The Mendelssohn Stradivarius has become the world’s most expensive musical instrument. It has been bought on behalf of a professional musician for £902,000 from an auction at Christie’s in London. The previous record for a musical instrument was £682,000 set in 1988.
The Mendelssohn is believed to be one of the finest violins by Stradivari to appear on the market in recent years. The violin which once belonged to the descendants of the great composer Mendelssohn, dates from 1720, towards the end of Stradivari’s Golden Period, when he produced his greatest and most celebrated violins.
A sever sunburn, like any other major burn, can be painful and dangerous enough to land you in the hospital. But even a minor burn is a problem, it makes the skin peel and lose whatever sun-protective tan it had developed.
The best thing to do for a mild sunburn is to cool your skin in a lukewarm bath and take aspirin. (Acetysalicylic acid, which is what aspirin is, helps reduce inflammation.) If blisters form, see a doctor, because you can develop a bacterial infection.
Compresses soaked in cool water, milk or tea can provide temporary relief for minor sunburn pain, as can local anesthetics (over-the-counter products that frequently have “-caine” as part of their brand name). Some people can become allergic to these anesthetics, so they should be used sparingly. Cold cream and other lubricants will not do anything for pain but will help the dryness of sunburned skin. If simple home remedies don’t work, see your doctor and be extra careful next time you’re in the sun.
The United States government helps protect an inventor's rights to a new invention. It gives the inventor a special document called a patent. The patent says that only the inventor is permitted to produce and sell the device. Akhil Rastogi has become one of the youngest people to receive an American patent.
A legendary one-eyed giant, the figure of the Cyclops appears in myths throughout the world. But a man living in a Mississippi backwoods community may have been the first truly one-eyed human being. His single orb, completely normal in every regard, was located in the center of the forehead, according to the Boston Medical Journal. And for years, sideshow and circus promoters refused to become a public spectacle.1. No Breakfast
People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level. This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration.
2. Overeating
It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental power.
3. Smoking
It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.
4. High Sugar consumption
Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.
5. Air Pollution
The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our body. Inhaling polluted air decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in brain efficiency.
6. Sleep Deprivation
Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate the death of brain cells.
7. Head covered while sleeping
Sleeping with the head covered, increases the concentration of carbon dioxide and decrease concentration of oxygen that may lead to brain damaging effects.
8. Working your brain during illness.
Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.
9. Lacking in stimulating thoughts
Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.
10. Talking Rarely
Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain.
Read more...
* EAT SMALL, FREQUENT MEALS. Ulcers tend to be the most painful when the stomach is empty. If you eat often, food helps buffer the effects of digestive acids and enzymes.
* AVOID UNNECESSARY USE OF ASPIRIN OR NONSTEROIDAL ANTI-INFLAMMATORY DRUGS. Since these can irritate the digestive tract, your doctor may advise taking them with food.
* DON'T SMOKE. "Smokers have more ulcers, their ulcers are harder to heal, and they're more likely to have recurrences", says David Graham, M.D.
* CUT BACK ON COFFEE, TEA AND COLA DRINKS. Caffeine stimulate acid production, which may in turn exacerbate ulcers.
*AVOID ALCOHOL. This is particularly important for individuals taking the antibiotic metronidazole (Flagyl), which can make them severely ill if they drink.
* DON'T USE MILK AS THERAPHY. Doctors say it's one of the worst treatments for ulcers.
* AVOID FOODS THAT UPSET YOUR STOMACH. You don't have to eat a bland diet, but steer clear of too spicy foods or any that have irritated your digestive system before.
* CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU'VE HAD ULCERS IN RECENT YEARS. "If any of may ulcer patient test positive for H.pylori, I treat them immediately rather than waiting for a recurence," says Dr. Graham.
Read more...
In an age of sophisticated movie effects and skillful stuntmen, we usually conclude that dangerous exploits on the screen or stage are somehow rigged - especially if the feat is as daring as sword swallowing. But the fact that most performers of this uncanny act do not fake it or use gimmicks.
To begin our explanation of Santa Claus, we must go back 1,600 years, to the fourth century. A Roman Catholic Church official of that time, Nicholas of Myra, became famous for his many good works. After he died, the church declared him a saint. He became a special saint for children. On the anniversary of his death each year, good children were presented gifts.
We do not know for sure. But, fortunately, we can tell what the texture of the skin was like, at least of certain kinds. Some dinosaurs had smoot skin, whereas that of others was scaly or platy. Two so-called mummies of the duck-billed dinosaur Anatosaurus were dound in Wyoming and along the Red Deer river in Alberta - one of the greatest dinosaur localities. They reveal a thin, flexible skin, probably having a mosaic pattern of small, polygonal plates, not much different from today's alligators and crocodiles Iguandodon even had bumps on the skin between the fingers. Since most large animals are rather dark, the dinosaur probably were too, perhaps dark on the back and light underneath, as are living lizards and crocodiles.
