The Olive Oil Hair Treatment

The Olive Oil Hair Treatment

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Olive oil isn’t just for cooking — it’s great for your hair, too! Olive oil has been proven to give hair a healthy sheen, help to repair split ends, and reduce frizz.
To give your hair a conditioning treatment, massage about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into your hair and scalp. The amount you’ll use should vary depending on the length and thickness of your hair. And remember to massage it in well – the massaging feels really nice on your scalp, but is also important to the treatment, as massage stimulates helps promote a healthy scalp.
Next, take a warm, damp towel and wrap it around your head and treated hair (“turban” it). Leave it on for about 30-45 minutes. This allows the olive oil to work into your hair to have the full effect.

Finally, rinse out the olive oil with shampoo. This might take a few shampoo-ings (when I tried it, it took 2 rounds.) Give your hair further rest by allowing it to air dry, if you have the time. Then say hello to your luscious locks!

http://www.collegefashion.net/beauty-and-hair/dorm-room-spa-3-easy-diy-beauty-recipes-to-try/

10 Bad Habits That Can Harm Your Teeth

10 Bad Habits That Can Harm Your Teeth

Common Dental Health Troublemakers

Do you crunch on ice or clench your jaw? Stop — you could be damaging your teeth. In fact, you should nix all 10 of these dental health no-nos.

By Krisha McCoy, MS

Medically reviewed by Niya Jones MD, MPH

Are you wrecking your teeth without even knowing it? If you suck your thumb or suck on lemons, you’re doing your pearly whites wrong. And did you know that biting your nails is not only bad for your fingers, it can actually hurt your teeth, too?

While some of these dental health“don’ts” can do immediate damage to your teeth (by cracking or breaking them), the effects of others may add up over time, harming your dental health in the long run. So put all 10 of these bad habits to rest — for your teeth’s sake.

Thumbs Down on Thumb Sucking

Children who still suck their fingers or thumbs after their permanent teeth start coming in — usually around the age of 5 or 6 — could be causing permanent changes that affect tooth and jaw structure. Specifically, thumb sucking can cause a misalignment of the teeth, explains Richard Price, DMD, a retired dentist from the Boston area who is a consumer advisor and spokesperson for the American Dental Association. This misalignment can lead to a number of issues, including difficulty chewing and breathing problems — so help wean your child off his thumb.

Lay Off the Lemons

People who suck lemons may be putting their dental health in jeopardy. Why? Lemons are very acidic, says Elisa Mello, DDS, a cosmetic dentist at NYC Smile Design in New York City. "The acidity corrodes the enamel [of the teeth]." Repeated exposure to acidic substances can cause tooth enamel to erode, creating a rough texture on the surface of your teeth, adds Dr. Price.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/dental-health-pictures/bad-habits-that-can-harm-your-teeth.aspx#/slide-3

Don't Brush Too Hard

Brushing your teeth regularly is part of good oral hygiene, but if you brush too vigorously, you can cause more harm than good. Brushing your teeth too hard can wear down enamel, irritate your gums, make your teeth sensitive to cold, and even cause cavities. To avoid these problems, Price recommends using a soft bristled toothbrush. "Just look for the letters ADA [American Dental Association] on the box, which means the bristles are firm enough to remove plaque, but soft enough not to cause damage," he advises.

Refrain From Jaw Clenching and Tooth Grinding

For some people, stress can trigger frequent clenching of the jaw or grinding of the teeth. "There is a severe amount of pressure on your teeth when you do that, and you can get microfractures or actual fractures in your teeth," warns Dr. Mello. Microfractures are weakened areas in your teeth that puts them at risk for further damage. Jaw clenching or tooth grinding can also damage dental work.

Do You Crunch on Ice? Cool It

Ice cubes may seem harmless, but Price has these words of advice: "Beware of the killer cube." The cold temperature and the hardness of ice cubes can cause seriousdamage to your teeth. "Our teeth are designed to crush through things, not against something," says Mello. Even though crunching ice with your teeth may be easy, keep in mind, says Price, that "your blender needs special blades to crush ice."

Your Teeth Are Not a Tool

Many people use their teeth to break off a tag on clothing, rip open a package of potato chips, or even unscrew bottle tops. But according to Price, teeth are meant to help us do three things: Chew food, speak properly, and look better when we smile. "Teeth are not pliers, teeth are not hooks," he says. Using your teeth as a tool is a threat to dental health and can damage dental work or cause your teeth to crack.

