More than 1,000 years ago, a goatherd in Ethiopia south-western highlands plucked a few red berries from some young green trees growing there in the forest and tasted them. He liked the flavor and the feel-good effect that followed. Today those self-same berries, dried, roasted and ground, have become the world second most popular non-alcoholic beverage after tea. And, as David Beatty discovers in words and pictures, the Ethiopian province where they first blossomed Kaffa “ gave its name to coffee.
The story of coffee has its beginnings in Ethiopia, the original home of the coffee plant, coffee arabica, which still grows wild in the forest of the highlands. While nobody is sure exactly how coffee was originally discovered as a beverage, it is believed that its cultivation and use began as early as the 9th century. Some authorities claim that it was cultivated in the Yemen earlier, around AD 575. The only thing that seems certain is that it originated in Ethiopia, from where it traveled to the Yemen about 600 years ago, and from Arabia it began its journey around the world.
Among the many legends that have developed concerning the origin of coffee, one of the most popular account is that of Kaldi, an Abyssinian goatherd, who lived around AD 850. One day he observed his goats behaving in abnormally exuberant manner, skipping, rearing on their hindlegs and bleating loudly. He noticed they were eating the bright red berries that grew on the green bushes nearby.
Kaldi tried a few himself, ad soon felt a novel sense of elation. He filled his pockets with the berries and ran home to announce his discovery to his wife. â They are heaven-sent, she declared. You must take them to the Monks in the monastery.
Kaldi presented the chief Monk with a handful of berries and related his discovery of their miraculous effect. Devila work! exclaimed the monk, and hurled the berries in the fire.
Within minutes the monastery filled with the heavenly aroma of roasting beans, and the other monks gathered to investigate. The beans were raked from the fire and crushed to extinguish the embers. The Monk ordered the grains to be placed in the ewer and covered with hot water to preserve their goodness. That night the monks sat up drinking the rich and fragrant brew, and from that day vowed they would drink it daily to keep them awake during their long, nocturnal devotions.
While the legends attempt to condense the discovery of coffee and its development as a beverage into one story, it is believed that the monks of Ethiopia, may have chewed on the berries as a stimulant for centuries before it was brewed as a hot drink.
http://hundredzeros.com/
Free eBooks on all Subjects
If you are new, HundredZeros.com is the collection of ebooks that you can read on your computer, your mobile device, your Kindle or inside the web browser itself sans any software.
The site initially launched as Zero Dollar Books but since it may go well beyond ebooks in the future, the site has been rebranded as Hundred Zeros. Here’s what’s new in this release:
1.You can now browse free ebooks by subject – like Romance, Cooking, History or Travel.
2.You can find free ebooks on any topic (or by author) using the handy search box – like Shakespeare.
3.The site uses responsive design and hence should work on all screens.
All you need is a free Amazon.com account and you can read any of these books even without the Kindle device.
Music is a splendid thing. It can cheer you up when you’re sad, make you dance like a fool, and allow you to drown out the world when you need to. But music has its scientific uses, too. The new documentary Alive Inside details how dementia patients react positively when given iPods filled with their old favorite songs. The music seems to help them “come alive” again. While listening to familiar songs, many of the documentary’s patients can sing along, answer questions about their past, and even carry on brief conversations with others.
“Music imprints itself on the brain deeper than any other human experience,” says neurologist Oliver Sacks, who appears in the film. “Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring with it memory.”
The documentary follows recent studies showing that music can improve the memories of dementia patients, and even help them develop new memories.
Here, a look at some other things music has been known to “cure”:
1. Low Birth Weight
Babies born too early often require extended stays in the hospital to help them gain weight and strength. To help facilitate this process, many hospitals turn to music. A team of Canadian researchers found that playing music to preemies reduced their pain levels and encouraged better feeding habits, which in turn helped with weight-gain. Hospitals use musical instruments to mimic the sounds of a mother’s heartbeat and womb to lull premature babies to sleep. Researchers also say that playing calming Mozart to premature infants significantly reduces the amount of energy they expend, which allows them gain weight.
