficult to treat in older people, two-thirds of whom don't respond to initial drug therapy. Often when a patient doesn't respond to the first drug, an additional drug is given, but that's not always practical for patients who are already taking 10 or 15 drugs for other health problems. A study this month found that more than 60 percent of patients over 65 experience moderate or major side effects the first time they are prescribed an antidepressant.
"This is very easily translatable into community care,'' she said. "As their health improves, they may be able to reduce the other drugs they are taking for pain or other problems."
Tai Chi Benefits Patients With Parkinson's
Stuart Isett for The New York Times
Can Tai Chi, the ancient martial art, help alleviate Parkinson's symptoms?
Tai chi, an ancient martial art characterized by slow, flowing movement and meditation, helps improve balance and movement control for people with Parkinson's disease.
The finding, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, is the latest study to show the benefits of tai chi for people with chronic health problems. Past studies have shown that tai chi reduces falls and depression among the elderly, and lessens pain for patients with arthritis and fibromyalgia.
In Parkinson's disease, nerve cells in the brain that produce the chemical dopamine begin to die. Lower dopamine production can lead to tremors, balance problems, stiff facial expressions and muffled speech, among other problems.
An estimated one million people in the United States have the disease, and another 60,000 receive the diagnosis each year. Although the condition usually develops after the age of 60, 15 percent of those who learn of the diagnosis are under 50.
In the latest research, 195 people with movement and balance problems caused by Parkinson's disease were recruited from four Oregon cities. The patients were divided into three exercise classes that met for an hour a day, twice a week. One group took part in an extensive stretching class, another was taught resistance training, and the third group performed tai chi.
After six months, patients in the tai chi group performed better on a number of measures related to strength, movement control, balance, stride length and reach. Resistance training also offered some benefits, and both the tai chi and resistance training groups had fewer falls than the stretching group.
The findings are good news for people with Parkinson's, who often lose the ability to maintain standing balance and have difficulty walking and are at risk for frequent falls. Although some symptoms of Parkinson's, like tremors, can be relieved by drug therapy, balance and walking problems are typically not helped by drug treatment.
"Current medications do not work well in terms of providing relief for impaired balance or postural instability," said Fuzhong Li, a research scientist at Oregon Research Institute in Eugene and the study's lead author. "In fact, patients suffer a great deal of medication side effects which may lead to further deterioration in balance control."
Why tai chi helps people with Parkinson's isn't entirely clear. Even for a healthy person it can be hard to maintain balance and stability while performing the continuous, rhythmical, weight-shifting movements of tai chi. It may be that practicing tai chi trains the parts of the brain that control balance and movement to adapt more quickly in response to the motor control challenges of Parkinson's.
To learn more about the challenges of living with Parkinson's, go to "The Voices of Parkinson's Disease." And to learn more about tai chi, read Jane E. Brody's column, "A Downside to Tai Chi? None That I Can See,".
Exercise as Housecleaning for the Body
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
Kris Hanke
When ticking off the benefits of physical activity, few of us would include intracellular housecleaning. But a new study suggests that the ability of exercise to speed the removal of garbage from inside our body's cells may be one of its most valuable, if least visible, effects.
In the new research, which was published last month in Nature, scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas gathered two groups of mice. One set was normal, with a finely tuned cellular scrubbing system. The other had been bred to have a blunted cleaning system.
It's long been known that cells accumulate flotsam from the wear and tear of everyday living. Broken or misshapen proteins, shreds of cellular membranes, invasive viruses or bacteria, and worn-out, broken-down cellular components, like aged mitochondria, the tiny organelles within cells that produce energy, form a kind of trash heap inside the cell.
In most instances, cells diligently sweep away this debris. They even recycle it for fuel. Through a process with the expressive name of autophagy, or "self-eating," cells create specialized membranes that engulf junk in the cell's cytoplasm and carry it to a part of the cell known as the lysosome, where the trash is broken apart and then burned by the cell for energy.
Without this efficient system, cells could become choked with trash and malfunction or die. In recent years, some scientists have begun to suspect that faulty autophagy mechanisms contribute to the development of a range of diseases, including diabetes, muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer's and cancer. The slowing of autophagy as we reach middle age is also believed to play a role in aging.
Most metabolism researchers think that the process evolved in response to the stress of starvation; cells would round up and consume superfluous bits of themselves to keep the rest of the cell alive. In petri dishes, the rate of autophagy increases when cells are starved or otherwise placed under physiological stress.
Exercise, of course, is physiological stress. But until recently, few researchers had thought to ask whether exercise might somehow affect the amount of autophagy within cells and, if so, whether that mattered to the body as a whole.
"Autophagy affects metabolism and has wide-ranging health-related benefits in the body, and so does exercise," says Dr. Beth Levine, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at U.T. Southwestern. "There seemed to be considerable overlap, in fact, between the health-related benefits of exercise and those of autophagy," but it wasn't clear how the two interacted, she says.
So she and her colleagues had lab mice run. The animals first had been medically treated so that the membranes that engulf debris inside their cells would glow, revealing themselves to the researchers. After just 30 minutes of running, the mice had significantly more membranes in cells throughout their bodies, the researchers found, meaning they were undergoing accelerated autophagy.
That finding, however, didn't explain what the augmented cellular cleaning meant for the well-being of the mice, so the researchers developed a new strain of mouse that showed normal autophagy levels in most instances, but could not increase its cellular self-eating in response to stress. Autophagy levels would stubbornly remain the same, even if the animals were starved or vigorously exercised.
Then the researchers had these mice run, alongside a control group of normal animals. The autophagy-resistant mice quickly grew fatigued. Their muscles seemed incapable of drawing sugar from the blood as the muscles of the normal mice did.
More striking, when Dr. Levine stuffed both groups of animals with high-fat kibble for several weeks until they developed a rodent version of diabetes, the normal mice subsequently reversed the condition by running, even as they continued on the fatty diet. The autophagy-resistant animals did not. After weeks of running, they remained diabetic. Their cells could not absorb blood sugar normally. They also had higher levels of cholesterol in their blood than the other mice. Exercise had not made them healthier.
In other words, Dr. Levine and her colleagues concluded, an increase in autophagy, prompted by exercise, seems to be a critical step in achieving the health benefits of exercise.
The finding is "extremely exciting," says Zhen Yan, the director of the Center for Skeletal Muscle Research at the University of Virginia, who is also studying autophagy and exercise. The study, Dr. Yan says, "improves our understanding of how exercise has salutary impacts on health."
The implications of Dr. Levine's results are, in fact, broad. It's possible that people who don't respond as robustly to aerobic exercise as their training partners may have sputtering or inadequate autophagy systems, although that idea is speculative. "It's very difficult to study autophagy in humans," Dr. Levine says. Still, it's possible that at some point, autophagy-prompting drugs or specialized exercise programs might help everyone to fully benefit from exercise.
In the meantime, the study underscores, again, the importance of staying active. Both the control mice and the genetically modified group had "normal background levels of autophagy" during everyday circumstances, Dr. Levine points out. But this baseline level of cellular housecleaning wasn't enough to protect them from developing diabetes in the face of a poor diet. Only when the control animals ran and pumped up their intracellular trash collection did they regain their health.
"I never worked out consistently before," Dr. Levine says. But now, having witnessed how exercise helped scour the cells of the running mice, she owns a treadmill.
How Acupuncture can help you lose Weight
Lose the Last 5 Pounds For Good
Why are the last five pounds so hard to lose? "When you've got only a handful of pounds to go, you've really got to rev up your metabolism and, at the same time, lower your body's production of cortisol, the stress hormone, which promotes fat storage," says Los Angeles nutritionist Haylie Pomroy, who helps Jennifer Lopez stay movie and photo shoot ready. It's not as tricky as it sounds, but it does require diligence. So give yourself three to four weeks, follow these tips from our experts, and make "Go for the burn" your new motto.
