Ramanisblog

Tag: bloglines

  • Why isn’t the world supporting the democratically elected government of Iran ?

    Reason is that excepting the US and UK, rest of the world feels Iran is being unfairly targeted by both US and UK for their own geo political interests..Another reason is that like Muammar Qaddafi and Hugo Chavaz ,President of Iran is seen as a man who challenges US openly which most of the world’s leaders would like to do but are not or can not.

    Anti-government protests in Tehran over the weekend have left at least eight people dead and over 300 people arrested.

    The bloody images splattered across the world’s media say it all. This is Iran’s next revolution in the making say Des Pardes .

    For other’s it’s the start of civil war.

    Broadly speaking, the tone of the editorials is one of supporting the plucky protesters over the “ruthless” Ahmedinejad regime.

    The President himself insists the country is “united”, but just because many outside Iran find his views and statements unpalatable, why is there such unflinching support for the demonstrations ?

    So should the world step in or stay out ?
    Roger Cohen believes it’s time to opt for inertia.

    ‘The west must not respond with the sledgehammer of sanctions whose message is “our way or the highway”. Rather, it must borrow an Iranian lesson: inertia. When the Berlin Wall came down, Francis Fukuyama famously predicted “the universalisation of western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”. In Iran now, many of the forces of 1989 are present, but the reformists’ quest is not for something “western”.’

    This piece in Forbes suggests the regime is in its final days anyway.

    The Tretnonian agrees adding that it’s only a matter of time before democracy comes to Iran

    And last week the Iranian opposition rival Mehdi Karroubi told the Times that “The challenges in this country should be solved by its own people.”

    So is the best thing that the West can do for Iran is learn from the revolutions of 1989 and do absolutely nothing?

    Why isn’t the world supporting the democratically elected government of Iran ?

  • Cinnamon and Honey-medical properties.

    Cinnamon and Honey

    Honey is the only food on the planet that will not spoil or rot. It will do what some call turning to sugar. In reality honey is always honey. However, when left in a cool dark place for a long time it will do what I rather call “crystallizing” .

    When this happens I loosen the lid, boil some water, and sit the honey container in the hot water, off the heat and let it liquefy. It is then as good as it ever was.

    Never boil honey or put it in a microwave. To do so will kill the enzymes in the honey.

    Facts on Honey and Cinnamon:

    It is found that a mixture of honey and Cinnamon cures most diseases.. Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a ‘Ram Ban’ (very effective) medicine for all kinds of diseases.

    Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases.

    Today’s science says that even though honey is sweet, if taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm diabetic patients.

    Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada , in its issue dated 17 January,1995 has given the following list of diseases that can be cured by honey and cinnamon as researched by western scientists:

    HEART DISEASES:
    Make a paste of honey and cinnamon powder, apply on bread, instead of jelly and jam, and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also, those who have already had an attack, if they do this process daily, they are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada , various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalize the arteries and veins.

    ARTHRITIS:
    Arthritis patients may take daily, morning and night, one cup of hot water with two spoons of honey and one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder. If taken regularly even chronic arthritis can be cured. In a recent research conducted at the Copenhagen University , it was found that when the doctors treated their patients with a mixture of one tablespoon Honey and half teaspoon Cinnamon powder before breakfast, they found that within a week, out of the 200 people so treated, practically 73 patients were totally relieved of pain, and within a month, mostly all the patients who could not walk or move around because of arthritis started walking without pain.

    BLADDER INFECTIONS:
    Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder.

    CHOLESTEROL:
    Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of Cinnamon Powder mixed in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a cholesterol patient, was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood by 10 percent within two hours. As mentioned for arthritic patients, if taken three times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured. According to information received in the said Journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.

    COLDS:
    Those suffering from common or severe colds should take one tablespoon lukewarm honey with 1/4 spoon cinnamon powder daily for three days. This process will cure most chronic cough, cold, and clear the sinuses.

    UPSET STOMACH:
    Honey taken with cinnamon powder cures stomach ache and also clears stomach ulcers from the root.

    GAS:
    According to the studies done in India and Japan, it is revealed that if Honey is taken with cinnamon powder the stomach is relieved of gas.

    IMMUNE SYSTEM:
    Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and protects the body from bacteria and viral attacks. Scientists have found that honey has various vitamins and iron in large amounts. Constant use of Honey strengthens the white blood corpuscles to fight bacterial and viral diseases.

    INDIGESTION:
    Cinnamon powder sprinkled on two tablespoons of honey taken before food relieves acidity and digests the heaviest of meals.

    INFLUENZA:
    A scientist in Spain has proved that honey contains a natural ‘ Ingredient’ which kills the influenza germs and saves the patient from flu.

    LONGEVITY:
    Tea made with honey and cinnamon powder, when taken regularly, arrests the ravages of old age. Take four spoons of honey, one spoon of cinnamon powder, and three cups of water and boil to make like tea. Drink 1/4 cup, three to four times a day. It keeps the skin fresh and soft and arrests old age. Life spans also increase and even a 100 year old, starts performing the chores of a 20-year-old.