It “makes you wonder whether neonatal intensive care units should consider music exposure as standard practice for at-risk infants,” says Dr. Nestor Lopez-Duran at child-psych.org.
2. Droopy Plants
If music helps babies grow, can it do the same thing for plants? Dorothy Retallack says yes. She wrote a book in 1973 called The Sound of Music and Plants, which detailed the effects of music on plant growth. Retallack played rock music to one group of plants and easy listening music to another, identical group. At the end of the study, the ‘easy listening’ plants were uniform in size, full and green, and were even leaning toward the source of the music. The rock music plants had grown tall, but they were droopy, with faded leaves, and were leaning away from the radio.
3. The Damaging Effects of Brain Damage
Of the 1.5 million Americans who sustain brain damage each year, roughly 90,000 of them will be left with a long-term movement or speech disability. As treatment, researchers use music to stimulate the areas of the brain that control these two functions.When given a rhythm to walk or dance to, people with neurological damage caused by stroke or Parkinson’s disease can “regain a symmetrical stride and a sense of balance.” The beats in music help serve as a footstep cue for the brain.
Similarly, rhythm and pitch can help patients sing what words they can’t say. A study of autistic children who couldn’t speak found that music therapy helped these children articulate words. Some of these kids said their first words ever as a result of the treatment.“We are just starting to understand how powerful music can be. We don’t know what the limits are.” says Michael De Georgia, director of the Center for Music and Medicine at Case Western Reserve University’s University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland.
4. Teen Loitering
Public libraries, malls, and train stations already know this: Teenagers typically don’t like classical music. In fact, they dislike it so much that “it sends them scurrying away like frightened mice,” says the LA Times. The theory is that when the brain hears something it dislikes, it suppresses dopamine, “the pleasure chemical.” And as teenagers’ moods fall, they go elsewhere to find something to bring it back up.So if you want the neighbor kids to get off your lawn, turn up the Tchaikovsky.
5. Hearing Loss
OK, maybe music can’t cure hearing loss, but it may help prevent it. A study of 163 adults, 74 of them lifelong musicians, had participants take a series of hearing tests. The lifelong musicians processed sound better than non-musicians, with the gap widening with age. “A 70-year-old musician understood speech in a noisy environment as well as a 50-year-old non-musician,” explains Linda Searling at the Washington Post.
6. A Broken Heart
Not the kind caused by rejection, but the kind caused by a heart attack. Music can help patients who are recovering from heart attacks and heart surgery by lowering blood pressure, slowing the heart rate and reducing anxiety. As a preventative, try listening to “joyful” music, or songs that make you feel good. Research says listening to songs that evoke a sense of joy causes increased circulation and expanded blood vessels, which encourages good vascular health.
7. Poor Sport Performance
In 2005, a UK study found that listening to music during sports training can boost athletic performance by up to 20 percent. That’s roughly equal to the boost some athletes get from illegal performance-enhancing drugs, except music doesn’t show up on a drug test. For best results, try music with a fast tempo during intense training and slower songs during cooldown.
8. Grumpy Teens
In a 2008 study, researcher Tobias Greitemeyer wanted to study how lyrics impacted teenagers’ attitudes and behavior. To do so, he exposed one group of teens to “socially conscious” songs with a positive message, like Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.” Another other group listened to songs with a “neutral” message. The researchers then “accidentally” knocked over a cup of pencils. The group listening to positive songs not only rushed to help more quickly, but picked up five times as many pencils as the other group.
9. Illiteracy
A 2009 study comparing two groups of second graders from similar demographics suggests learning music boosts reading abilities. The only major difference between the two groups was that one learned music notation, sight-reading and other skills, while the control group did not. Each group was tested for literacy before and after the school year. The end-of-year scores for the control group improved only slightly from their beginning of the year scores, while the kids with a music education scored “significantly higher,” especially on vocabulary tests.
10. Sluggish Alcohol Sales
Are you a wine store owner suffering from an overstock of German vino? Try pumping some German tunes through your store. A 1999 study showed that doing so boosted German wine sales, and similarly, playing French music boosted French wine sales. Customers said they were completely oblivious to what music was being played.
