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Coconut: The Largest Nut - Properties and Healthy Uses
Family of the: Arecaceae
Common name of the plant: Coconut
Scientific name of the plant: CocosNucifera
Where does the coconut tree usually grow: The coconut tree is used to growing in the tropics, commonly at shore and at a beach. Countries that fulfill these specifications are the countries located in the Caribbean and all along the shore of central and South America.
Description of the coconut tree: Though the coconut tree is indeed a very picturesque tree recognized by most of the world’s populous we will still go through the description of the plant. The coconut tree can grow to be up to 30 meters long and leaves up to 20 feet long. The tree portrays a set of rings on its trunk as it grows.
The seed/fruit in this case the coconut can be about as large as a human headand weighs a little over 3 pounds and it has three layers.This does not mean that all coconuts are as large as your head as you might’ve realized some people have heads smaller and bigger than yours. In other words, coconut sizes will vary from genus to genus The leaves resemble the leaves of the fern tree despite the fact the reproduction method is completely different. The leaves then sprout at the top of the tree, since the trunk of this tree is its only branch per say.
The exocarpalso known as the exterior husk of the coconut closely followed by the mesocarp which is the interior husk. The mesocarp is usually what is sold in supermarkets. The endocarp would be the fleshy region of the coconut and it is also the part that can be consumed by humans.
Inside the endocarp depending on the ripeness of the coconut you will find “water” or a liquid that looks like water. This coconut water has been found to be refreshing and it is also sold as a beverage. The coconut tree’s flowers are both male and female and they flower continuously. The roots of the tree branch from its stem and are somewhat thin in comparison to other plant’s roots. The whole plant can be used making it a very sought out plant.
When the coconut’s fleshiseaten it provides the consumer with carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, which include a healthy amount of magnesium and iron. It is also used to rehydrate as a replacement for water or Gatorade. The coconut flesh is used to make coconut milk and oil, which can be used for cooking, and to treat medical ailments. Coconut oil has a great variety of uses including:
-Healing the skin and preventing infections
- Used by guitar players to lubricate their strings
- Moisturizing the skin
-give shine to your hair
- When ingested the oil aids bowel movements and it helps absorb nutrients and minerals better
- It stabilizes sugar and insulin levels in the body
Those are some of the few applications of coconut oil but some of the best. The coconut oil can be used for frying; its flesh can be used for the creation of many desserts as well as its milk. Coconut milk or coconut extract is obtained after processing the coconut’s flesh leaving as products what could be considered coconut shavings and coconut milk but never mind the technicalities. The water as mentioned can be turned into a refreshing beverage. The coconut tree is also used to decorate areas and to offer shade.
Uses of the coconut tree and the coconut
To begin with the whole tree is used. The first simple use given to the tree itself is wood as a building material. The coconut tree’s wood is resistant to salt and it also considered hardwood, making it extremely useful for construction. The roots are used to make medicine and dye. The leaves can be used to make carbon and to make temporal rooftops for sheds. The leaves can also be used as arrows as the infographic informs.
The coconuts leaves are used to make nectar and if fermented it can become palm wine. The flesh has the largest amount of uses since due to the amusing and hilarious muse of a man I know that says; “hunger is the mother of all sciences”. And it is! Coconut flesh in the Dominican Republic is used to make an array of sweets and in other parts of the world to make beverages alcoholic and not. The coconut has hundreds upon hundreds of uses. We will be adding recipies, other uses and ways you can incorporate coconut into your life. The husk is used to create a straw of sorts that is used to fill mattresses, make hats and other useful tools.
Uses of Coconut: Recipe One
I don't know how everyone makes their Rice Pudding but this is the way we prepare it, and it is so delicious that it will be impossible to stop eating it.
- 2 Cups of rice
- 2 Cups of water
- 1 Cup of coconut milk
- 1/2 Tablespoon of salt
- 1 Tablespoon of butter
- 1 Liter of whole cow milk
- 3 Slices of lemon rind
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- 7 Sweet cloves
- 1/2 Teaspoon of white vanilla
- 1/2 Cup of raisins
- Place a casserole on the fire with the 5 cups of water, the salt, the 3 slices of lemon rind, the cinnamon and the cloves. When the water starts boiling we add the rice and stir it to avoid it from sticking.
