Whoa. The MLA has officially devised a standard format to cite tweets in an academic paper. Sign of the times.
(via thedailyfeed)
Random Thoughts
happy lantern festival 元宵节快乐!
it’s the 15th day of chinese new year, last day for celebration. it’s also known as the chinese valentine’s day.
have fun and may the new year be prosperous for everyone. =)
More on the Chinese Lantern Festival by Somewhere in the world today…
(via somewhereintheworldtoday)
Look away if you are squeamish, this one’s not for the faint hearted!
The Hindu festival of Thaipusam is about faith, endurance and penance. It’s a highly colourful, event which can stretch for 3 or 4 days and is in honour the Hindu God, Lord Murugan. On the day of the festival, devotees will cleanse themselves, shave their heads and undertake a pilgrimage along a set route whilst carrying various types of kavadi (burdens) as an act of devotion to Murugan. At its simplest this may entail carrying a pot of milk, but piercing of the flesh (mostly tongue or cheeks) with vel skewers or spears is also common.
More on Thaipusam by Somewhere in the world today…
(Source: journeyismyhome)
College tuition has soared in the past 20 years — and so too has the number of paper pushers. According to an analysis by The Daily, the proportion of administrators, managers and other nonteaching staff at America’s top 198 research universities shot up by 43 percent from 1993 to 2010.
Much of the growth came from universities and colleges adding a broad array of professionals, including loan counselors, coaches, social workers, technology experts, doctors and dentists.
“The reason for it is, essentially, mission creep,” said Jay Greene, head of the department of education reform at the University of Arkansas. “Universities have extended far beyond their traditional set of responsibilities of trying to produce and disseminate knowledge and have become essentially nonprofit conglomerates with fingers in a variety of activities, businesses and services — and those cost a ton of money.”
‘snow mean feat to build ice sculptures on this scale!
The Sapporo Snow Festival is one of Japan’s most impressive winter events with huge glittering ice sculptures transforming the city of Sapporo into a magical winter wonderland.
More on the Sapporo Snow Festival by Somewhere in the world today…
Picture: Sapporo Snow Festival 2009 by paulbanday, on Flickr
New Reason for Mothers to Breastfeed
Lars Bode, PhD, assistant professor in neonatal medicine and pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at UC San Diego School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, recently published a study in GUT, the official journal of the British Society of Gastroenterology, showing that human milk oligosaccharides (HMO) significantly lowered the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis.
Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is one of the most frequent and often fatal intestinal disorders in premature infants. Up to 5% of all premature infants with a very low birth weight develop NEC. More than a quarter of them die from this devastating disease and the survivors are often faced with severe long-term complications. Why and how NEC develops remains poorly understood and treatment is limited, surgical removal of the necrotic intestine often being the last option.
According to previous studies, breast-fed infants are at a 6- to 10-fold lower risk of developing NEC than formula-fed infants.
“Human milk oligosaccharides are complex sugars that are highly abundant in human milk, but not in infant formula,” said Bode. “Previous studies had suggested that HMOs affect the infant’s immune system as well as the composition of bacteria in the infant’s gut; both seem to be involved in the development of NEC.”
In the GUT research paper, Bode and colleagues found that out of the more than 150 oligosaccharides that are unique to human milk, a single oligosaccharide, Disialyllacto-N-tetraose (DSLNT), is responsible for the beneficial effects of lowering the risk of NEC in neonatal rats. In addition, the published results show that galactooligosaccharides (GOS), which are currently used as HMO-like oligosaccharides to supplement infant formula, have no effect on NEC in neonatal rats.
In discovering the correlation between DSLNT levels and its impact on reducing NEC in neonates, the study also suggests that low DSLNT concentrations in the mother’s milk might become a non-invasive biomarker to identify breast-fed infants at risk to develop NEC.
“While supplementing infant formula with DSLNT might protect the formula-fed infant from NEC, it is still an incredibly expensive and highly complex process,” said Jae Kim, MD, PhD, medical director for the SPIN – Supporting Premature Infant Nutrition – program at UC San Diego Health System. “Human milk is often the primary dietary source for the first few months in life. It contains all the nutrients necessary for the infant to thrive, but also ingredients such as HMO that may provide health benefits beyond those of traditional nutrients.”
“Our ultimate goal is to encourage mothers to breastfeed their infants. People always think we do basic research with the goal to develop new drugs, but increasing the rate of breastfeeding would help the most,” says Bode.ABOUT SPIN at UC San Diego
Premature infants who receive human breast milk have the best outcomes – medically, nutritionally, and developmentally. Within the Neonatology Division at UC San Diego’s Department of Pediatrics, the Supporting Premature Infant Nutrition (SPIN) program was developed to address the challenges of helping mothers produce sufficient breast milk for their premature infants, and to improve the manner in which neonatal intensive care unit (NICUs) support optimal nutrition and growth in their most vulnerable population of patients.
Are we born liberal and conservative? If you ask psychologist Mike Dodd and political scientists Kevin Smith and John Hibbing, all professors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the answer is an unequivocal YES.
Since 2008, the trio has been studying how certain biological traits might influence political ideology. They believe their most recent findings show there might be a biological explanation for why liberals and conservatives can’t see eye to eye.
“The bottom line is this: Liberals and conservatives are different. They have different preferences, different attitudes, different behaviors, and that’s a fact,” Smith said. “What we’re interested in is why they’re different.”
A good excuse to throw beans at your Dad! Oni ha soto, fuku ha uchi! (demons out, good fortune in!)
Mamemaki (bean scattering) is one of the rituals performed at temples and shrines on Setsubun. People jostle around to attempt to grab these beans to receive good fortune. People also throw beans out of their front doors, shouting “”oni ha soto, fuku ha uchi” which means “demons out, good fortune in!” Sometimes the father of the household will wear a demon mask and the children will chase him and throw beans at him.
More on Setsubun by Somewhere in the world today…
maiko Ryouka throwing lucky beans at Setsubun
Hadaka ni narimashou! (Let’s get naked!)
During Kounomiya Hadaka Matsuri thousands of barely clothed men line the streets of Inazawa City, Aichi, Japan, in the hope of touching a completely shaved and totally naked man (or Shin-otokoa) as he passes through the city streets on his way to the Kounomiya Shrine. Shinto tradition believes that the Shin-otokoa absorbs all bad luck and evil deeds from the men who touch him.
More on Kounomiya Hadaka Matsuri by Somewhere in the world today…
Picture: Hadaka Matsuri by .A.G.M., on Flickr
China natuur (by ChillieBillie)