By Wendy Schmid
Eat Fat-Burning Foods
What you eat really counts when you've got just an inch or so to pinch. "Your metabolism is already working relatively well, so focus on fiber-rich foods that have a thermogenic effect, making your body expend more energy as it breaks them down," says Pomroy. According to Manhattan weight-control specialist Stephen Gullo, high-fiber foods also form a coating on the intestinal walls that prevents some of the absorption of calories from other foods. A final bonus: When you lose weight, fat exits through the bowel, and fiber aids that exit strategy. Make this your grocery list: dark leafy greens, asparagus, radishes, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, zucchini, green beans, hearts of palm, mushrooms, quinoa, raw almonds, and low-sugar fruits like Asian pears, kiwi, and grapefruit. Supplement these fat burners with lean, organic proteins such as egg whites, chicken, turkey, bison, and wild-caught fish.
Photo Credit: Donna Trope/Trunkarchive.com
Forget "Fat Free" and "Sugar Free"
You don't have to give up dairy, just the fat-free variety. "When you take the fat out of a dairy product, the natural milk sugar it contains gets into the bloodstream faster, sending your body into fat-storing mode," explains Pomroy. "Suddenly that fat-free Greek yogurt is fattening." Instead, choose organic, hormone-free two-percent dairy. Ditch the sugar-free stuff too. "The body can't process chemical sweeteners, so not only do they get stored in your fat, they impair your body's ability to release that fat for fuel," says Pomroy.
Be Calorie Clever
"I tell my clients to treat calories like dollars and avoid paying retail," says Gullo. That means a get-more-for-your-money strategy of substitutions. Examples: Trade brown rice (around 200 calories per cup) for high-fiber GG Bran Crispbread (12 calories per piece), and rather than a tablespoon of olive oil (120 calories), mix just a teaspoon with balsamic vinegar and lemon juice for salad dressing. "You save calories without sacrificing taste, plus vinegar slows the emptying of the stomach, so you feel more satiated," he says. For the month, eliminate calorie-dense bananas, grapes, cherries, starchy squash, edamame, potatoes, and avocados.
Cut Caffeine and Alcohol
Need motivation? Consider how they affect your body's inner workings. "Caffeine stimulates the adrenals to produce cortisol, and alcohol both slows metabolism and is readily stored as fat," explains Pomroy. "So you're making your body less efficient at doing what you want it to do. If you're drinking more than two alcoholic beverages a week, you can drop two to three pounds in the first two weeks simply by cutting them out."
Burn Calories While Drinking
To keep your system humming, down 12 to 16 glasses of water a day (dehydration hinders metabolic function) and drink decaf oolong tea, advises Gullo. "It's been shown to increase metabolism by 10 percent—even more than green tea," he says. Before bed, skip the tea and instead have a thermogenic brew made with the juice of one lemon, hot water, a tablespoon of chopped, potassium-rich parsley, and a pinch of cayenne. (Steep for 15 minutes.) "It increases calorie burning while you sleep and prevents water retention," Pomroy says. "My clients find the depuffing effect encouraging."
Photo Credit: Alexi Lumbomirski
Take These 5 Supplements
1. PROBIOTICS These can help maintain a healthy balance of bacteria in your digestive tract; imbalances have been linked to weight gain. Try Klaire Labs Ther-Biotic Complete ($41; one cap daily).
2. B-COMPLEX "B vitamins lower cortisol production and stimulate metabolism," says Pomroy. Try Living Beyond Organic B-Complex ($50; one half teaspoon with meals).
3. CALCIUM "High-calcium diets lead to greater weight loss, particularly in the abdominal area," says Gullo. (Good news, since that's where pesky cortisol packs on the pounds.) Try Schiff Super Calcium 1200 ($7.65; two soft gels daily with a meal).
4. VITAMIN D A deficiency can make it harder to lose weight. Try Jarrow Formulas Vitamin D3 1000 IU ($7.95; one soft gel twice daily with meals).
5. OMEGAS Essential fatty acids help stabilize blood sugar and encourage fat metabolism, Pomroy says. Fans of her popular organic flax-oil blend swear it helps fight cellulite too. Try East West Essentials Optimal Fatty Acid Blend ($48; one capsule three times daily with meals). Want to swallow fewer pills? Consider SafSlim, a new liquid supplement said to target belly fat with omega-rich linoleic acid from safflower oil ($29.99; one tablespoon twice daily). "Studies suggest that linoleic acid may aid weight loss by helping with appetite control and metabolic efficiency," says Gullo.
Sleep 7 to 8 Hours A Night
Otherwise, you may not budge that extra pudge. Research shows that sleeping less than six hours a night not only prevents weight loss, it can lead to an elevated BMI (body mass index) and a higher risk of obesity. "When you get too little sleep, leptin, the satiety hormone, decreases and ghrelin, the hunger hormone, increases. People become hungrier and tend to overeat," says Eve Van Cauter, director of the University of Chicago Medical Center's sleep-research laboratory and a leading authority on the subject. Lack of shut-eye also raises cortisol, and, warns Van Cauter, these hormones can get out of whack if you sleep less for just two days. So wind down early for your best results.
Double Up Your Workouts
It sounds difficult, but even the Victoria's Secret models cop to working out twice a day before the big holiday show. "You've got to split up your workouts to torch that last bit of fat," says celebrity trainer Bob Harper. Follow this program every other day; it doesn't even require a gym.
A.M.: "These compound body movements utilize multiple muscle groups and get your metabolism going," he says. Do the circuit three times.
1. Two minutes jumping rope.
2. Twenty sumo squats: With legs just wider than shoulder width and toes pointing slightly outward, slowly lower your body into a squat, keeping weight in your heels, and drop your butt just lower than 90 degrees (so fingers touch the floor) before slowly raising up.
3. Fifteen burpees: Stand upright, feet hip width apart. Drop down into pushup position, kicking your legs back and out. Do a pushup, then pull legs back under you as you push off the floor, and hop to a standing position.
4. Ten traditional pushups.
P.M.: "Pump up your calorie burn by doing cardio at the end of the day, when your body naturally wants to rest," says Harper. Get outside and run for 30 to 45 minutes. Or do run-walk intervals for the duration, running for four minutes and then walking for one.
Photo Credit: Net-a-Porter.com
Try An Alternative Therapy
If you've hit your late 30s or 40s, when your metabolism can get sluggish, your body may need an extra nudge. "Acupuncture has been shown in studies to stimulate metabolism, lower cortisol, and improve thyroid function," says Los Angeles acupuncturist and antiaging specialist Mao Shing Ni. "One treatment a week can easily help you lose five pounds in a month, even if you're not strenuously dieting and exercising." How it works: During a 30-minute session, you lie down comfortably and close your eyes. Painless acupuncture needles are inserted into designated points (on the head, arms, hands, belly, and legs) that regulate metabolism, hormone production, digestion, elimination, and satiety. How's that for effortless weight loss?
Photo Credit: iStockphoto
A Healthy Poke: Demystifying the Science Behind Acupuncture
By Alice G. Walton
Sep 29 2011, 10:07 AM ET 440
Many of us have started to embrace the use of alternative medicine, but acupuncture, with its qi, yin, and meridians, still raises eyebrows
While many practices in alternative medicine are slowly but surely making their way into the mainstream, acupuncture is one that still produces skeptical eyebrow raises. This phenomenon is partly due to linguistics. Scientists have worked to elucidate the mechanisms by which yoga, meditation, and various dietary interventions may work on the cells of the body, but there is something fundamentally more ancient-feeling about the language of acupuncture. Go to the NIH's website on complementary and alternative medicine (NCCAM), and even here you'll find a discussion that involves qi, yin, yang, and meridians.
Acupuncture is a "retrospective science, going on for 3,000 years. We know it works, we just don't know why."
Is it possible to discuss acupuncture in a way that makes sense to even the most Westernized brains? The short answer is yes -- but with the caveat there there is no single unifying explanation for how it works. While acupuncture has been demonstrated to be useful in pain management and in treating the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, other uses have had more mixed results when studied scientifically.
Dr. Leena Mathew is an attending physician in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. She uses acupuncture as an "adjunct analgesic modality," meaning that she uses it as a complementary treatment for pain in her patients should they require or prefer it. She and Dr. Josephine Briggs, director of NCCAM, discussed with us the most likely theories of the mechanisms behind acupuncture.
For pain management, one idea is that acupuncture may be working via the gate control theory, first outlined by Melzack and Wall in the 1960s. This theory suggests that pain is transmitted through small nerve fibers from the skin through the spinal cord and on up to the brain. Also present are larger fibers which normally send inhibitory signals to the small pain fibers, which essentially "gates" or prevents a pain signal from being set off. When a painful stimulus comes in, however, the activity in the small nerve fibers overwhelms the large ones, so inhibition is released and the gates of pain opened. Where does acupuncture come in? Theoretically, the needles are placed in positions to stimulate the large nerve fibers, so that the small -- painful -- ones are inhibited. Mathew says that the same logic theoretically underlies why rubbing your elbow after you bang it helps alleviate the pain: you're stimulating the inhibition that quiets the pain.