    PIMPLES:
    Three tablespoons of honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon powder paste. Apply this paste on the pimples before sleeping and wash it next morning with warm water. If done daily for two weeks, it removes pimples from the root.

    SKIN INFECTIONS:
    Applying honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts on the affected parts cures eczema, ringworm and all types of skin infections.

    WEIGHT LOSS:
    Daily in the morning one half hour before breakfast on an empty stomach, and at night before sleeping, drink honey and cinnamon powder boiled in one cup of water. If taken regularly, it reduces the weight of even the most obese person. Also, drinking this mixture regularly does not allow the fat to accumulate in the body even though the person may eat a high calorie diet.

    CANCER:
    Recent research in Japan and Australia has revealed that advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully. Patients suffering from these kinds of cancer should daily take one tablespoon of honey with one teaspoon of cinnamon powder for one month three times a day.

    FATIGUE:
    Recent studies have shown that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being detrimental to the strength of the body. Senior citizens, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are more alert and flexible. Dr. Milton, who has done research, says that a half tablespoon of honey taken in a glass of water and sprinkled with cinnamon powder, taken daily after brushing and in the afternoon at about 3:00 P.M. when the vitality of the body starts to decrease, increases the vitality of the body within a week.

    BAD BREATH:
    People of South America, first thing in the morning, gargle with one teaspoon of honey and cinnamon powder mixed in hot water, so their breath stays fresh throughout the day.

    HEARING LOSS:
    Daily morning and night honey and cinnamon powder, taken in equal parts restores hearing. remember when we were kids? We had toast with real butter and cinnamon sprinkled on it!

  • A Headache That Didn’t Go Away

    I have relative of mine,about 50, who had difficulty in vision. Ophthalmologist advised him to wear glasses.By chance he happened to see a GP who informed him his case was not one of vision ,but of eye balls about to pop out and he immediately rushed to Specialty hospital where he was diagnosed with a disorder that has resulted in his eyeballs being held only by 40%.He was immediately operated upon and he is recovering.
    Moral-better seek second opinion .Sometimes, though cynical it may sound , it may again be not 100% correct.Sometimes there are as many opinions as there are doctors.What are we to do?
    Valerie Novak fervently wished doctors would stop telling her the intense headache she’d endured for several weeks was a migraine. For one thing, neither the Georgetown University senior nor her close relatives had headaches, and migraines are frequently familial. None of the increasingly potent drugs doctors prescribed was doing much good. And the 22-year-old had lost 15 pounds in three weeks from bouts of severe vomiting.

    “I was so frustrated and upset,” recalled Novak of her ordeal last summer, which involved consultations with half a dozen doctors, several trips to area emergency rooms and two hospitalizations. Novak, who had always been healthy, said she feared the unrelenting pain in her left temple and associated symptoms were something “I’d have to live with for the rest of my life.”

    Her mother, Kathy Novak, a nurse practitioner in Bowie, was similarly skeptical of the diagnosis but grateful that doctors had ruled out more ominous possibilities, such as a brain tumor. When her middle daughter began complaining about double vision, Kathy took her to an ophthalmologist. His judgment led to an accurate diagnosis that had nothing to do with migraines but was instead a rare complication of a common item listed on Novak’s medical records. Left untreated, it might have killed her……………….

    Back home with her parents, unable to go to class, Novak recalled that her “eyesight was getting wonky, with really, really weird double vision.” Alarmed, her mother made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, hoping he might have an explanation that didn’t involve migraines.

    After dilating Novak’s eyes, the eye specialist immediately spotted something alarming: Her optic nerves were dangerously swollen. “This is not a migraine,” he told Novak. “You have increased intracranial pressure.”

    The unrelenting headache as well as the numbness, tingling and vomiting were caused by a rise in pressure in the brain. The condition, which can result from a head injury or meningitis, is considered a medical emergency; increased pressure caused by a buildup of fluid can permanently damage the central nervous system by restricting blood flow to vessels that supply the brain. In Novak’s case, the double vision was caused by pressure on her cranial nerve.

    The ophthalmologist’s first thought, given Novak’s age and history, was pseudotumor cerebri, a rare condition sometimes called a false brain tumor, that affects women between ages 20 and 45. Valerie’s illness had nearly all the hallmarks but lacked one critical variable: She was not overweight or obese, as are most of those with the condition.

    The ophthalmologist immediately sent Novak to Greenbelt neurologist Roger Whicker. She immediately began taking a drug to reduce the pressure and underwent another MRI and other testing, which revealed the actual cause of the illness and changed the diagnosis to sagittal sinus thrombosis, or SST, caused by a blood clot in her brain.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/02/AR2009020202209_2.html

  • Acacia plant controls ants with chemical

    In Africa and in the tropics, armies of tiny creatures make the twisting stems of acacia plants their homes.
    Aggressive, stinging ants feed on the sugary nectar the plant provides and live in nests protected by its thick bark.
    This is the world of “ant guards”.
    The acacias might appear overrun by them, but the plants have the ants wrapped around their little stems.