11. Wine Snobbery
Ever purchased a bottle of wine with recommended listening printed on the bottle? Well, makers of cheap wine may want to consider that tactic. A group of researchers say certain types of music can “enhance” the way wine tastes by up to 60 percent. In a study, wine-drinkers rated white wine as 40 percent more refreshing when it was accompanied by “zingy and refreshing” music (“Just Can’t Get Enough” by Nouvelle Vague was their go-to zingy song). The taste of red wine was altered 60 percent by “powerful and heavy music” like Orff’s “Carmina Burana.”
“The tongue is easy to dupe.” says Jonah Lehrer at Wired.
Source: wwwdotmentalflossdotcom
April's winning fan photo on New Zealand's Tourism Facebook page. This sparsely populated nation leads the world in Facebook use.
70 percent of Americans active online visit it, but we pale compared with New Zealand. On the eve of Facebook's public stock offering, consumer-measurement company Nielsen has released figures showing that, although the United States has the most Facebook users, higher percentages of the population can be found in other countries.
More than two out of every three Americans who are active online visited Facebook at least once during March, but even higher percentages of the online populations did so in Brazil, New Zealand, Italy and Taiwan, according to the Nielsen Co. report, “Global and Social: Facebook's Rise Around the World.”
The 152 million Americans who visited Facebook at least once in March make up nearly 70 percent of U.S. residents who are on the Internet. Meanwhile, 77 percent of Brazilians online regularly use Facebook – but even that is not the top mark.
Nearly 80 percent of online New Zealanders visited Facebook in March, a grand total of 2.7 million people on the islands, the highest share in the 12 countries Nielsen measured.
What about the other end of the scale? Only about a quarter of Japan's Internet-connected population, or 15 million people, visit Facebook. In Japan, blogs are more popular than social media sites, Nielsen said.
Overall, Facebook is the dominant social media network around the world, ranking first in all but Japan for the countries included in Nielsen's report.
Source: wwwdotmsnbcdotcom
The greatest challenge in developing a permanent exercise habit is finding motivation that lasts. It’s easy to get to the gym when you’re preparing for that big beach vacation or want to look great for your high school reunion. But what about the rest of the time?
Vanity, it turns out, isn’t a great longterm motivator for most people. It wasn’t until I associated exercise with rewards beyond physical appearance that I was able to get myself to the gym 5-6 times a week without any lapses.
To help you bring consistency and enthusiasm to your exercise schedule, here are some powerful reasons to work out that have nothing to do with looking good.
1. Testosterone
This one is mostly for the gents (sorry ladies) and it applies to weight training. Testosterone is the essence of manhood. When you lift weights and gradually increase the level of resistance, your muscles produce testosterone. This gives you the energy, stamina, and aggressiveness you need to take on the world.
2. Clarity and Concentration
An active body has been linked to an active mind. The more consistently you exercise, the less prone you’ll be to grogginess and lapses in concentration. As anecdotal evidence of this, my best cure for writer’s block has always been going for a long walk, run, or hitting the gym.
3. Reflection
Exercise is a time to let your mind unwind while your body does the work. Strangely, when you stop actively trying to solve a mental challenge, the solution often pops into your head. Exercise is an opportunity for your subconscious mind to put together the pieces.
4. Enjoyment
Working out needn’t be seen as a chore or obligation. There are tons of enjoyable ways to exercise. For example, if you live in a scenic area, going for a run or bike ride along a beautiful route can brighten things up. Running on the beach is one of the best option.Other great options include: using exercise as a chance to spend time with friends and family, playing a sport or game, striving to achieve new personal bests, week after week.
5. Cleansing
Have you ever gone a couple weeks without exercise and noticed that you begin to sweat an exorbitant amount? That’s because sweat, along with toxins, tends to build up over time. Sweating regularly through exercises removes these toxins and will help you feel more comfortable.
6. Better Sleep
Studies have shown that exercise improves sleep. I love your sleep, it is big for anyone.
7. Longer Life
When you choose to exercise, you’re making an investment, not just in your present physical appearance, but in the rest of your life. People who exercise regularly live longer and stay healthier into old age. If not for yourself, consider the family members that love and depend on you
8. Stress Relief
Exercise has also been shown to reduce stress. This is a combined result of the benefits of cleansing, reflection, and a physical outlet for frustration.