Don't Park Your Pencil Between Your Teeth

Some people have a habit of holding objects — such as pens, pencils, or eyeglasses — between their teeth when concentrating on a difficult task. But they might not realize how much pressure they’re placing on their teeth as they bite down on a non-food object, says Mello. Biting on a pen or a similar object can cause your teeth to shift or even crack. "[It can also] break existing dental work that you have in your mouth," warns Mello.

Boycott Nail Biting

Biting your nails doesn't just harm the appearance of your hands — it can also damage your teeth and become an oral hygiene issue. "People who bite their nails usually do it chronically," notes Mello. Regularly biting your nails can cause your teeth to move out of place. In addition, nail biting could potentially cause teeth to break or tooth enamel to splinter.

Say No to Soda

Always have a soda on hand? Carbonated drinks can be bad for your teeth, because they tend to be very acidic. "Even if it's diet, the acidity of [soda] is just corroding your enamel," Mello says. The effects of soda on teeth are even worse if you slowly sip it over a long period of time. "People don't realize they are bathing their teeth in acid for an hour," she adds. The acidity in soda can lead to dental health problems such as decay around your gum line and loss of enamel.

How Do Carbonated Bevarages Effect Teeth? Dr. Erik Svans explains that the main problem with any type of soda — regular or diet — is the acidity, rather than the sugar.

Use Toothpicks Carefully

When used properly, toothpicks can help keep the areas between your teeth clean. "If you do it carefully, [using toothpicks] is helpful," says Mello. "If you don't, you are going to hurt your gum tissue." So be careful not to get too aggressive with that toothpick in your quest for oral hygiene. According to Mello, nothing you do to your teeth or gums should ever hurt — if it does, it may be damaging your teeth.

Home Remedies for Food Poisoning  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jn7-QONMNs

Most of us have suffered through food poisoning at one time or another. Food poisoning is caused by bacteria or other toxins in food. Some of the symptoms are nausea, vomiting, headache, dizziness, abdominal cramps and diarrhea. Food poisoning should not be ignored.
When you are suffering from food poisoning, your body will lose more water than normal. So try to stay well hydrated by drinking at least eight glasses of water throughout the day. The water will help flush out the toxins and bacteria causing your symptoms. Along with water, you can also drink diluted fruit juice and broth. You can also start treatment immediately with simple and readily available ingredients from your kitchen.
Here are the top 10 home remedies for food poisoning.

1. Ginger

   Ginger is an excellent home remedy for curing almost all types of digestive problems related to food poisoning.
   
   • You can drink one cup of ginger tea after eating lunch or dinner to stop heart burn, nausea and other symptoms associated with food poisoning. To make ginger tea, boil one teaspoon grated ginger in a cup of water for a few minutes, add sugar and your tea is ready
   • Add a few drops of ginger juice to one teaspoon of honey and swallow it several times a day to reduce inflammation and pain.
   • Eating raw ginger increases the acid level in your stomach, which will help you digest your food more quickly.

2. Apple Cider Vinegar

   Due to its alkaline nature, apple cider vinegar can alleviate various food poisoning symptoms. Apple cider vinegar will soothe the gastro-intestinal lining and kill the bacteria, giving you instant relief.
   
   • Just mix two tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a cup of hot water and drink it before eating any solid food to prevent acid indigestion.
   • Alternatively, you can drink two tablespoons of undiluted apple cider vinegar.

3. Fenugreek Seeds and Yogurt

   Yogurt is another anti-bacterial agent that can counter attack the bacteria that cause food poisoning. You can take one teaspoon fenugreek seeds along with a tablespoon of yogurt. You just need to swallow the seeds and need not chew them. The combining effect of fenugreek seeds and yogurt will give you an immediate relief from stomach pain as well as vomiting.

4. Lemon

   The anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antibacterial properties in lemons can give you much relief. The acid in lemons helps kill bacteria that cause food poisoning.
   
   • Just add a pinch of sugar to one teaspoon of lemon juice and drink it two to three times a day.
   • You can also sip on warm water with lemon juice to clean out your system.

5. Basil

   Basil is an excellent herb that can cure infections caused by food poisoning. You can get the benefits from basil in several ways.
   
   • Drink basil juice witha tablespoon of honey several times a day.
   • Put a few drops of basil oil in one liter of drinking water. Drink it slowly throughout the day to kill bacteria causing stomach pain and other problems.
   • Add basil leaves, some sea salt, and a pinch black pepper to three tablespoons of plain yogurt. Eat this three to four times a day until your symptoms are gone.

6. Garlic

   Garlic is also very effective in fighting food poisoning due to its strong antiviral, antibacterial and antifungal properties. It relieves symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain by destroying unhealthy microbes in the intestines.
   
