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Thursday, December 5, 2024
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Sea World takes heavy hits

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Sea World announced on Friday, that it will build new, larger environments for its whales and will fund in additional research on animals along with a program to protect ocean health and whales in the wild. The company’s shares have dropped significantly since they made their stocks public last year. Sea World has been heavily criticized recently because of a documentary called “Blackfish” which focuses on the death of a SeaWorld trainer who died as a result of aggression from the whale. The documentary suggests that captivity is not suitable for whales, they prefer their natural habitat and since their pools are inadequate in size they become aggressive towards each other. The captivity also makes them more susceptible to violence towards humans. Since the release of the documentary, many entertainers have pulled out of planned performances at Sea Worlds parks. Sea World’s longtime partnership with Southwest Airlines is ending too and the company reported disappointing second-quarter financial results.

 

Sea World claims that under its new announcement it will build a tank with 10 million gallons of water at its San Diego park, with a depth of 50 feet. This new environment will be called the Blue World Project, and it will include more stimulation for the whales like fast water currents to swim against. The facility will be open to public in 2018 after which Sea World will start to make changes in other states. The company reported the cost to be hundreds of millions of dollars but no specifics were mentioned.

”Blackfish” director Gabriela Cowperthwaite complained that these changes are inadequate to please the public and neither will the improve the lives of the whales. She explained that whales are aggressively bred in captivity, separated from their family and consequently fight constantly for dominance. She makes the suggestion the people are upset because whales are not meant for captivity. She also suggests that Sea World should make oceanic sanctuaries which will allow the whales to live out their lives in a natural environment.

The entire community loves Arthur, 94 year old

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St. John is a 94 years old man who is one of the part time workers of the  Strathm Market Basket. He is now a senior employee due to the 22 years of services he had consecrated to that store.

On Thursday he went happily since it was his salary day, but he never expected the incident which happened to him. He received his salary check of only $7.166 which was quite surprising for him.

The store owner asked him not to come to the store next week due to the protest going on over the dismissal of Arthur T Demoulas, the chief executive. The combat going over the chief executive has disturbed his entire house.

An online fundraiser has been organized by Bonnie Gervais and his son Christian after they discovered the tragic story of St. John. People donated more than the expectation of Gervais and Christia and after some hours the bank account of that fund was filled with thousands of dollars.

Gervais is a part time worker of the same store he along with his son handed over the check to St. John. Though both of them work in Market Basket but it was the first time when Gervais met John. He cried twice in that meeting and told them that this money would help him in paying his bills.

Mostly, the regular customers of Market Basket were the people who donated money for John. They really appreciated the services of John.

Climate in a warming world

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Presently, people are so used to of global warming that most of them have not experienced the below average cooler temperature of the Earth. 1985 was the last time when the temperature of the Earth fell.

Soon people will expect a rise in temperature of Earth with heat waves since the government has no intentions to take serious measures in order to trim down the green house effect.
Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization in an interview said that since the last three decades the global and regional temperature rose to such a great extent that people who are under 30 have never enjoyed a single day without global warming.

Moreover, he stated that the change in climate looks very slow from a human perspective, merely when it comes to scientific  evaluation its occurrence is extremely rapid. Therefore, there ought to be a continuous reminder of this risk.

Granting to the report of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), February 1985 was the last time the temperature went lower than the average temperature of the 20th century.

Currently, the expected age of the population of the world is 29.4 years, which means for the total population of Earth 7.2 billion who have never experienced the lowest temperature of Earth.

People are habitual of this constant change in climate as stated by Thomas Peterson, President of WMO commission of Climatology.

Climate in a warming world

By Leave a Comment

Presently, people are so used to of global warming that most of them have not experienced the below average cooler temperature of the Earth. 1985 was the last time when the temperature of the Earth fell.

Soon people will expect a rise in temperature of Earth with heat waves since the government has no intentions to take serious measures in order to trim down the green house effect.

Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization in an interview said that since the last three decades the global and regional temperature rose to such a great extent that people who are under 30 have never enjoyed a single day without global warming.

Moreover, he stated that the change in climate looks very slow from a human perspective, merely when it comes to scientific  evaluation its occurrence is extremely rapid. Therefore, there ought to be a continuous reminder of this risk.

Granting to the report of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), February 1985 was the last time the temperature went lower than the average temperature of the 20th century.

Currently, the expected age of the population of the world is 29.4 years, which means for the total population of Earth 7.2 billion who have never experienced the lowest temperature of Earth.