Another possibility is that endorphins, the body's famed "feel good" chemicals, are behind the effect of acupuncture on quelling pain. Mathew says that the happy little chemicals are released in response to a range of phenomena -- distress, injury, running long distances, chocolate -- and have the knack for acting like morphine on the body and brain. Studies have tracked levels of these molecules in the blood, and shown that acupuncture is linked to higher levels of beta-endorphin at the same time that patients are reporting decreases in their pain levels. Even more, when you inject people with the anti-morphine drug naloxone, the effects of acupuncture are reduced.
But other theories better explain why acupuncture has been shown to work well on the nausea and vomiting (PDF) associated with chemotherapy. In the 1950s, the nerve reflex theory was proposed, suggesting that the body's periphery (the skin) is connected to the internal organs through a reflex called the viscero-cutaneous reflex. "If you stimulate the periphery with acupuncture needles," explains Mathew, "you can change the blood flow pattern to the stomach and abdomen, which could explain the effect on nausea and vomiting."
Acupuncture may also have an effect on the body's stress response system, otherwise known as the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which could be why acupuncture patients report lower stress levels and anxiety after treatment, at least in the short term.
If you were wondering when the word "placebo" was going to enter the discussion, here it is -- but it's not what you think. What researchers now know about the placebo effect is that it isn't some hokey "mind over matter" thing. The response is a robust, demonstrable physiological phenomenon, according to Mathew. When people are being "treated" with placebo, you can actually see the change in blood flow patterns in the cortices of their brains in fMRI. Some people are more responsive to the placebo effect than others, and there is no doubt that some of this effect is going on with acupuncture, and particularly heightened in placebo-sensitive individuals.
Which leads to the final theory about why acupuncture may work on certain conditions. The very presence of human touch may have a lot to do with acupuncture's healing power, Mathew suggests. "This is therapeutic touch," she says. "As Westerners, we're disconnected from this. We don't want to touch patients." But just as a mother calms a child simply through her physical/emotional presence, having another human being exert a well-intentioned touch may, in its simplicity, also do a lot to alleviate pain. This effect may have to do with the alleviation of fear and anxiety, things we know account for a huge portion of our perception of pain.
Briggs adds to this idea by mentioning that some of the effects of acupuncture can also be seen when "sham" treatments like toothpicks are used, which can sometimes have an effect similar to acupuncture. This, she says, "tells us that a very important part of acupuncture's effect is the ritual involved, which includes pressure, reassuring practitioners, and the patient's expectation." In other words, the act of acupuncture itself is at least partially what accounts for its effect.
She adds that we need to start asking different questions about acupuncture, and using different language to discuss is. For example, she says that "meridians were developed by a tradition of people who didn't dissect human body -- meridians are not good a scientific question. But, 'How does the practice change our perception of pain?' is a good question. It's quite plausible that pain pathways are modulated by emotion, pill placebo, etc., so it's not surprising that reassurance of ritual or expectation is at play here. "
As Mathews points out, acupuncture is a "retrospective science, going on for 3,000 years. We know it works, we just don't know why. It's very hard to translate into Western language." Still, it should be possible to do so, and we seem to have made some progress. Hopefully more researchers asking the right questions, and coming up with clever new techniques to address them, will help elucidate the mechanisms and unify the theories.
Alice G. Walton - Alice G. Walton is a health-and-science journalist who writes on medical issues, particularly those related to the brain and behavior. She holds a Ph.D. in biopsychology and is an editor at TheDoctorWillSeeYouNow.com.
Image: REUTERS/Mike Cassese.
Ancient Chinese Herbal Recipe Eases Side Effects of Chemotherapy
A combination of Chinese herbs in use for more than 1,800 years reduced the gastrointestinal side effects of chemotherapy in mice, while actually enhancing the effects of the cancer treatment, Yale University researchers report.
The formula used in the experiment consists of four herbs, called PHY906, and is based on a herbal recipe called Huang Qin Tang, used historically to treat nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. The study, published August 18 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, asked whether the use of the formula could reduce gastrointestinal effects of a common chemotherapy drug without affecting its ability to kill cancerous cells.
Video: Yung-Chi "Tommy" Cheng, Henry Bronson professor of pharmacology, co-director of the Yale Cancer Center's Developmental Therapeutics program and senior author of the paper. Watch »
Chemotherapy causes a number of toxic side effects, which are usually treated with several different drugs with mixed success.
"Chemotherapy causes great distress for millions of patients, but PHY906 has multiple biologically active compounds which can act on multiple sources of discomfort," said Yung-Chi "Tommy" Cheng, Henry Bronson professor of pharmacology, co-director of the Yale Cancer Center's Developmental Therapeutics program and senior author of the paper.
Mice undergoing chemotherapy that were given PHY906 lost less weight and experienced more anti-tumor activity than mice not given the formula, the team reported.
The herbal formula reduced toxicity of the chemotherapy by multiple mechanisms, including the inhibiting inflammation and promoting the creation of new intestinal cells, the team reported. This cannot be accomplished by current drugs, which usually target only one mechanism.
"This combination of chemotherapy and herbs represents a marriage of Western and Eastern approaches to the treatment of cancer," Cheng said.
Cheng is the co-discover of PHY906 and, with Yale, has a financial interest in PhytoCeutica Inc., a New Haven company developing the formula.
The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
Wing Lam of Yale was lead author of the paper. Other Yale authors include Scott Bussom, Fulan Guan, Zaoli Jiang, Wei Zhang, Elizabeth A. Gullen, Shwu-Huey Li
Anita Lang-Bakar L.Ac.
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Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan Will Not Seek Re-Election
Shirelle Moore — Feb. 9 2018
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan announced Friday he would skip another uphill climb to re-election and retire from his northeastern Minnesota congressional seat, leaving a wide-open race in a swing district that has attracted tens of millions of dollars in outside spending in recent elections.
Nolan narrowly won three terms in the 8th District starting in 2012, reviving a career in Congress that began with a stint in the 1970s. But he faced another certain barrage from Republicans who see a chance to win one of a few Democratic districts that President Donald Trump won.
Nolan, a moderate Democrat with deep ties to the state's labor-minded Iron Range, also faced increasing pressure from environmentally minded Democrats trying to block new mining projects in the region.In a statement announcing his retirement, Nolan said "now is the time for me to pass the baton to the next generation."
"Fortunately, we are blessed to have a number of highly qualified people who have demonstrated the ability to win tough elections and govern effectively," he said.
Even before Nolan's retirement, the race was bound to be competitive. Long considered a labor-controlled and liberal stronghold, the 8th Congressional District has trended toward Republicans in the last decade as redistricting has brought more GOP-leaning bedroom communities into the fold.
Outside political groups spent nearly $30 million on the race in 2014 and 2016, making it among the most expensive districts in the country. Nolan eked out a win for a third term in 2016 while Trump carried the district by a whopping 15 percentage points.
Republicans in Minnesota and Washington immediately signaled the now open seat would be a top priority.
"This seat was already one of our best pickup opportunities and we look forward to turning this seat Republican in November," said Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
It's a reversal for Nolan, who turned down calls to run for governor last year in favor of running for a fourth term in Congress. But it comes amid fresh signs that his campaign would face trouble from both his left and right.
State Auditor and gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Otto soundly won the district's precinct caucus preference poll on Tuesday on an environmental campaign. Skip Sandman, a Green Party candidate who won more than 4 percent of the vote in 2014, recently joined the race under the banner of the Independence Party.
One Democrat was already running against Nolan. Leah Phifer, a former FBI counterterrorism analyst, was preparing for an endorsement battle shaped by her criticism of Nolan's push to expedite mining projects on the Iron Range.
Other Democrats are likely to enter the race.
Pete Stauber, a St. Louis County commissioner and retired Duluth police officer, is running on the Republican side.
By — Shirelle Moore
Democrats Sue To Overturn Minnesota Assistance Voter Ban
MN Flu Deaths Have Doubled This Season