   • Eat one fresh garlic clove, swallowing it with water. If you can tolerate the smell of garlic, you can also try garlic juice.
   • Alternatively, you can make a mixture of garlic oil and soybean oil and rub it on your stomach after eating.

7. Banana

   Bananas are a rich source of potassium that greatly helps reduce the various effects of food poisoning. Because bananas are very soft,they are easy on the stomach. Eating just one banana will also help restore your energy level. You can simply eat a ripe banana or make a tasty and healthy banana shake and drink it two to three times a day.

8. Cumin

   Cumin seeds can control stomach inflammation due to food poisoning.
   
   • Just crush one tablespoon of cumin seeds and swallow it, then drink a glass of water.
   • You can also make an herbal drink from cumin seeds, salt, and asafetida. Drink it two to three times a day. This will cleanse the system and relieve your symptoms.

9. Herbal Tea

   Sipping on different types of herbal tea can help soothe your disturbed system and keep your body well hydrated. Peppermint tea has a soothing effect on your stomach and can relieve stomach cramps. Comfrey root and meadow sweet tea will treat your stomach infection. If you are experiencing nausea, try licorice tea or chamomile tea as these teas will reduce inflammation and calm your stomach.

10. Honey

    Honey has both antifungal and antibacterial properties that can be effective for treating indigestion and other food poisoning symptoms. Honey as a natural remedy can be taken in its pure form or added to tea. A teaspoon of honey three times a day can do wonders to heal an upset stomach due to food poisoning and indigestion. It also controls the formation of excessive acid in the stomach.

These natural treatments are sure to alleviate the symptoms of food poisoning and help you get instant relief. However, if symptoms continue, consult a doctor immediately.

http://www.top10homeremedies.com/home-remedies/home-remedies-for-food-poisoning.html

The Evil Brain: What Lurks Inside a Killer’s Mind

As tragedies like Boston and Newtown mount, scientists and criminologists are trying harder than ever to understand the minds behind the crimes

By Jeffrey Kluger

Homicidal madmen don’t have much of a capacity for gratitude, but if they did, they’d offer a word of thanks to Charles Whitman. Whitman was the 25-year-old engineering student and former Marine who, in 1966, killed 17 people and wounded 32 in a mass shooting at the University of Texas, before being shot and killed himself by police. Earlier that day, he also murdered his wife and mother. Criminal investigators looking for a reason for the rampage got what seemed to be their answer quickly, in the form of a suicide note Whitman left at his home:

Read more: Evil Brains: Can Science Understand Them? | TIME.com http://science.time.com/2013/05/03/evil-brain/#ixzz2kluOU52O

"I do not really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I cannot recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts … please pay off my debts [and] donate the rest anonymously to a mental-health foundation. Maybe research can prevent further tragedies of this type." Whitman

Whitman got his wish — after a fashion. With the approval of his family, an autopsy was conducted and investigators found both a tumor and a vascular malformation pressing against his amygdala, the small and primitive region of the brain that controls emotion. A state commission of inquiry concluded that the tumor might have contributed to the shootings, earning Whitman a tiny measure of posthumous redemption — and providing all killers since at least the fig-leaf defense that something similar might be wrong with them too.
For as long as evil has existed, people have wondered about its source, and you don’t have to be too much of a scientific reductionist to conclude that the first place to look is the brain. There’s not a thing you’ve ever done, thought or felt in your life that isn’t ultimately traceable to a particular webwork of nerve cells firing in a particular way, allowing the machine that is you to function as it does. So if the machine is busted — if the operating system in your head fires in crazy ways — are you fully responsible for the behavior that follows?

Even before Whitman made it into the medical texts, scientists were already familiar with the case of Phineas Gage, the 25-year-old railroad worker who, in 1848, was helping to blast a path for a new rail line in Vermont when an errant explosion drove an iron rod into the top of his head, through his left frontal lobe and out his cheekbone. Gage, incredibly, didn’t die and nor did he even exhibit much loss of function. But after the bar was removed, there was a sudden change in his personality. Always a peaceable man, he become volatile, combative and, after a lifetime of polite speaking, wildly profane. It was science’s first glimpse at the seemingly direct cause-and-effect connection between trauma to the brain and the very essence of personality. As our ability to image and repair the brain has improved, we’ve been able to detect far less obvious damage than a railroad spike through the skull — damage that nonetheless has every bit as great an effect.