People are habitual of this constant change in climate as stated by Thomas Peterson, President of WMO commission of Climatology.

High rise in Re-hospitalization of Lupus Patients

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A study recently shows that patients with lupus disease are getting re-admitted just after a month of discharge with the ratio of 1 is to 6 hospitals.

The reason of readmission is the dreadfulness of the disease. Dr.  Jinoos Yazdany , lead researcher and associate professor of medicine at the University of California , San Francisco addresses this issue by saying that re-hospitalizations could be lessened  by  some improved strategies and providing better health care services.

Lupus is a persistent which damages any part of the body. In this disease, there is a severe damage in the immune system.  Research and studies are unable to answer underlying causes of it, but there is evidence that though drugs are available to conceal the immune system and control lupus but with side effects.

Few of the things associated with Lupus are the following:

Women are more likely to get Lupus 10 times more than men.

Affects lower socioeconomic groups, racial and ethnic minorities

Environmental, biological, psychosocial and even health care are few of the factors.

Major concern above all is the infection caused by the same drugs which is used for healing the disease so that lupus can’t invade the body also cuts down the person’s strength to beat off viral and bacterial infections.

 

The data shows 16.5 patients were brought to the hospitals again after 30 days of admission.

“If you have more signs of lupus infected badly then you are likely to be treated with more advanced immunosuppressant which will increase the chances of infection,” said Dr. Joan Merrill, medical director of the Lupus Foundation of America and Head of Clinical pharmacology research at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.” It is going to heighten your risk of re-hospitalization, and if by any chance the treatment goes wrong then there can be an organ failure.”

In fact, more serious disease was due to readmission in the hospitals. Condition led to readmission is: low blood platelet count; kidney inflammation; an inflammation of the linings of the organs.

Others noticeable thing was Black and Hispanic patients were seeing re-admitted more than white people comparatively which shows a discrimination or unequal service regarding health care.

Yazdany added that there is more to educate people on Lupus disease and managing the patients who are suffering with it.

Wikipedia fights for the rights of monkey selfie

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Wikipedia has arranged a public vote to find out who owns the rights of the photograph of macaque monkey. The picture was taken from the camera of  David Slate when a monkey grabbed his camera and started taking selfies. Slate is an Indonesian wildlife photographer.

The chief dispute is over the prerogatives of this photograph. Wikipedia requests the masses to determine who is the official proprietor of this photograph since Slate claims that he reserve all the rights of this picture. On the other hand, Wikipedia believes that the person who annex the picture holds all the rights therefore, in this case monkey has the rights of it.

Nevertheless, Stale stated that  Wikipedia put obstructions in the way of his income by fighting over the rights of one of his most popular pictures. Now everything is in the hands of the public, if the masses say that the rights belong to monkey then Stale would not be able to put allegations on the company.

Significant Increase in online shoppers

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The growth in online shopping demonstrates the impact of the  digital economy on our routine lives. Lately, a survey has recorded that three quarters of Britons shop through cyberspace. This three quarters Britons are almost 76 percent of the entire population, which means 38 million people.

In 2006 a study by the Office of National Statistics showed that a sum of 2 million people goes online daily for shopping. Whereas in 2008 the proportion was almost 54 percent, but this time the ratio of  the masses has increased remarkably.

 

The major reason behind this escalation in the figure is the increase in the usage of internet in our daily lives which has altered the habits of customers. Nowadays, the internet plays a vital role in every aspect of life, whether its news, movies, games, banking etc.

According to the statistics, in 38 million people, mostly buy sports goods, furniture, toys, travel arrangements and clothes online. The most interesting thing the survey has revealed is that man purchase things from internet more as compare to the woman. The ratio of man went 3 percent higher to 75 percent than the woman who stood at 75 percent. These men and woman are generally are of age 25 to 34. This age group is the one who perform their daily activities on the internet for instance banking or selling things etc.

Mathematical Equation to Predict Happiness

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Thinkers have pondered over the meaning of true happiness for ages and great men from all fields of science and philosophy have tried to figure out how to achieve happiness. Wouldn’t life be a lot simpler if there was a mathematical formula for happiness? Well, it turns out that researchers at University College London have figured it out:
Picture1

Hmm, usually when things seem too good to be true, its because they are and that is somewhat the case in this situation as well. The reason is that this mathematical equation doesn’t explain how to attain happiness in your particular situation. It can only predict how happiness levels fluctuate with respect to reinforcements or rewards in a particular game. The equation was built using 26 individuals playing a gambling game inside an f MRI machine. The game would lead to wins or losses and every few rounds participants would rate their happiness on a scale of 0 to 100 which was then correlated with their brain activity.
The interesting thing is, that the researchers discovered that expectations play a substantial role in determining our momentary happiness. So if a player expected a loss of $2 dollars and received $0, he/she would be far happier than if they won a $0 and expected to gain $2. This shows that happiness really isn’t about the tangible outcome but rather about exceeding expectations.