- Place the fire at a mid point and keep stirring periodically to avoid the creation of rice lumps. When 25 minutes have elapsed the water will begin drying away and it will be the moment to add the cow milk to begin cooking the rice in milk. This will give it a soft texture and finish cooking the rice.
- It is time to remove the cloves and the lemon rinds. Now, in a container of our choice we mix the coconut milk and the sugar until the sugar becomes completely diluted. We then incorporate it into the rice which should be completely done. We must always stir to avoid it sticking to the casserole.
- Finally we add the butter and the vanilla and verify if the amount of salt is of your taste. 5 Munutes before it is ready put the raisins and let it cook and you are done.
Rice Coconut Milk/Oil Recipe
Coconut is great for cooking. Have you ever had regular rice with coconut? It tastes delicious and it is healthier than any other way you can cook rice because of the nut's properties. Here are two ways to do it - milk or oil - whatever way is easier for you. Enjoy!
Rice Coconut Milk/Oil Recipe
Ingredients with coconut milk
Ingredients with coconut oil
4 cups of rice
4 cups of rice
2 1/2 cups of water
4 1/2 cups of water
2 cups of coconut milk
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 garlic cloves
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Peel the garlic and smash it with the salt. Place a pot to cook medium heat with the vegetable oil. Add the coconut milk and the water and leave it until it boils. Add the rice and steer a few times so no grumps form. Lower the flame and cover the rice until liquids reduce. That will take around 8 minutes to happen. Now it's time to lower the flame to the minimum, make sure the lead covers the pot well and let it cook for 25 minutes.
Peel the garlic and smash it with the salt. Place a pot to cook medium heat with the coconut oil. Add the water and leave it until it boils. Add the rice and steer a few times so no grumps form. Lower the flame and cover the rice until liquids reduce. That will take around 8 minutes to happen. Now it's time to lower the flame to the minimum, make sure the lead covers the pot well and let it cook for 25 minutes.
Prep time: 20 min Cook time: 45 min Ready in: 25 min Yields: 6 small servings
Coconut Water Drinks.
Depending on your taste, you can make your cocktail based on alcohol or based on the coconut water.
To make it alcohol based, put some pieces of ice in a glass and add the amount of your favorite alcohol: rum, whisky... Put the 2 portions of the alcohol into the glass and 1 portion of coconut water. You can also add some drops of lemon, a pinch of salt and 1/2 a spoon of sugar.
To make it coconut water based, put some ice in a glass, and add the amount of your favorite alcohol, rum, whisky... Put the 1 portion of the alcohol into the glass and 2 portions of coconut water. You can also add some drops of lemon, a pinch of salt and 1/2 a spoon of sugar.
This is a refreshing and seasonal drink that will make your summer much more enjoyable.
If you want a refreshing beverage with no alcohol, you can do it with oranges or lemons. Put some mint leaves, sugar and a pinch of salt in it; add ice and you will have a very delicious summer drink for the whole family. It is Delicious, healthy and very refreshing.
More Coconut and Summer drinks
The shell can be used to create a Kalimba
The coconut can also be used to make a kalimba for those of you that are fans of the thumb piano. The shell can be used to create a Kalimba! There is not enough emphasis I can apply on the fact that you can make an instrument out of an otherwise useless shell.
Thumb Piano Coconut Natural
Coconut can also be a fertilizer
Other uses of the coconut’s shell and husk include that of fertilizing orchids in your yard since the coconut husk chips can serve as a part of the organic compost you add to your soil. Being that the husk is more durable than certain barks it will keep your soil oxygenated aiding and giving your precious garden plants a healthier look due to the fact that some plants need space underground for their roots to suck in nutrients and other good stuffs.
Your orchids will be greateful!!!
