Are we all descended from a common female ancestor?

In 1987, a group of genet­icists published a surprising study in the journal Nature.­ The­ researchers examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) taken from 147 people across all of today's major racial groups. These researchers found that the lineage of all people alive today falls on one of two branches in humanity's family tree. One of these branches consists of nothing but African lineage, the other contains all other groups, including some African lineage.
­Even more impressive, the geneticists concluded that every person on Earth right now can trace his or her lineage back to a single common female ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago. Because one entire branch of human lineage is of African origin and the other contains African lineage as well, the study's authors concluded Africa is the place where this woman lived. The scientists named this common female ancestor Mitochondrial Eve.

(via Guy Kawasaki)

Mindblowing asttronomical relativity

Most of us have an idea of the relative size of the planets and sun, 
but it's rather dazzling to see it presented this way.

(via Guy Kawasaki)

To appreciate, first acknowledge

“Sawu Bona” is a South African greeting which literally means, “I see you.” Its deeper meaning is “because you are there, I exist,” that “without each other, we literally do not exist.” Imagine what your workplace would be like if this acknowledgment was genuinely sent and received on a daily basis.

Appreciation is  a key ingredient for a thriving workplace, but one that is undervalued by many organizations. This is the conclusion from countless management experts and research projects. In “How Full is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life,” Tom Rath and Donald Clifton said that the main reason most North Americans leave their jobs is that they don’t feel appreciated. They also noted that 65% of Americans say they receive no recognition at work.

Work Smart: 3 Useful Things You Didn't Know Your Cameraphone Could Do

Having a camera built into your phone isn't a big deal anymore. But when you combine that camera with the rich software applications that run on devices like the iPhone and Android, you get lots of cool new ways to put your cameraphone to good use.

Cameraphones are becoming a form of digital photographic memory, helping you remember what level you parked on or the label on that fantastic bottle of wine. Now, with the right apps, you can also use your phone to scan barcodes and store them, and even translate and recognize text. 

Barking up the wrong tree

Results revealed that mimickers and mimickees became more affectively attuned to each other due to bidirectional influences of mimicry. Additionally, both mimickers and mimickees reported more feelings of having bonded with each other and rated the interaction as smoother.

Stem Cells Restore Sight in Mouse Model of Retinitis Pigmentosa

ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2010) — AnThis strategy could potentially become a new treatment for retinitis pigmentosa, a leading cause of blindness that affects approximately one in 3,000 to 4,000 people, or 1.5 million people worldwide.

Young Superheroes in a Hut

Why is Africa poor?
Is it a legacy of colonial exploitation? Tropical diseases and parasites? Or is it that local mammals, like the zebra and the African elephant, were difficult to domesticate and harness in agriculture?
There’s truth in each of these explanations. But a visit to Zimbabwe highlights perhaps the main reason: bad governance. The tyrannical, incompetent and corrupt rule of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, has turned one of Africa’s most advanced countries into a shambles.

In a village less than a day’s drive from Victoria Falls, I stumbled across a hut that to me captured the country’s heartbreak — and also its resilience and hope. The only people living in the hut are five children, orphans from two families. The kids, ages 8 to 17, moved in together after their four parents died of AIDS and other causes.
The head of the household is the oldest boy, Abel, a gangly 10th grader with a perpetual grin. He has been in charge since he was 15.

Chinese Boy does Whitney Houston: "I will always love you";

Doctors and Patients, Lost in Paperwork

This article documents the metamorphosis of doctors into documenters, often to the detriment of both the patient and doctor, in the current health care environement in the U.S.
Uvealblues

Paperwork, or documentation, takes up as much as a third of a physician’s workday; and for many practicing doctors, these administrative tasks have become increasingly intolerable, a source of deteriorating professional morale. Having become physicians in order to work with patients, doctors instead find themselves facing piles of charts and encounter and billing forms, as well as the innumerable bureaucratic permutations of dozens of health insurance companies.
(..)

The Claim: For Better Muscle Tone, Go Lighter and Repeat

For better tone, try fewer reps and more challenging weights.

What's Life Like For the More Than 1 Billion in the World Who Are Hungry? One Woman Decided to Find Out for Herself

This is a very impressive and potentially rewarding journey upon which Ms. Pepper is embarking...

Uvealblues

 

Editor's Note: On March 20, Kenda Swartz Pepper began "21 Days for World Hunger," an experiment to try for 21 days to live like the over 1 billion people around the world who are hungry. Below is her first post, you can scroll to the end for the links to her most recent posts along the way.