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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The launch of viral cryptocurrency "WTF" immediately turns into chaos and pain
Thursday night, crypto twitter was invaded with people begging others to click their referral links for something called WTF. If you've seen any of the many humiliating tweets, you may be wondering "WTF?" yourself.
"IF YOU ARE REQUESTING THE AIRDROP $ WTF PLS USE MY REF LINK https://meatspin.comRead a tweet mocking the frenzy (don't visit that site, which is very NSFW).
Fees.wtf has long provided a simple and reliable service: you enter your wallet address and it tells you how much you have spent on Ethereum blockchain (gas) transaction fees, how many of your transactions have failed and how much those cost you. Dissatisfied with this, the project decided to launch its own token, called WTF, and an airdrop that would award tokens based on gas spent and failed transactions.
In case you don't know what it is, an "airdrop" is an increasingly popular way to start a new cryptocurrency. Simply: decide on a metric to distribute a new token (like gas spent on Ethereum) and let people claim it. The WTF airdrop also promised to offer an NFT that would give access to a "pro" version of the service that would work across multiple blockchains, but it came with another twist that had some frustrated users declaring it to "Ponzi" or "pyramid": a referral system that pays ETH based on how many people you have recruited. On Thursday, these WTF referral links started invading Twitter.
The system is deceptively simple: There is a .01 ETH service fee to register your address before claiming your tokens, and the more WTF you burn (i.e. you send to a dead end address), the more "you upgrade" your referral link rewards . If you don't burn any WTF, you get .001 ETH (10 percent commission) from each referral – burning up to 10,000 WTF you get .005 ETH (50 percent commission) from each referral. This effectively means that the system is set to give wealthy people an edge who have spent a lot of money on Ethereum, and therefore have a lot of WTF to burn, and have a large following for spreading referral links and reaping more rewards. symbolic.
Like Tim Copeland of The Block observedHowever, this referral system easily prints money only if WTF is worth less than the percentage of the service fee you are receiving at a particular tier. For the sake of discussion, let's say that WTF is worth 0.01 ETH (the base cost to claim) and that you have burned 10,000 WTF for maximum rewards. Referring 1,000 people would reward you with 5 ETH, but you've already burned WTF's 100 ETH to get that reward. To break even, you would need 200,000 people to use your referral link.
This should have been the first sign of potential problems embedded in the token structure, but it all came to a head on Friday when the airdrop turned out to be a complete and utter disaster with robots bombing each other in a zero-sum fight that resulted in caused chaos in the token price.
As detailed in a viral analysis from Twitter user meows.eth, the initial pool of liquidity to trade with was relatively small: just over 2,211 WTF and .000001 WETH (wrapped ether). According to meows.eth, the trading robots immediately started to get away with it and briefly pushed the price of the token up, turning the referral system into a money pit and wreaking havoc on everyone else in different ways.
The first bot bought 2,211.45 WTF for 2 ETH, raising the price and leaving little for the other bots who continued to buy the remainder of the pool. Another bot paid 10 ETH for the last available WTF (only 0.000149 WTF), which means that at that point the trading pool contained a lot of ETH and in fact no WTF. Taking advantage of this situation, the operator of the bot quickly sold it .001375 WTF for the absurd sum of 58 ETH ($ 191,400) and paid nearly $ 3,000 worth of gas to make sure his transaction was settled before any other bot or trader.
Other traders got ripped off because they didn't know how to properly set lower tolerances for slippage (when prices literally slip between the time an order is filled and executed) and ended up fulfilling orders for a substantially lower WTF than expected at a substantially higher price. A user accidentally mistaken 42 ETH (over $ 132,000) for 0.00004 WTF, even though WTF was only worth $ 0.00000525172 per token, as a result of this.
As for how the token is doing now … well, it's not doing well. After the initial price spikes, the price dropped to around 30 cents and plummeted further, currently standing at 13 cents. according to data from CoinMarketCap.
"I bought $ WTF last night and WHAT THE FUCK DID IT HAPPEN WHILE I WAS SLEEPING ??? !!! MY HARD EARNED MONEY WAS GONE DURING THE NIGHT, FUCK THIS, I'M GOING BACK TO SLEEP, "wrote a Twitter user.
While some users have denounced the WTF airdrop as pyramidal and the general chaos and pain that came with it, the developers seem to get it right. The token team gets a fee from every single transfer or exchange of the WTF token as well as a portion of the proceeds from the address registration, which is then sent to a growing treasure almost 8 million WTF tokens (about $ 1.2 million). Additionally, the team recently solicited donations just to transfer around 150 ETH from wallet for donations to Binance.
All in all, this was at least a poorly conceived launch. Like so many other crypto projects, it was planned, capitalized and executed so poorly that it is almost indistinguishable from a scam. WTF indeed.
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MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday, August 25, said that there is "barely any evidence" to prove that electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) do not cause harm to users.
"Contrary to the claim regarding the effectiveness of e-cigarette as a smoking cessation aid, there is barely any evidence-based researches to prove so," the DOH said.
The DOH made the statement in response lawmakers who proposed, through House Resolution (HR) 1885, that the DOH promote the use of e-cigarettes as part of its "harm reduction measures" against smoking.
HR 1885 urged the DOH to promote the use of e-cigarettes as part of its tobacco control strategy.
"Despite all the regulations and strict policies enforced by governments, people still find a way to smoke. E-cigarettes offer an alternative…. Public health experts predict that smokers who switch to combustion-free products can substantially reduce smoking and the risk of developing smoking related diseases and eventually overall population harm," the resolution said.
HR 1885 was sponsored by Quezon 4th District Representative Angelina Tan, House health committee chairperson; and Iloilo 4th District Representative Ferjenel Biron, chair of the House trade and industry committee.
No evidence: The health department said a series of long-term and peer-reviewed studies that deal with the incidence, distribution, and control of diseases are needed to conclude that e-cigarettes are an effective alternative to smoking.
The DOH said that with "the lack of conclusive data regarding the long-term effects of using e-cigarettes, its health risks cannot be ignored."
Based on the August 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) report on e-cigarettes or Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems, scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of these devices as a smoking cessation aid "is scant and of low certainty, making it difficult to draw credible inferences."
The report also said while it is likely e-cigarettes are "less toxic than cigarette smoke," they are "unlikely to be harmless." It added that long-term use is also expected to increase the risks of pulmonary diseases, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other diseases related to smoking.
For the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to authorize e-cigarettes as health products, it must follow requirements on listing ingredients, reporting both harmful and potentially harmful substances, and submission of research documents proving the use of e-cigarettes as an effective alternative to smoking.


