Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Minbari Mondays, and Two Lessons in “Messages from Earth” (B5:s3e8) About Language Learning!!

Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

       This week we are trying to find ways to be happy about the fact that Ranger Mayann is prohibited from writing to us from Minbar. 

    This week’s lessons:

          1.  Writing by hand can be very helpful.

          2.  Learning to read a text in the original language is important.

 

            So, Delenn and Lenier, in an ironic take  on the Earth-Minbari War, take Sheridan back to his home space in a gorgeous new Minbari warship, while Ivanova gets a surprise breakfast that she really didn’t expect from Marcus, who happens to be fighting for his life at that moment …

   Also, notice that G’Kar uses an old style quill pen, and an inkwell for his writing!

   “It must be read in it’s mother tongue or not at all.”

Thank you, G’Kar!!

BookGQuans3e1

  Let’s learn from this, and write, while learning languages for building community…

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On World Wildlife Day, the Animal Kingdom is not thriving

Petchary's Blog

There comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness . . . that time is now.

Wangari Maathai

Last week (March 3) was World Wildlife Day with the theme “Recovering Key Species for Ecosystem Restoration.” In Kenya, it was also Africa Environment Dayand Wangari Maathai Day– in honor of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, whose life and work is uniquely inspiring. Her daughter Wanjira continues her work and is very much focused on teaching youth. Her mother was not only a passionate environmentalist, but she also cared about vulnerable human beings, too, and advocated for them – and quite regularly got herself into trouble, being a political as well as social and environmental activist. She was discriminated against as a woman and told to be quiet by the Kenyan President Arap Moi. She was concerned about planting trees, through her

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Ler é um ato fascinante

Pensamentos.me/VEM comigo!

Todo amante da leitura sabe como ler algo fascinante. Ler inspira, nos faz conhecer infinitas possibilidade, e ainda relativa a importância de certos fatos, porque o ato de ler muda o nosso cérebro, digo ” a maneira de pensar, de vermos o mundo”.

Ler é gostoso. É tão bom que o nosso emocional fica horas sentindo aquela sensação prazerosa das “ideias filosofando na mente “. É o bem-estar que uma boa leitura nos provoca.

Quando pegamos um livro, não se absorve só as informações, mas a energia que muitas vezes dilui aquela sensação de ansiedade. Já sentiu isso? É tranquilizadora. Primeiro, você busca concluir cada capítulo por dentro, digo ” na sua forma de interpretar a história “. Em seguida, inspirando lentamente, solta o ar, olha para um lugar fixo, e se torna um modesto avaliador da mensagem que o autor desejou passar. (…) Quando percebe , nunca mais esquece…

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Violência Contra a Mulher

Pensamentos.me/VEM comigo!

” Mulher não é objeto “

Mulher não é objeto, nem pode continuar sendo tratada como se fosse. Evidente que, essa frase merece uma reflexão profunda. Principalmente, porque remete a ideia do marido submtê-las aos seus caprichos no casamento, e por serem economicamente dependente desses homens, elas obedeciam o chamado ” contrato tácito de troca” que se dava de diversas formas, dentre elas, cuidar da casa e servi-los sexualmente. Essa questão, tem uma ligação estreita com o patriarcado que determina o comportamento dessa mulher na sociedade. Em algumas culturas isso era bastante claro. Hoje, apesar de termos evoluído culturalmente e socialmente, e a mulher ter a sua independência financeira, ainda vemos muito a questão da objetificação da mulher principalmente em peças publicitárias.

A objetificação da mulher dar-se de muitas formas, a estética é uma delas. Se bonita, elogia-se, se feia, se costuma depreciar e hostilizar a sua imagem. A aparência…

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Connecting More Dots: Brain Shrinkage and Covid-19

scary – covid not like flu folks… mask up, vaccinate, get tested…

CRAIN'S COMMENTS

Spoiler alert: Houston, we have a problem.

Biobanks are repositories for human tissue and other test samples. There are a number of them around the world, with the content of each specific to the mission or focus of that particular facility.(1)

One of the ten largest is in UK. This Biobank holds brain scan information donated by 45,000 British individuals. What’s important about this database is that the information was collected prior to the Covid pandemic.

British researchers were able to obtain updated brain scans (MRIs) from 785 of the original contributors, including 401 who are known to have been infected with Covid-19. This allows them to compare before-and-after scans as well as compare those infected with those not infected. We can see any brain changes among those infected with Covid, and compare those changes with the impact of normal aging among the uninfected.