The Properties of the Coconut Oil and Coconut Milk
Coconuts, they are big, they are full of water and full of white stuff. You might be sitting there and wondering, “What good can a coconut do me?” Well my friend, the coconut is a beneficial nut to have around. The liquids (apart from the water) you can extract from the coconut have amazing healing and revitalizing properties that are essential to you and your health. The coconut oil and the coconut milk are miracle workers for your whole body. You can use them to cook and make desserts.
They help the repair and rehydration of your skin and your hair. They also aid the absorption of nutrients vitamins and minerals in the stomach when ingested aiding you in achieving a healthier lifestyle and keeping your body in a better shape. All of these nutrients and fibers will aid your bowel movements and this will consequently bring about and increase in weight loss. Coconuts also provide you with natural fatty acids that you cannot find in other plants. They help you strengthen your teeth and having a better and faster bowel movement.
So now we have one question at hand that must not go without answering. What properties do the coconut milk and coconut oil have inside them that makes them so revitalizing and healthy for me? Well to begin the small journey through these coconut extracts we have the moisturizing properties. This property is given by the fatty acids and vitamins found inside the extracts and in the long run it helps bowel movements and it stabilizes glucose levels. This is thanks to its natural levels of glucose and its cleansing properties.
Use it on your hair as you take a shower or on your skin, use it when you cook your rice or even have an aromatherapy session with coconut scents. Doing these things will undoubtedly work wonders on your mood and on your health.
Article by: Alain Gutiérrez
Where to find coconut
This is one of the coconut producers in the Caribbean


The pretty colorful pictures that we have been using so far are not very useful in practical projects. You can’t really draw them by hand, different components may look very similar, and it’s hard to see what is going on when there are a lot of connections. That’s why engineers prefer to use more symbolic representation of connection, a schematic.
A schematic doesn’t care how the parts actually look like, or how their pins are arranged. Instead they use simple symbols. For instance, here’s a schematic of our experiment with the external LED:
The resistor is symbolized by a zig-zag. The LED is marked by a diode symbol (a triangle with a bar), with additional two arrows showing that it’s a light emitting diode. The board itself doesn’t have a special symbol – instead it’s symbolized by a rectangle with the board’s name written in it.
There is also a symbol for “ground” – the three horizontal lines. Since a lot of components need to be usually connected to the ground, instead of drawing all those wires, it’s easier to simply use that symbol.
Here are some more symbols:
It’s important to learn to read and draw electric schematics, because anything more advanced is going to use them, and you will also need them when asking for help on the Internet.
Analog to Digital Converter¶
Our board has only one “analog” pin,
A0. That pin is connected to an ADC,
or “analog to digital converter” – basically an electronic voltmeter, which
can tell you what voltage is on the pin. The one we have can only measure from
0 to 1V, and would be damaged if it got more than 1V, so we have to be careful.
We will connect a photo-resistor to it. It’s a special kind of a resistor that changes its resistance depending on how much light shines on it. But to make this work, we will need a second, fixed, resistor to make a “volatge divider”. This way the voltage will change depending on the resistance of our photo-resistor.
Now, we will just read the values in our program, and print them in a loop:
from machine import ADC adc = ADC(0) while True: print(adc.read())
You should see a column of numbers changing depending on how much light the photo-resistor has. Try to cover it or point it toward a window or lamp. The values are from 0 for 0V, to 1024 for 1V. Ours will be somewhere in between.
So far all devices we connected to the board were relatively simple and only required a single pin. More sophisticated devices are controlled with multiple pins, and often have very elaborate ways in which you have to change the pins to make them do something, like sending a character to them, or retrieving a value. Those ways are often standardized, and already implemented for you, so that you don’t have to care about all the gory details – you just call high-level commands, and the libraries and/or hardware in your board handles it all for you.
Among the most popular protocols are UART, I²C and SPI. We are going to have examples of each of them, but we are not going to get into details of how they work internally. It’s enough to know that they let you send bytes to the device, and receive bytes in response.