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NEW YORK, NY (September 1, 2011) The New York City Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Service (NYC-ARECS) has teamed up with the New York City Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to encourage private, not-for-profit, and government organizations throughout the five boroughs to join the Partners in Preparedness program during National Preparedness Month.
In past years, disasters have cost companies billions in lost revenue, led to thousands of layoffs, and forced local businesses to file for bankruptcy. Not-for-profit organizations that have faced disasters have gone out of business, leaving their clients without vital services.
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Join OEM, NYC-ARECS, and other organizations across the five boroughs to help make New York City the safest and most prepared city in the world. For more information about National Preparedness Month visit www.NYC.gov/nationalpreparednessmonth or call 311.


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What, exactly, is the downside of designating Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization?
Lots of people are criticizing President Trump's declaration of Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group, but the initial reasons given for such criticism are all over the place.
Which means that the reflexive reactions are more based on being anti-Trump than any sort of sober analysis.
Here are the reasons being given so far, besides Tulsi Gabbard's nonsensical claim that it will lead to World War III.
Inside Iran, it is difficult to avoid doing business with the IRGC, IRGC-controlled or IRGC-linked entities. The White House's Monday statement says that, "If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism." Does this apply to a produce vendor who rents his stall from an IRGC-linked bonyad (a cross between a charitable foundation and a private equity fund)? What about the vendors' customers, who might be Iranian locals or foreign tourists? Are all visitors to Iran now responsible for determining the precise ownership of every hotel, restaurant and store that they patronize?
Difficulty to enforce all aspects of the designation is not really a reason not to do it. And if it is only enforced selectively, I don't think anyone will complain that the US is breaking its own laws.
And if the Trump administration thinks that it is easy to avoid dealing with the IRGC, I'd suggest it ask the Trump Organization, which, according to the New Yorker, worked with an IRGC-linked family on a building in Azerbaijan. The building suffered major damage in an April 2018 fire, and the story was quickly overtaken by the myriad other Trump administration controversies.
Maybe now the House of Representatives can, in the spirit of Monday's designation, investigate American firms that may knowingly have done business with the IRGC -- starting with the Trump Organization.
OK, go ahead! If anything this should make Trump's critics more supportive of the designation!
Since Rubin admits that the US has failed at fracturing the IRGC up until now, what evidence does he have that this designation will make it more difficult, rather than easier, to accomplish that?
Psychologically, it already has added pressure to Iran. It will allow the US to increase financial pressure, and the existing pressure is already hurting the Iranian economy and slowing down their support for terror groups. What is the downside?
And that is a bad thing because....?
The main arguments seem to be "we don't know what this means."
If everyone agrees that the IRGC indeed supports terrorism, what is wrong with saying so out loud?
If Obama would have done this, all of these supposed criticisms would evaporate (to be replaced no doubt with similar ones from the other side of the aisle.) Which shows that the real reason there is opposition to this is because of Trump, and nothing else.