9. Superior Strength and Endurance
By exercising regularly, you’ll be better able to live and act, and in the event of an emergency, seize the moment.
10. Self Confidence
The sum of all these benefits is self confidence. (And, yes, looking good will help here too.) Greater self confidence is drives success, so its value can’t be underestimated. Exercise and fitness are an enormous part of reaching your potential.
Source:wwwdotpickthebraindotcom
An interactive heat map illustrates the frequency of births on any day of the year. It out that September is the most popular month to have babies.
Amitabh Chandra, a professor of public policy at the Harvard University, earlier published a data table detailing how many babies were born in the United States on each date between 1973 and 1999. September 16th happens to be the most common birthday while December 25th is the least popular birthday
Matt Stiles, data journalist at NPR, converted this NYT table into a static heatmap for easy visualization (the darker the color, the higher the probability of births happening on that date) and Andy Kriebel made an interactive heatmap of the same data using Tableau – this version lets you hover over any cell and you can see the underlying data.
Going back to the data, it turns out that September is the most popular month to have babies and, according to Wikipedia, this is likely due to the fact that the holiday season is nine months before.
For me paying $,9000 for a tvs sounds silly idea.
Samsung has released details of its ES9500 OLED TV, which is expected to retail for $9,000 when it goes on sale in the second half of 2012.Samsung has announced that its ES9500 OLED TV will launch in South Korea in the second half of 2012 at a price equivalent to $9,000 U.S.
The TV, formally known as the Samsung Super OLED, will retail for 10 million won ($8,760 U.S.) and is expected to compete with LG's own OLED panel, the EM9600. The LG is also due in 2012 and won CNET's BEST of CES 2012 award.
"The ES9500 OLED TV will be available in Korea during the second half of the year and will be launched in other markets thereafter. We will be able to provide pricing details closer to launch", said a Samsung US spokesperson.
OLED (organic light-emitting diode) is a display technology that could potentially outperform the picture quality of best LCD and plasma TVs of today. It's currently featured in mobile devices such as the Samsung Galaxy SII and the Sony PS Vita.
The 55-inch Samsung TV will also include Smart Dual View technology, which allows two users to watch different 2D programs simultaneously while wearing 3D glasses and a 20 percent improvement in color reproduction compared with current LED-lit panels, according to Engadget.The TV is also expected to include Samsung's premium features, including Smart Interaction gesture control and Smart Evolution upgradability.
Samsung's head of TV business told The Associated Press that it would take another two to three years for OLED to go mainstream.The release of the ES9500 outside of South Korea is yet to be confirmed, but in February, Samsung told CNET the TV is expected to be released locally in the second half of this year.
Face book is urging members of the world’s biggest social network to share their organ-donor status on the site, aiming to spur more donations and ease wait times for transplants.
More than 114,000 people in the U.S. and millions more worldwide are waiting for life-saving heart, liver or kidney transplants, Facebook said. Many of them -- 18 a day on average -- die because there aren’t enough organs for transplant.
That raises privacy concerns because medical information on Facebook isn’t protected by U.S. laws requiring doctors, educators and insurers to keep such personal data confidential, said Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.
Seattle Sounders FC recently announced they will host Chelsea FC on Wednesday, July 18 on the Xbox Pitch at CenturyLink Field. (No time has been set).
Chelsea, the only English Premier League club still competing in the Champions League this season, were runners up in the League last season having been champions and FA Cup winners in 2010. The London club has many international players, from Europe, Africa and South America.
The 4-Match ticket package includes Sounders FC home matches versus Chelsea on July 18, Los Angeles Galaxy on August 5, Vancouver Whitecaps on August 18 and Portland Timbers on October 7. In anticipation of the high demand for tickets, seating at CenturyLink Field will be expanded to include the upper bowl for all four matches.
Fans can guarantee seats for Chelsea by purchasing a 4-Match ticket package for $110 prior to the public on-sale of individual tickets on June 4.
Go Sounders!
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