1.02 billion people in the world go hungry every day according to theFood and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. That’s 1,020,000,000 people.  I was tempted to round down and write 1 billion people in the world go hungry every day.  It dawned on me that I would be doing a monumental disservice to .02 billion people.  That’s 20,000,000 people.  Children.  Mothers.  Fathers. 20,000,000.  Slightly more than the entire population of Florida.  Ignoring that number would be like disregarding the entire state of Florida.  In some ways, it’s easier for me to focus on the 20,000,000 instead of the total 1.02 billion, because I cannot even conjure a picture in my head of 1.02 billion people.  I have no point of reference.

(..)

In honor of world hunger, I am going to engage in potentially curious behaviors.  I have decided that for the next 21 days I’m going to eat – to the best of my knowledge and ability – like those who are living with hunger. I think I’m most nervous about this Souljourn, because I know it will entail pangs.  If you recall, that scares me.  But again, I won’t pretend to know what it’s like to be starving or malnourished.  I know there is food available if my resolve breaks.  This is an intentional experiment thus creating the confounding factor that I will still likely never have the experience of knowing the real fear of real hunger.  For this, I am grateful.

(..)

Burden not yourself with the suffering of others.
Acknowledge not the presence of anguish in the world.
Ask not the truth.
Fear not the consequences of inaction.
Believe not in the worth of each hungry soul.
Give not of yourself for the common good.
Exist not in the presence of peace.
Want not.
Be Not.
See Not.
Do Not.

Why Not.

-kasp

100 meters of existence

This is a very cool  100 meter long montage of 127 people shot in the same place over the course of 20 days...
It evokes the uniqueness of time, place, and societal connectivity with existential solitude in a unique way in my opinion
...similar to the  feeling I experienced when I first visited the Vietnam memorial in D.C.
Kudos to the creativity of the photographer..Simon Hoegsberg
Uvealblues


(via photojojo)

New Studies Eat Into Diet Math

How many calories must a dieter cut to lose a pound?

The answer most dietitians have long provided is 3,500. But recent studies indicate that calories can't be converted into weight through a simple formula.

The result is that the 3,500-calorie rule of thumb gets things very wrong over the long term, and has led health analysts astray. Much bigger dietary changes are needed to gain or shed pounds than the formula suggests.

Consider the chocolate-chip-cookie fan who adds one 60-calorie cookie to his daily diet. By the old math, that cookie would add up to six pounds in a year, 60 pounds in a decade and hundreds of pounds in a lifetime.

But new research—based on studies of volunteers whose calorie consumption is observed in laboratory settings, rather than often-unreliable food diaries—suggests that the body's self-regulatory mechanisms tamp down the effects of changes in diet or behavior. If the new nutritional science is applied, the cookie fiend probably will see his weight gain approach six pounds, and then level off, pediatrician David Ludwig and nutrition scientist Martijn Katan wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association earlier this year. The same numbers, in reverse, apply to weight loss.

Visually-Impaired Students Touch the Stars in Special Hubble Image

Ronaldinho's Top 10 Goals

Soccer Freestyle!

Millionaires who gave it away

Interesting and inspiring stories here...
Uvealblues

Here are a half-dozen individuals who have found that the highest and best use of their wealth is in helping others. 

Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see

Atul Gawande on checklists

I am a huge fan of checklists. Here, Dr. Gawande, explains the rationale and benefits of checklists in medicine.
Uvealblues

Red Wine Helps Cardiovascular Health, But Is It the Alcohol or Something Else?

Two studies show different results on the source of wine's heart health benefit.(..)

Previous studies suggest that red wine is responsible for improved blood flow, which helps keep the heart and the body in better health, but whether that's due to polyphenols or alcohol, or both, is still unclear. A study from the Research Laboratories at the Catholic University of Campobasso, Italy, claims the alcohol, not the antioxidants, helps prevent another heart attack or stroke.

(..)

"Our research highlights another crucial issue: Drinking has not only to be moderate, but also regular," said co-author and university epidemiologist Licia Iacoviello in a statement. "Moderate consumption spread along the week is positive. The same amount of weekly alcohol, concentrated in a couple of days, is definitely harmful."

 (..)

A study conducted at the University of Surrey, England, published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, suggests that alcohol may not be the only factor, however. A research team found that people who drank a kind of simulated wine—alcohol mixed with red grape juice—during mealtime showed several markers of improved cardiovascular health. Those who drank just water did not see the same levels of improved blood flow. Those who drank just grape juice saw slightly lower benefits.