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rNovella di Nastagio degli Onesti
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1445-1510 Italian painter and draughtsman. In his lifetime he was one of the most esteemed painters in Italy, enjoying the patronage of the leading families of Florence, in particular the Medici and their banking clients. He was summoned to take part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, was highly commended by diplomatic agents to Ludovico Sforza in Milan and Isabella d Este in Mantua and also received enthusiastic praise from the famous mathematician Luca Pacioli and the humanist poet Ugolino Verino. By the time of his death, however, Botticelli s reputation was already waning. He was overshadowed first by the advent of what Vasari called the maniera devota, a new style by Perugino, Francesco Francia and the young Raphael, whose new and humanly affective sentiment, infused atmospheric effects and sweet colourism took Italy by storm; he was then eclipsed with the establishment immediately afterwards of the High Renaissance style, which Vasari called the modern manner, in the paintings of Michelangelo and the mature works of Raphael in the Vatican. From that time his name virtually disappeared until the reassessment of his reputation that gathered momentum in the 1890s Related Paintings of Sandro Botticelli :. | Lorenzo Tornabuoni before the assembly of the Liberal Arts (mk36) | Primavera | Primavera | St Augustine in his Study (mk36) | White-haired man in group at right |
Paolo Ucello
1395-1475 Italian Paolo Ucello Gallery
George Henry Durrie
American Painter, 1820-1863,American painter. Durrie and his older brother John (1818-98) studied sporadically from 1839 to 1841 with the portrait painter Nathaniel Jocelyn. From 1840 to 1842 he was an itinerant painter in Connecticut and New Jersey, finally settling permanently in New Haven. He produced c. 300 paintings, of which the earliest were portraits (e.g. Self-portrait, 1839; Shelburne, VT, Mus.); by the early 1850s he had begun to paint the rural genre scenes and winter landscapes of New England that are considered his finest achievement. His landscapes, for example A Christmas Party (1852; Tulsa, OK, Gilcrease Inst. Amer. Hist. & A.), are characterized by the use of pale though cheerful colours and by the repeated use of certain motifs: an isolated farmhouse, a road placed diagonally leading the eye into the composition, and a hill (usually the West or East Rocks, New Haven) in the distance. By the late 1850s Durrie's reputation had started to grow, and he was exhibiting at prestigious institutions, such as the National Academy of Design. In 1861 the firm of Currier & Ives helped popularize his work by publishing prints of two of his winter landscapes,
Allan Ramsay
1713-1784 British Allan Ramsay Galleries Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd. Ramsay's first wife, Anne Bayne, by Ramsay Ramsay's second wife Margaret Lindsay, by RamsayFrom the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Huyssing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome and Naples, where he worked for three years under Francesco Solimena and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi). On his return in 1738 he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill, contributed to render him popular. His only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684?C1737), and Mary Carstairs (1695??C1759). None of their 3 children survived childhood, and she died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them. One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick and Amelia Murray (granddaughter to David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and sister to the naval officer John Lindsay). He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, though her father never forgave her for marrying an artist. Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage as well as his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100 which would increase ??as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing?? and that his only motive for the marriage was ??my love for your Daughter, who, I am sensible, is entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her??. There were three surviving children from their long and happy marriage, Amelia (1755?C1813), Charlotte (1758?C1818?), and John (1768?C1845). Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754?C1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites, and (to earn an income) painting Grand Tourists' portraits. This and other trips to Italy involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, he was in 1761 appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principle Painter in Ordinary to George III, beating Hudson to the post; and so fully employed was he on the royal portraits which the king was in the habit of presenting to ambassadors and colonial governors, that he was forced to take advantage of the services of a host of assistants--of whom David Martin and Philip Reinagle are the best known. He gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits, his health shattered by an accidental dislocation of the right arm and his second wife's death in 1782. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time, and then started for his beloved Italy, leaving behind him a series of fifty royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken. He died at Dover on 10 August 1784.