Once the formula was built the researchers tested it on 18,000 people who played a similar game through a phone app. The formula was correct in predicting their happiness fluctuations with each win and loss. The difficult question for us is, how do we apply these findings in our life? Well, the obvious implication would be to have low expectations. However researchers also stress that expecting the worst isn’t great either since a negative outlook on life is detrimental to our well-being. Perhaps what one should do is expect less from depersonalized, societal issues including politics and have modest and realistic expectations when it comes to personal matters.

The formula may be adequate in predicting emotional outcomes to games but one should entertain the idea that perhaps that is all it is. Since the formula aims to reduce incredibly complex emotions to a bunch of numbers. The reductionist view often gives us an apparently clear picture of the scenario but it is rarely ever the whole picture.

Despite efforts Ebola vaccine will take until 2015

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Officials say, that it is incredibly difficult to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus before 2015. In the meantime though, the FDA has authorized the use of an unapproved Ebola virus test under a special emergency use provision.

The Zaire strain of Ebola, for which the unapproved test has been authorized has infected at least 1711 people and killed 932 in West Africa. FDA spokesperson Stephanie Yao said that the test is designed for use in specific individuals like the Department of Defense personnel and respondents who may be at a huge risk of infection in the case of an outbreak.

Initial symptoms include flu-like signs, vomiting, muscle aches, weariness and a fever. However as the virus multiplies it damages the cells that line the blood vessels and results in patients bleeding and can cause organ failure. Experts have confirmed that in the latest Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the disease has managed to kill roughly 55% of those infected.
FDA is reported to have said that it is working with other government agencies to speed up the development of potential Ebola treatments.

The experimental vaccine that is the most promising at the moment is the one designed by the Vaccine Research Center, an arm of the National Institutes of Health. Dr Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease says that they have tested the drug on monkeys and the results are quite promising. Clinical trials are expected to begin in September, during that time the researchers are trying to assess if the vaccine will be safe for humans and whether it will trigger a protective response from the immune system. Human test subjects unlike the animal subjects, will not be actually infected with the virus to determine the effectiveness of the drug. The Department of Defense is also working with a company called Newlink to come up with a vaccine for the Ebola virus while Biocryst is working to develop an antiviral drug to treat Ebola with NIH support.

Mathematical Equation to Predict Happiness

By Leave a Comment

Thinkers have pondered over the meaning of true happiness for ages and great men from all fields of science and philosophy have tried to figure out how to achieve happiness. Wouldn’t life be a lot simpler if there was a mathematical formula for happiness? Well, it turns out that researchers at University College London have figured it out:
Picture1

Hmm, usually when things seem too good to be true, its because they are and that is somewhat the case in this situation as well. The reason is that this mathematical equation doesn’t explain how to attain happiness in your particular situation. It can only predict how happiness levels fluctuate with respect to reinforcements or rewards in a particular game. The equation was built using 26 individuals playing a gambling game inside an f MRI machine. The game would lead to wins or losses and every few rounds participants would rate their happiness on a scale of 0 to 100 which was then correlated with their brain activity.
The interesting thing is, that the researchers discovered that expectations play a substantial role in determining our momentary happiness. So if a player expected a loss of $2 dollars and received $0, he/she would be far happier than if they won a $0 and expected to gain $2. This shows that happiness really isn’t about the tangible outcome but rather about exceeding expectations.

Once the formula was built the researchers tested it on 18,000 people who played a similar game through a phone app. The formula was correct in predicting their happiness fluctuations with each win and loss. The difficult question for us is, how do we apply these findings in our life? Well, the obvious implication would be to have low expectations. However researchers also stress that expecting the worst isn’t great either since a negative outlook on life is detrimental to our well-being. Perhaps what one should do is expect less from depersonalized, societal issues including politics and have modest and realistic expectations when it comes to personal matters.

The formula may be adequate in predicting emotional outcomes to games but one should entertain the idea that perhaps that is all it is. Since the formula aims to reduce incredibly complex emotions to a bunch of numbers. The reductionist view often gives us an apparently clear picture of the scenario but it is rarely ever the whole picture.

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