In Asia today hundreds of thousands of children go blind every year because of eye disease that would take only a few cents worth of vitamin A to correct. A few more pennies would provide the vitamin D and calcium that would stop the deformed and twisted limbs caused by rickets. Millions die of easily cured and evwen more easily prevented disease - because they have no access to even minimal health care. 
The PHOENIX, according to legend, was a bird which died in a fire but came our of the flames alive. In ancient Egypt the phoenix was connected with the worship of the sun and the search for life after death. It was like a large eagle, with red and gold feathers. It lived for hundreds or even thousands of years. But when its death near, it built a nest of the scented branches of trees and spices. It then sang a beautiful, haunting and sad song, and fanned the nest until it burst into flames. The phoenix died in the fire it had made, but from the flames and the ashes came a new phoenix which would live for many years.
The oldest mathematical puzzle dates from 1650 B.C. This is an English version:
As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. Every wife has seven sacks, every sack had seven cats. Every cat has seven kits. Kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?
Read more...
We think this story is interesting because Ruby, the artist, is an elephant! an Asian elephant, to be exact. She is 17 years old. She lives at the zoo in Phoenix, Arizona.
Some say the lemon tree first appeared in the foothills of the Himalayas, others say it was in the Malayan archipelago. Whatever the case, it was cultivated by the Chinese some 3,000 years ago.
He was a 22-year-old sergeant in Field Marshal Rommel's African command when he was captured by the British in tunis in 1943 and turned over to the U.S. Army. For two years he was imprisoned in New Mexico's Fort Deming - one of 500 camps holding roughly 425,000 POW's during World War II. Then, on a clear night in 1945, he slippes under the barbed wire and caught a freight train headed West. For the next 40 years, Georg Gaertner lived as Dennis Whiles, "just another immigrant worker trying to success." he says. In 1985, Gaertner, the last remaining fugitive German POW from World War II, surrendered to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service - just as his book, "Hitler's Last Soldier in America," was published.
On the other hand, the school had lots of contenders that mark the LVHS history. On the year 2007, Daniel Bautista attained recognitions during National Competitions (NSSPC and STEP) as well as Jimver Tulo (STEP); Richard Salumro and Dizon Mendez had brought National honors for the school in the year 2006. Now, other students bestowed their bests as they add their names on the list of National strikers in the institution’s achievements. In the just concluded Regional STEP Skills Competition, Vengie Ygonia, a senior student extended as far as National STEP tilt as he grabbed the first place in Building Wiring Installation and so does with Jeffrey Dagooc who champed in Flower Pot Stand Making. Truly, STEP has been LVHS’s partner in shaping youth’s physical adroitness.
Carbon Dioxide lasers are being used at the maternity clinics at the unviersity hospitals in Lubeck and Mainz in West Germany to help childless couples. The laser is used to open up blocked Fallopian tubes, clearing the way from the ovaries to the uterus. The sensitive tube tissue is only 4 mm thick, and conventional surgery is both costly and by no means sure to succeed. The specially designed carbon dioxide laser is a much faster worker and immediately puts paid, by means of radiation, to any bleeding during the operation.
Bad news is bad indeed. Climate change is not a future problem rather it is a present problem. Climate change represents as one of the environmental, social, economic threats facing the planet. It is only a long term, significant change in the average weather that a given region experiences. Average weather may include average temperature, precipitation, and wind patterns. It involves changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over durations ranging from decades to millions of years.
If United States has apple to keep the doctors away, here in the Philippines, it’s the common malunggay (Horseradish Tree).
More than 800 million pounds of pesticides are used each year on crops. Government agencies announced joint proposals aimed at reducing the use of pesticides on food crops.
The turtle's shell is really part of its skeleton. Some turtles have shells that are rounded. Others have shells that are flat. The shell is a bony box that protects a turtle from its enemies. When a water turtle gets into the water, it can paddle aound or zoom down into the water like a submarine, shell and all. Some turtles can pull in their hands, neck, legs and tail and close the shell tight when danger threatens.
The first printing press in the Philippines was established by the Dominican friars in Manila in the year 1953. That was 47 years before the appearance of the first printing press in the United States. The first printing press in Manila printed books by means of the old xylographic methos, that is, printing by using engraved woodblocks.
In 1602 Father Francisco Blancas de San Jose, with the help of Juan de Vera (Chinese Christian printer), improved the printing press by using the typographic method, that is, printing by means of movable types.