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You must be at least 24.
After application, you will be invited for an interview which will include both, a group interview and a brief individual interview. If you are suitable for the course you will receive an unconditional offer. Once accepted on the course, you will need to go though the process of enrolment and fee paying.
The course is practical and experiential learning methods include working in pairs in small groups and in triads. Learners are involved in regular self-evaluation as well as in giving feedback which facilitate learning. There are also regular Drop-Ins with the course tutors.
The course encourages constant written self review in the form of keeping a learning record journal, peers and tutor's feedback (internally assessed).
The course may lead to a progression onto the CPCAB level 2 Certificate in Counselling Skills). You may decide to go onto other courses in the College such as Care and Health, Childcare, Access to Social Work, Youth Work if you have some experience in these areas.


On the heels of Harry's Pizzeria's third anniversary, The Genuine Hospitality Group especially friggin' ecstatic, South Miami-based me! is proud to announce that chef/owner Michael Schwartz's casual neighborhood joint will open its first new location in 2015 in Coconut Grove, and it feels pretty darn good if you don't mind us saying so! As if that news wasn't good enough, we are working with famed Coconut Grove-based architectural design firm Arquitectonica to build out the space located in the heart of town at 2996-98 McFarlane Rd, mere steps from Peacock Park and beautiful marina-lined Bayshore Drive. We'll be celebrating with Michael's Genuine® Home Brew and Harry's addictive Polenta Fries from 2:30 – 7 p.m. this Saturday, October 18 at Grovetoberfest. It'll be our third time participating in Miami's annual beer festival and just think… next year we can all walk to Harry's after for dinner!
Harry's Pizzeria is The Genuine Hospitality Group's third restaurant, a casual neighborhood joint opened in September 2011 and named after Schwartz's son Harry. The restaurant is a comfortable place to gather for snacks, salads, and specials featuring seasonal ingredients, Hedy Goldsmith's desserts, Schwartz's signature thin-crust pizzas cooked in the restaurant's wood-burning oven, local and craft beers on draught, creative wines by the glass and bottle, and other beverages including housemade sodas and Panther Coffee. To make a new house a home, its "Chef Pop-Up Series" has welcomed America's most acclaimed chefs into the kitchen over the past three years, effectively cementing Harry's Pizzeria as a fixture in Miami's dining community known for both its consistency and energetic, fun approach to the restaurant experience.
"We are very excited to be working with Michael on this restaurant. The addition of Harry's to the neighborhood is a big part of our re-visioning for the center Grove to make it a place for everyday life and a unique destination" says Raymond Fort, Arquitectonica Project Designer.
The space on McFarlane Rd that Harry's Pizzeria is entering is owned by Main Highway Partners.
"We have a history here – our family home is in the Grove and our corporate headquarters in the Grove, in the original space the company launched over 30 years ago. We understand the fabric of the neighborhood and are so thrilled to have entrepreneurs and business owners like Michael Schwartz and Panther Coffee coming into the fold," says Bernardo Fort-Brescia, Founding Principal of Arquitectonica.
Arquitectonica was brought on by The Genuine Hospitality Group to design the build out of the space for Harry's Pizzeria.
"Arquitectonica is a big believer in smart urban planning. In the Grove, where we have our roots, we are excited to take part in designing the pieces that will come together to enhance the community," says Harold Fort, landscape architect for ArquitectonicaGEO.
We have a little ways to go to get numero dos online, but we will keep you posted on our progress until that happy day via the restaurant's social media on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Just follow @harryspizzeria and #HPCoconutGrove for updates as they happen!
Great news, the legacy continues.


For the third year running KU Leuven has won the title of Europe's most innovative university.
The new NATO headquarters are ready. Once again, Belgium will be home to the 29 NATO member states. The gigantic complex symbolises consensus and unity between the member states.
The world-famous Tomorrowland festival teamed up with Cunina vzw to finance the first 'Love Tomorrow Music & Arts School' in Nepal.
This year, for the 16th occasion, the New York Botanical Garden will be the setting for the New York Orchid Show.
Ann Coppens managed to win not one but two leading photography prizes in a single day. She claimed one of these awards for the second consecutive year. An amazing performance!


text:
Жанайя́ (, ) — коммуна во Франции, находится в регионе Лимузен. Департамент коммуны — Крёз. Входит в состав кантона Понтарьон. Округ коммуны — Гере.

Код INSEE коммуны — 23099.

Население
Население коммуны на 2010 год составляло 360 человек.