The post-infection MRIs were collected approximately…

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White House calls Florida advice against vaccinating healthy kids ‘deeply disturbing’ | TheHill

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday called it “deeply disturbing” for the Florida Department of Health to advise against vaccinating “healthy children” against COVID-19.

“Absolutely not,” Psaki said when asked if the Florida recommendation was a good policy. “Let me just note that we know the science. We know the data and what works and what the most effective steps are in protecting people of a range of ages from hospitalization and even death. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] and CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have already weighed in on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines for those 5 and older.”

“We also know through the data that unvaccinated teenagers are three times as likely to be hospitalized if they get COVID than vaccinated teenagers,” Psaki continued. “So it’s deeply disturbing that there are politicians peddling conspiracy theories out there and casting doubt on vaccinations when it is our best tool against the virus and the best tool to prevent even teenagers from being hospitalized.”

The state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, said the state “is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children.” The advice came at the end of a roundtable discussion on virus response.

Ladapo did not provide details such as who would qualify as a healthy child or go into the reasoning behind the decision.

Source: White House calls Florida advice against vaccinating healthy kids ‘deeply disturbing’ | TheHill

Avian Flu Diary: WHO/FAO/OIE Joint Statement On Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 In Wildlife & Preventing Formation of Reservoirs

#16,618

Although SARS-CoV-2 is incredibly well-adapted to humans, one of the topics we’ve revisited often over the past 2 years has been its spread to non-human hosts  (i.e. deer, mink, rodents, etc.) where the virus could conceivably take divergent evolutionary paths and produce new, potentially dangerous variants that could `spillback‘ into humans.

It’s not a farretched concern. In fact, we’ve already seen it happen (several times).

In the fall of 2020 SARS-CoV-2 jumped from humans to farmed mink in Denmark, and began to mutate into new mink-variants (see Denmark Orders Culling Of All Mink Following Discovery Of Mutated Coronavirus).

Several mutated viruses jumped back into humans, and began to spread in the community (see WHO 2nd Update: SARS-CoV-2 mink-associated variant strain – Denmark), forcing North Denmark To Lockdown Over Mutated Coronavirus Concerns.

 

Luckily, this emergency was relatively short-lived, as the Alpha variant emerged in Europe in late 2020 and quickly supplanted these mink-variants. But it did demonstrate the problem; carriage of SARS-CoV-2 by other host species can produce new variants, which can jump back into humans.

 
Fortunately, most farmed animals (pigs, chickens, cattle, etc.) are poor hosts for the SARS-CoV-2 virus – while dogs and cats appear only mildly susceptible – but biggest findings thus far have been in mink and North American White-Tailed Deer (WTD)…

Source: Avian Flu Diary: WHO/FAO/OIE Joint Statement On Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 In Wildlife & Preventing Formation of Reservoirs

The Invisible, Afflicted Spy Who Led the U.S. Army Into Occupied Manila – Atlas Obscura

Since the early days of the Japanese occupation, Guerrero had been walking, carrying messages for the Filipino resistance fighters. She ferried news tucked into her chignon—at least until the day a Japanese sentry pulled at her hair, threatening to dislodge her secrets—or tucked between two pairs of socks or secreted away in hollowed-out fruit that she carried in a street vendor’s basket. Guerrero, known to most as Joey, moved around the city and into the surrounding mountains more easily than most. As a woman, she was dismissed as frivolous and flighty. Japanese soldiers answered her seemingly idle questions about their fortifications—never suspecting she was meticulously mapping their garrisons.

Japanese troops march toward Manila in late December 1941. They would occupy the city for more than three years.
Japanese troops march toward Manila in late December 1941. They would occupy the city for more than three years. ULLSTEIN BILD DTL. / GETTY IMAGES

Guerrero also had another unexpected advantage: she was sick. Before the occupation, Guerrero had been diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy. The symptoms included headaches, fatigue, and tell-tale skin lesions. Before the invasion, Guerrero had been able to manage the disease, but medication was scarce in a country at war, and as she developed more noticeable lesions, she found herself shunned. Leprosy was misunderstood as a disease of the unclean and impure, and sufferers were cast out of society and expected to live in isolation; Guerrero had already been separated from her husband and daughter. The affliction kept most Japanese soldiers at bay, too. No one wanted to search her. “I’m a leper,” she’d cry if a sentry approached her.

Source: The Invisible, Afflicted Spy Who Led the U.S. Army Into Occupied Manila – Atlas Obscura