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Why Bloggers Write?
Writing is a Solo Pastime
There are some activities that we like to do with people. And then there are some activities that we like to do on our own. Some people get energy by working with other people. They are known as extroverts. And some people recharge their energy by spending time alone. They are known as introverts. Most people have both extroversion and introversion. It is just a matter of leaning towards one side or the other.
When we are in our introversion mode, writing is the perfect activity since it is a solo activity that is best done alone.
Writing Helps Practice Communications Skills
In order to write one must exercise their communication skills. This exercise hones and maintain one’s vocabulary and effective communication. It teaches us to write succinctly. It is more difficult to write succinct and precise. Sometimes we may be in a job where we are doing manual labor, or where the topic of conversation is within a narrow range of topics. By writing we expand our topic of conversation and broaden our range of topics to talk about.
For Money
And then there is the writing for money. Some blogger write on their site because they constantly need fresh content to generate page view. Pageview can be monetized by advertisement on the site such as Google AdSense.
But not always
However, that is not always the case. Some do not write for money. Leo Babauta is a blogger on a very popular ZenHabits.net. His site has no ads. Why does he write?
In his article, Finding Your Voice, he says that he writes a lot and that is because …
“This is almost all I need to say, as nothing else matters without the constant practice of writing a lot. Write blog posts and letters, booklets and diatribes, letters to the editor and book reviews, love poems and short stories, novellas and manifestos. The sheer mass of your writing becomes the raw matter from which to chisel your voice.”
Fun Facts About the Periodic Table of Elements
Each atom in the periodic table is unique and has an unique atomic number which indicates the number of protons that it has.
Scientific American has an periodic table that contains fun facts about each of the elements.
Another place to get info about the periodic table of element is WebElements. If you need more detailed info about the element, find it on Wikipedia.
University-Review.ca has a nice pictorial chart of the elements. If you have to remember all the elements for school, the pictures help you remember.
Infographic about Interesting Facts About Space
Via: OnlineSchools.org
National Geographic Memory Game
Try out the National Geographic’s Memory Game on their website. It tests your short-term memory by having you memory the location of 9 images in a grid.
Toxic Level of Vitamin A in Polar Bear Liver
Do not eat polar bear liver. At least not the whole thing in one meal. This is because it contains so much vitamin A that it becomes toxic. It contains a form of vitamin A called retinol. Vitamin A is one of those vitamins that one can overdose on.
But can a person die from it? Article on HowStuffWorks asks the question “Will I die if I eat polar bear liver?” It depends on how much is eaten. But it does report that early Western explorers suffered from “acute hypervitaminosis A” from eating polar bear liver. They became drowsy, sluggish, and irritable. They have pains in their heads and bone. They vomit and their vision blurred, and their skins flaked. The severe cases had hemorrhaging and entire skins peeled off. Some went into coma and died.[2]
Paper by Rodahl and Moore writes of vitamin A toxicity of bear and seal liver as experienced by Arctic explorers. It also tells of rodent experiments demonstrating some vitamin A toxicity effects in rats.[3]
HuffingtonPost says that …
“In fact, the way the Inuit used to kill explorers in the Arctic was to feed them polar bear liver, which gave them toxic doses of vitamin A”[4]
So yes, if one eats enough of it, one can die from it. Dr. Chopra says so on page 140 of his book “Dr. Chopra Says” …
“If eaten in one meal, polar bear liver can be deadly.”
How Much Vitamin A is toxic?
According to WebMd …
“Vitamin A is LIKELY SAFE for most people when taken by mouth in amounts less than 10,000 units per day”[5]
That is for adult that is. For children, it should be less. And it is also dependent on your age, gender, size, and physical condition.
But most likely and speaking generally, it would not become toxic until 25,000 to 33,000 IU per day is reached. [6] A polar bear liver contains 24000 to 35000 IU per gram.[7] So one gram of it is enough to be toxic.
Why Polar Bears Have So Much Vitamin A?
Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin. So it does not eliminate in urine. Instead it bio-accumulates in the fat of the liver. Many animals have vitamin A in their livers. Polar bears eats a lot of these animals (such as seals) and accumulate their vitamin A into their own liver.
References
[1] Vitamin A Toxicity
[2] Will I die if I eat polar bear liver? – HowStuffWorks.com
[3] The Vitamin A Content and Toxicity of Bear and Seal Liver
[4] Mark Hyman, MD: Vitamin D: Why You Are Probably NOT Getting Enough and How That Makes You Sick
[5] VITAMIN A: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings – WebMD
[6] Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University
[7] Vitamin A in Polar Bear Liver
So Many Types of Diet Books
Upon looking on Amazon, there are so many types of diet book out there. There are three categories of macro-nutrients that the body consume: fat, protein, and carbohydrates. And there are good and bad types of each of these. So different types of diets try to tweak different portions of these macro-nutrients.
Here are just some of the types of diet books found on amazon in no particular order. They are not recommendations and some may even be harmful. But you may find some good info in some. And not all diet is right for everyone.
Low-Fat Living
Living Low Carb
The 30-Day Low-Carb Diet Solution
The Mediterranean Diet
The South Beach Diet
The New Atkins for a New You
The Spectrum
The UltraSimple Diet
The Insulin-Resistance Diet
The Diabetes Diet
The Glycemic Load Diet
The Paleo Solution
The Dash Diet
The New High Protein Diet
The Metabolic Effect Diet
The Real Food Diet Cookbook
The Oil-Protein Diet Cookbook
The High Intensity Diet
The Flexitarian Diet
The Vegan Diet
The Vegetarian Low-Carb Diet Cookbook
Flat Belly Diet
The 10/60 Diet
The Dukan Diet
Easy HCG Diet
The G.I. Diet
The New Detox Diet
The Carb Lovers Diet
The Raw Food Diet Plan
The Fat Resistance Diet
The Fat Burning Diet
The False Fat Diet
The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Diet
The Mayo Clinic Diet
The PCOS Diet Plan
The Full Plate Diet
The 17 Day Diet
Crazy Sexy Diet
The Hormone Diet
The No S Diet
The Thyroid Diet
The Beck Diet Solution
The Kind Diet
Dr. Gott’s No Flour, No Sugar Diet
Presidents age twice as fast when in office
According to Cleveland.com, Dr. Michael Roizen speculates that “presidents get two years older for every year they’re in office” [reference]
This is probably due to stress of the job rather than living at the white house. It is well known that stress shortens the cell’s telomeres which is an indication of cellular aging.
What is the Ebbinghaus Illusion?
An example of the Ebbinghaus illusion is where the perception of the orange circles below appears to be smaller in the left diagram than in the right diagram, when in fact the two orange circles are exactly the same size.
Even after you measured the size of the circles and have confirm and know cognitively that they are indeed the same size, your mind’s automatic perception system still cannot help but see the left circle as being smaller. The best that you can do is to be aware that in certain situations your perceptions can be fooled. This way, the next time you and encounter such a similar situation, your conscious mind can alert you to not trust your perception due to the fact that what you are seeing may be flawed.
There are many other visual and cognitive illusions in which our minds can be fooled. By being aware of the types of illusions will help us be aware of situations in which our minds can be fooled. The book
The Ebbinghaus illusion was named after the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus who discovered it. The illusion is also called the Titchener circles.
Pupils dilate under complex mental computation
Did you know that your pupils will dilate when you are doing complex mental computation? Yes, this is according to Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Examples of mental computation would be if you had to increment each of the digits of a 4-digit number by 1. Or if one is trying to hold number in one’s head.
Some psychology experiments would measure a subjects pupil dilation as an indication of the amount of thinking the subject is undergoing.