In a celebrated 2003 case published in the Archives of Neurology, for example, a 40-year-old Virginia schoolteacher with no history of pedophilia developed a sudden interest in child pornography and began making sexual overtures to his stepdaughter. His wife reported his behavior, and he was arrested and assigned to a 12-step program for sex offenders. He flunked out of the course — he couldn’t stop propositioning staff members — and was sentenced to prison. Only a day before he was set to surrender, however, he appeared in a local emergency room with an explosive headache and a range of other neurological symptoms. Doctors scanned his brain and found a tumor the size of an egg in the right orbitofrontal cortex, the region that processes decisionmaking and other so-called executive functions. The tumor was removed and the compulsive sexuality vanished along with it. Less than a year later, the tumor returned — and so, almost in lockstep, did his urges.
“There’s no one spot in the brain for pedophilia,” says Stephen J. Morse, professor of both law and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. “But damage to the orbitofrontal region is known to be associated with disinhibition. We know that various forms of brain damage can contribute to difficulties in being guided by reason.”

Other, more recent studies are finding roots of criminality in other parts of the brain. As Maia Szalavitz reported in April, a team of researchers led by Kent Kiehl, associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico, published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which the brains of 96 male felons sentenced to at least a year in jail for crimes including robbery, drug dealing and assault were scanned in a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI). While they were in the fMRI, the men performed a task that required them to hit a key on a computer when they saw the letter X on a screen, but refrain when they saw the letter K. Since the X appeared 84% of the time and since the two letters look awfully similar to begin with, it was easy to get into the habit of overclicking. The ability to avoid hitting the key too much calls for a measure of impulse control, a faculty processed in a region of the brain known as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The inmates who did worse on the test turned out to have lower levels of activity in the ACC; the ones who performed better had higher levels. Kiehl tracked all of the inmates for four years after their release from prison and found that those with the sleepy ACCs were also more than four times likelier to be rearrested than the others. If you can’t control your impulse to click, the study suggested, you might have equal difficulty controlling the impulse to run afoul of the law.
“There are more papers coming out that show how MRIs predict who reoffends,” said Kiehl in a follow-up e-mail with TIME. “We are examining treatments that increase activity in the anterior cingulate. The goal is to see if we can help identify the best therapies to reduce recidivism.”

Koenigs, who has collaborated with Kiehl, has conducted other work with inmates linking both the amygdala and a region known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex as possible accomplices in crime. The amygdala is the wild child of that pair, the brain’s seat of fear, suspicion, anger and more. Those are not always bad emotions, provided the ventromedial is able to do one of its assigned jobs, which is to keep the amygdala on a short leash. Working with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Koenigs was given access to two groups of volunteer prisoners at a medium-security facility: one diagnosed as psychopathic, one nonpsychopathic.
In the first of two tests, Koenigs scanned the men’s brains with a diffusion tensor imager, a type of MRI that detects how water molecules interact with tissue. In this case, he was trying to determine the soundness of the white matter — the fatty insulation — that protects the neural circuits connecting the ventromedial and the amygdala. In a second test, he used an fMRI to study more directly how clearly the two regions were communicating. In both cases, the brains of the psychopaths were in worse shape than those of the nonpsychopaths, with less robust white-matter insulation and the nerves beneath it doing a poorer job of transmitting signals.
“You can use the findings of this study as a proxy for the connectedness between these two structures,” Koenigs says. “The remorselessness and violence seen in psychopaths may be attributable to the regions not communicating effectively.”