    Acacias… have very open flowers, but still, the ants don’t seem to go on to them. We wanted to know why.
    These same plants that provide shelter and produce nourishing nectar to feed the insects also make chemicals that send them into a defensive frenzy, forcing them into retreat.
    Nigel Raine, a scientist working at Royal Holloway, University of London in the UK has studied this plant-ant relationship.
    Dr Raine and his colleagues from the universities of St Andrews, Edinburgh and Reading in the UK and Lund University in Sweden have been trying to work out some of the ways in which the insects and the acacias might have co-evolved.
    He explains how the ants provide a useful service for the acacias.
    “They guard the plants they live on,” said Dr Raine. “If other animals try to come and feed on the rich, sugary nectar, they will attack them.”
    In Africa, one type of ant-guard, known as Crematogaster , will even attack large herbivores that attempt to eat the plant.

    Ants will fiercely guard their acacia homes
    “If a giraffe starts to eat the leaves of an acacia that is inhabited by ants, the ants will come out and swarm on to its face, biting and stinging,” says Dr Raine.
    “Eventually, the giraffe will get fed up and move off.”
    In the New World tropics, the Pseudomyrmex genus of ants fulfil a very similar guarding role.
    For both species, the acacias provide little, reinforced structures that the ants hollow out and nest within, as well as sugar-rich nectar for them to eat.
    “In return, both groups of ants protect their host plants from herbivores – both hungry insects and larger [animals],” explains Dr Raine.
    Give and take
    That is the plus side for the plants. But being inhabited by aggressive insects could make one important aspect of a plant’s life difficult – flowering.
    Flowers need to be pollinated so the plant can reproduce. So what stops the ants from attacking the helpful little pollinators or stealing all the tasty nectar that attracts them?
    “Some plants do this structurally, with physical barriers to stop ants getting on to the flower, or sticky or slippery surfaces that the insects can’t walk on,” said Dr Raine.
    “Acacias don’t have these barriers. They have very open flowers, but still, the ants don’t seem to go on to them. We wanted to know why.”
    One clever approach by the plant is a food “bribe”. “Extrafloral nectaries” are small stores of nectar on stems, from which the inhabitants can feed without going on to the flowers.
    Acacias also produce structures called beltian bodies on the leaf tips.

    Ants protect the leaves from large herbivores
    These, Dr Raine explains, are nutritious structures produced by the plant to feed its resident colony of ant-guards.
    But when this isn’t enough, it is a case of chemical warfare.
    Flowers can produce a variety of chemicals. We can smell some of the volatile organic compounds they release when we sniff our favourite summer bloom.
    But there is a more manipulative side to these scents.
    Floral volatile compounds can act as signals – drawing in pollinators such as bees and hummingbirds in with their irresistible aromas.
    To the ants, however, they are far from irresistible.
    “The flowers seem to produce chemicals that are repellent to the ants,” said Dr Raine. “They release these particularly during the time when they’re producing lots of pollen, so the ants are kept off the flowers.”
    In recent studies, described in the journal Functional Ecology, Dr Raine and his colleagues found that the plants with the closest relationships with ants – those that provided homes for their miniature guard army – produced the chemicals that were most effective at keeping the ants at bay.
    “And that was associated with the flower being open,” he says. “So the chemicals are probably in the pollen.”

    A bribe: Plants provide “nectaries” on their stems

    When the pollen has all been taken away – by being brushed on to the bodies of hungry pollinators and helpfully delivered to other plants – the flowers become less repellent.
    “So at this point, the ants can come on to the flowers and can protect them from other insects that might eat them, so that the developing seeds aren’t lost,” he explains.
    Dr Raines’ team was able to test this using young flowers that had just opened and that contained lots of pollen.
    The scientists wiped them on older flowers and on the acacia’s stems.
    This showed them that the effect was “transferrable” – the stems and older flowers that had been wiped became more repellent.
    “It gives this really neat feedback system – the plant is protected when it needs to be protected, but not when it doesn’t.”
    Selective deterrents
    The repellent chemicals are specific to the ants. In fact, they attract and repel different groups of insects.
    “[The chemicals] don’t repel bees, even though they are quite closely related to ants. And in some cases, the chemicals actually seem to attract the bees,” says Dr Raine.
    The researchers think that some of the repellents that acacias produce are chemical “mimics” of signalling pheromones that the ants use to communicate.
    “We put flowers into syringes and puffed the scent over the ant to see how they would respond, and they became quite agitated and aggressive” he explained.
    “The ants use a pheromone to signal danger; if they’re being attacked by a bird they will release that chemical that will quickly tell the other ants to retreat.”
    Dr Raine says this clever evolutionary system shows how the ants and their plants have evolved to protect, control and manipulate each other.
    The ants may be quick to swarm, bite and sting, but the harmless-looking acacias have remained one step ahead.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383577.stm

  • The decade in news photographs.

    http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/the_decade_in_news_photographs.html