Экономика
В 2010 году среди 187 человек трудоспособного возраста (15—64 лет) 113 были экономически активными, 74 — неактивными (показатель активности — 60,4 %, в 1999 году было 63,4 %). Из 113 активных жителей работали 106 человек (61 мужчина и 45 женщин), безработных было 7 (2 мужчин и 5 женщин). Среди 74 неактивных 12 человек были учениками или студентами, 37 — пенсионерами, 25 были неактивными по другим причинам.

См. также
 Список округов Франции

Примечания

Ссылки
 Национальный институт статистики

Коммуны департамента Крёз

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Our Powder room turned full bath REMODEL got featured over at IKEAhackers.net today. Check it out.
Last week I showed you my framed giraffe photo in a frame I had bought at a thrift store for $1.59 in the Young House Love Macklemore thrift shop challenge. Today I want to show you how I cut a custom mat board for the frame.
Last year I got a Logan 301-s cutter and took a class at my local college to learn how to use it. A one day class. We learned how to cut framing mats, how to properly assemble a frame and a few tips and techniques that were pretty nifty. (I am so bringing back the word nifty).
Putting a frame together from scratch, is not really that cost effective, so I am not going to pursue that. I do love being able to cut my own mats though. I love that I can make custom openings and it is so, so much cheaper than getting a mat cut at the store or even buying their ready mats in the standard sizes. I would say it is between a fifth and a tenth of the price for a mat if you cut it yourself.
Now, I am all for getting the top of the line equipment, but it is not really necessary unless you plan on opening a framing shop and the more expensive the cutters get, the bigger they get, so that factored in to my decision as to which one to get as well.
I went with one that is almost towards the bottom of the list price wise and got the Logan 301-s cutter. I also got 100 extra blades while I was at it, as you tend to go through the blades pretty fast to get great results every time.
Here you see the holder for the blade - it comes with the cutter - the black one that says "Logan" on it.
The blade is screwed on to a spring mechanism so you can push down on the blade while cutting, but it will spring back when you release it.
To cut a mat, first cut the size of the mat to the size of your frame. My frame from the Thrift store challenge was 8x10 inches and I had already cut up a big 32x40 inch mat board which is the standard size. I got mine at Aaron Brothers. Now, this cutter only accepts mats up to 29 inches, which is a little strange considering the standard size is 32, so I had to first cut my mat board in half with a Stanley knife, but I think the next time I need to buy a mat board, I will just have Aaron Brother's cut it in half for me as they have bigger machines. I can't imagine that they would charge for that.
Next, figure out the opening of the mat board.
Take a tape measure and start out at the width of your mat board. Mine was 8x10 and here I am measuring for the width, so my measurement start off point is 8 - the right orange arrow. Set down the 8 inch mark of the tape measure on the photo where you want the mat to go, overlapping the image a bit so you don't get a white line.
Then look over at the other side - the left orange arrow and choose a mark that is also overlaying the image a bit where you want the other side of the opening. I chose the 3 inch mark. You have now figured out that the sides of the matting should be 3", but since you want the image to go in the middle of that divide by 2 to get 1.5".
Then do the height the same way like this.
The height of the mat was 10 inches, so going by the right arrow, I set down the 10 inch mark onto my image and then looked at over at the left orange arrow and chose the 3.5 inch mark. Again I wanted the image in the middle, but you can position it anywhere and then adjust your measurements accordingly. I just divided by 2 to get 1.75 inches.
Then, turn your mat board over and using pencil and your measurements make lines on the back like that. Make sure that the lines go all the way to the edges or at least cross the other lines. It's the cross hairs you are interested in more than the lines themselves.
Next. adhere to the measure twice, cut once principle and check with that the lines are indeed on the inside of the print so it doesn't plonk through after you are done cutting. Could happen Mine is overlaying quite a bit and if I did not have to illustrate it for the blog, I might have drawn new lines and made the opening a tiny bit wider, but that would have looked all confusing, so I just kept it like that.
Next, you insert the mat into the cutter and tighten the sliders in the back so the pencil line you drew before lines up with the rail that the cutter is on. On the left image you see that I put the black blade cutter onto the rail and it has a white line on it where the arrow is pointing. Line that white line up with your pencil line that is perpendicular to the line you are going to cut. Then press down on the blade and slide the cutter until the white line is over by the other perpendicular line like the right hand picture is showing.
Repeat for the other three sides. The center is going to plop out, but if it's stuck in one of the corners, no big deal, just take another blade and run it along the cut edge so it is at the right angle and cut the tiny paper thread that is still hanging on to release the board. Don't tear it off or you will not get a good result.
This method gives you those nice 45 degree angled cut frame mats.
Next, I used tape at the top of the image and here is another tip: Only tape it at the top. That way you don't get bulges in the image or artwork should the paper contract differently over time than the mat. Tape is already acid free so you can just use regular tape without getting yellowing of the image.
Then mount the new mat and image in the frame.
That's how to cut a mat for a picture frame.
Click here to go to the original frame post and see where I hung the picture.
Do you ever cut your own mats? Do you frame your photos or art work? Are you a Maclemore fan? Let me know in the comments.
This article: How to cut a mat for a photo frame first appeared on http://ahomefordesign.com.


I came across this video and found it extremely powerful. It perfectly describes the habits of the procrastinator in all of us!
Having done some research into procrastination myself, I realise this is an issue that everyone suffers from to some extent. My question is though, if procrastination is dominant in students, what happens to them when they graduate? Do they break the habit? Do they find a job? Or do the habits linger and inevitably create a prolonged period of, frustration, disillusionment, despondency and guilt? When does procrastination wear out? Does it ever end?
Does being inspired and motivated by your "to-do" list make you less of a procrastinator? What makes a person more prone to procrastination? Can it be solved using a more therapeutic approach rather than an informative one? Telling an alcoholic the symptoms of his addiction may enlighten him to the fact that he has a problem, but it won't get to the route of the problem. There has to be a strategic solution. This is a universal problem and I have no doubt that a vast number of people would welcome the exploration and possibility of solutions to this issue.
So many questions, and so many unknown answers floating around out there somewhere.
This seems like a perfect social design project to get stuck into. Watch this space.
The Day Before. A Film about Procrastination. from David Weigert on Vimeo.