Other studies make a similar case for the mechanistic roots of crime. Enzymes known as monoamine oxidases (MAO) are essential to keeping human behavior in check, breaking down neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine and ensuring that the brain remains in chemical balance. Babies born with a defect in an MAO-related gene — known colloquially as the warrior gene — have been shown to be at nine times higher risk of exhibiting antisocial behavior later in life. Adrian Raine, professor of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, has found that infants under 6 months old who have a brain structure known as a cavum septum pellucidum — a small gap in a forward region between the left and right hemispheres — are similarly likelier to develop behavioral disorders, and face a higher risk of arrest and conviction as adults as well.
All of this makes the case for a neurological role in many violent crimes hard to deny, but all of it raises a powerful question too: So what? For one thing, brain anomalies are only part of the criminal puzzle. A rotten MAO gene indeed may play a role in later-life criminality, but in most cases it’s only when children have also been exposed to abuse or some other kind of childhood trauma. A child with a stable background and bad genetics may handle his warrior impulses just fine. Koenigs may have found cross-talk problems between the ventromedial and the amygdalae of psychopaths, but he also acknowledges that he didn’t get a look at the men’s brains until they were, on average, 30 years old, and a lot could have gone on in that time. “They’ve had a lifetime of poor socialization, drugs, alcohol, they’ve had their bell rung,” he says. “You don’t know what causes what.”
Even the case of the pedophile schoolteacher, whose pathology switched cleanly off and cleanly on depending on the presence of his tumor, was less clear than it seems. “He touched his stepdaughter only when his wife was not around, and his wife and co-workers had not noticed any problems,” says Morse. “Clearly he had some control or some rational capacity. You can’t say that just because the tumor caused him to have pedophiliac desires, he wasn’t responsible.”
That’s the zone in which science and the law always collide — the causation question that can’t simply be brain-scanned or tissue-sampled or longitudinally tested away. People like Morse believe where once we attributed all crime to moral laxity or simple evil, we’ve now overcorrected, too often looking to excuse criminal behavior medically. “I call it the fundamental psycholegal error,” he says. “The belief that if you discover a cause you’ve mitigated or excused responsibility. If you have a bank robber who can show that he commits crimes only when he’s in a hypomanic state, that does not mean he deserves excuse or mitigation.”
Koenigs takes a more forgiving view: “I’ve been part of a Department of Justice project to help inform judges about how to assess culpability,” he says. “The legal system currently goes about it the wrong way, relying on whether criminals know right from wrong. Maybe they do, but the kinds of things that would then give most people pause just don’t register on some of them.”
Where the two camps do agree is on the need to keep society safe from the predations of people whose raging brains — no matter the cause — lead to so much death and suffering. Here legal theory yields a little more easily to hard science. Scanning every inmate’s ACC before making parole decisions will surely raise privacy issues, but if the science can be proven and perfected, isn’t there a strong case for trying it — especially if, as Kiehl suggests, it might lead to therapeutic and rehabilitative strategies? Babies taken from abusive parents might similarly be scanned as part of a routine medical check, just in case a telltale gap in the brain hemispheres could exacerbate the trauma they’ve already endured, making therapeutic intervention all the more important.
Evil is far too complex and far too woven into our natures for us to think that we can always adjudicate it fairly. But the better we can understand the brains that are home to such ugliness, the more effectively we can contain it, control it and punish it. Now and then, with the help of science, we may even be able to snuff it out altogether.


Read more: Evil Brains: Can Science Understand Them? | TIME.com http://science.time.com/2013/05/03/evil-brain/#ixzz2klwBQODw

Dolphin meat - Who eats dolphin meat?

First up, dolphin meat (イルカ肉) is pretty bizarre even by Japanese standards, and second, Taiji is a hurting fishing town smack dab in the middle of nowhere that's gotten a lot of bad press thanks to The Cove.

 http://www.thecovemovie.com/FAQRetrieve.aspx?ID=37078

Who eats dolphin meat?

Much of the dolphin meat sold around Japan is actually mislabeled or sold as counterfeit whale meat from larger a whale, which sells for far more money than dolphin meat. Hundreds of samples of dolphin meat tested from around Japan has all been shown to be toxic and far exceeds their own ministry of health recommendations. Some internal organ meat for sale at the Okura markets near Taiji was analyzed to have 5000 times more mercury than the health advisory of 0.4 ppm.

The oceans around industrialized countries such as China, Japan and the United States is some of the most polluted in the world and the dolphins residing in those waters are some of the most toxic in the world. For instance, if fish has more than 2 ppm (parts per million) of PCB’s, the EPA requires that it not be fit for human consumption. Bottlenose dolphins off the East Coast of the United States can have up to 6800 ppm and if one washed up on the shores it would be eligible for clean-up as a super-fund site.

'Don't blame obese people for being fat', the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence warms 

DOCTORS have been warned not to blame obese patients for being fat, under new health guidelines in the UK.

The Telegraph reports that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) wants doctors to refer obese patients to "lifestyle weight management" programs like WeightWatchers, but only if the schemes can change their behaviour for good rather than provide a "quick fix".
These people should be "respectful and non-blaming" in order to "minimise harm", it said.
They should also explain to patients "how much motivation and commitment" is needed to complete weight management schemes and that enrolling on one will not be a "magic bullet".
About a quarter of adults in England are classes as obese, and a further 41 per cent of men and 33 per cent of women are overweight.
Obesity is estimated to cost the the UK's NHS about 5.1 billion pounds each year.
Nice has previously asked doctors to avoid using the word "obese" because it can be a derogatory term.
"I think [the issue] is the wording. Doctors have not got to be patronising, but they have got to form their words very carefully in order to not alienate patients," Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum told the Telegraph. "Doctors are terrible at bringing up the subject of weight because it is such a sensitive issue with patients...but once the doctor has got the confidence of a patient, then their duty is to start to toughen it up and explain what the consequences are."

 http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/dont-blame-obese-for-being-fat-the-national-institute-for-health-and-care-excellence-warms/story-fneuzlbd-1226741350871

 

Family Planning