In 1608 Father San Jose transferred the printing press to Abucay, Bataan, where he was assigned as parish priest. In this town, he trained a young Filipino named Tomas Pinpin in the art of printing. In subsequent times the printing press was moved from place to place - from Abucay to Pila (Laguna), from Pila to Manila, from Manila to Bacolor (Pampanga), and from Bacolor back to Manila. It is still existing as the University of Santo Tomas Press. Truly, it is one of the oldest printing presses in the wolrd.
No machine, with perhaps the exception of the space station and space shuttle, typifiles our age more than the computer. Although the idea of a computer was conceived about 150 years ago by British scientist Charles Babbage, the construction of one did not become possible until electronics had been developed. The first computer was called "colossus" and was built in total secrecy in Britain in 1943 to crack enemy code messages. Since then, the arrival of the transistor and the increasing miniaturization of this and other electronic components, resulting in today's microchips, have resulted in ever smaller and more powerful computers.
Read more...
The Japanese are chewing their way through twelve billion pairs of throw away chopsticks a year. This, says Any Crump, a reporter of the third World Compass News Feature Agency of Luxembourg, amounts to the wood used in 12,000 average –sized family houses. Waribashi, the disposable wooden chopsticks common used in Japan, have conservationist up in arms. The thousands of tons of wood that Japan’s 120 million throw out after each meal is making a quite a dent in the world’s forests, they say. The Japanese demand for wood, says Crump, has been largely responsible for the destruction of half the hardwood forest in the Philippines in about one-third of the forests in Indonesia. Japanese conservationists are now urging dinners to refuse to accept waribashi and instead to use their own non-disposable chopsticks.
Reading a book is one of the most popular ways of enjoying yourself. Some people read just for the fun and relaxation a book gives them. Others read to acquire information and improve their minds. A few read special books in history, science, or stamp collecting because it is their hobby. Students usually read to become acquainted with the best writers whose thoughts or stories have become a part of our language. Very often, students read certain books to increase their knowledge of science or history, or some subject in which they make a career.
Can you write a review of a book or tell a friend why or why not he should read it? If you will follow this few rules, you can easily help someone to decide to read or not to read a book.
1. State the author or title. The jacket of the book will usually tell you whether the author has written other books, whether he is English or American or some other interesting facts dealing with his life.
2. Tell what kind of a book it is: story, travel, biography, science.
3. Tell the principal parts of the story, but do not give away the ending if there is a plot. To take away the suspense by telling the ending is to spoil the story for anyone else.
4. Describe the main characters so that the reader will know more about them.
5. If there is something unusual about the story, give our readers about it.
6. Tell why you like or dislike the book.
The power to remember what you have learned is a skill which many people never acquire. Don’t you admire a classmate who can recite without hesitation what he has read in a chapter or entire book? A public speaker must remember not only important ideas in his speech, but also the exact words of important quotations or passages. Actors must learn by heart parts of an entire play. These persons have learned well the skill of memorizing.For many years, the Department of Agriculture has been warning people who prepare food that they should not cut food on a wooden surface. The best thing to use, the Agriculture official said, was a piece of plastic. However, new research says is safer than plastic. Scientists were surprised to discover the almost 100% of the bacteria died almost immediately. The publication Organic Gardening reports that when the researchers put the same kind of bacteria on a plastic cutting board, none of them died. The report says the bacteria could not be removed from the plastic even with soap and hot water.
Read more...
When we blush we get red in the face, particularly in the cheeks and neck. This is because a sudden emotion, such as embarrassment, a sense of shame or pleasure, causes the very small blood vessels just below the surface of the skin to become larger. When these blood vessels are full of blood, the skin looks red.
Laughter exercises the heart, improves circulation, and gets rid of excess air in the lungs.
In the early days of track and field competition some of the American teachers who had been assigned to the Philippine Public Schools were former college athletes and those who were proficient in their specialized eventes competed in the open championships. These, and others who were enthusiastic followers of sport, trained and developed many of the Filipino track and field athletes. L.D. Hinman, former University of Illinois miler and coach of the Cebu High School, competed in the mile run in the 1911 open championships; C.E. Lucas, principal of Malolos High School of Bulacan, and Walker, a teacher of the Bureau of Education, in the 120-yard high hurdles in 1911 and 1918 respectively. Copeland, also of the Bureau of Education, in the running broad jump in 1917; and I. Cohen, coah of the Manila High School, in the penthlon in 1914. Water Buckish, principal of Bacolod High School and later Director of Private School, George Summers, Assistant Director of Education, and L.D. Hinman, were responsible for having developed many of the outstanding Filipino track athletes in the early days.
© Blogger template Brownium by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009
Back to TOP