Those are actually WS2812B addressable RGB LEDs, but they are commonly known as “neopixels”. You can control individually the brightness and color of each of the LEDs in a string (or matrix, or ring). The connection is simple:
And the code for driving them is not very complex either, because the library for generating the signal is included in Micropython:
form machine import Pin import neopixel pixels = neopixel.Neopixel(Pin(14, Pin.OUT), 8) pixels = (0xff, 0x00, 0x00) pixels.write()
8 is the number of LEDs in a chain. You can create all sorts of
animations, rainbows and pretty effects with those.
Temperature and Humidity¶
The DHT11 and DHT22 sensors are quite popular for all sorts of weather stations. They use a single-wire protocol for communication. Micropython on ESP9266 has that covered:
from machine import Pin import dht sensor = dht.DHT11(Pin(2)) sensor.measure() print(sensor.temperature()) print(sensor.humidity())
The connections are simple:
LED Matrix and 7-segment Displays¶
Adafruit sells a lot of “backpacks” with 7- or 14-segment displays or LED matrices, that we can control easily over I²C. They use a HT16K33 chip, so that we don’t have to switch on and off the individual LEDs – we just tell the chip what to do, and it takes care of the rest.
The schematic for connecting any I²C device will be almost always the same:
The two resistors on the schematic are needed for the protocol to work reliably with longer wires. For our experiments, it’s enough to rely on the pull-up resistors that are built into the board we are using.
The communication with the backpack is relatively simple, but I wrote two libraries for making it more convenient. For the matrix:
from machine import I2C, Pin from ht16k33_matrix import Matrix8x8 i2c = I2C(sda=Pin(4), scl=Pin(5)) display = Matrix8x8(i2c) display.brightness(8) display.blink_rate(2) display.fill(True) display.pixel(0, 0, False) display.pixel(7, 0, False) display.pixel(0, 7, False) display.pixel(7, 7, False) display.show()
and for the 7- and 14-segment displays:
from machine import I2C, Pin from ht16k33_seg import Seg7x4 i2c = I2C(sda=Pin(4), scl=Pin(5)) display = Seg7x4(i2c) display.push("8.0:0.8") display.show()
TFT LCD Display¶
The I²C protocol is nice and simple, but not very fast, so it’s only good when you have a few pixels to switch. With larger displays, it’s much better to use SPI, which can be much faster.
Here is an example on how to connect an ILI9340 display:
And here is a simple library that lets you draw on that display:
from machine import Pin, SPI import ili9341 spi = SPI(miso=Pin(12), mosi=Pin(13), sck=Pin(14)) display = ili9341.ILI9341(spi, cs=Pin(2), dc=Pin(4), rst=Pin(5)) display.fill(ili9341.color565(0xff, 0x11, 0x22)) display.pixel(120, 160, 0)
As you can see, the display is still quite slow – there are a lot of bytes to send, and we are using software SPI implementation here. The speed will greatly improve when Micropython adds hardware SPI support.


Friendly bacteria could reduce sick days
Last updated at 16:20 07 November 2005
Researchers gave a group of Swedish workers a daily "probiotic" drink laced with 100 million bugs believed to have health benefits.
Over an 80-day period the 94 volunteers were 2.5 times less likely to take time off work for minor ailments than a similar group given a "dummy" product.
Have you tried probiotic drinks? Tell us what you think of them at the foot of the page.
Probiotics are bacteria which studies suggest can improve conditions in the gut and boost immunity.
They can be found in a number of health supplements, yoghurts and other products available in supermarkets and chemists.
Many belong to the Lactobacillus family, which was used in the new study based at a Tetra Pak plant in Sweden.
Workers were offered a drink with a special straw that delivered Lactobacillus reuteri, a bug that has been shown to reduce illness in babies.
A total of 23 out of 87 employees given the false product reported sick with colds and non-serious stomach conditions.
By contrast, only 10 of the 94 workers assigned the genuine drink took time off sick. In percentage terms, the difference was 26.4 per cent compared with 10.6 per cent.
Shift workers reaped most benefit
The effect was most significant for shift workers, who often get ill due to weakened immune systems. None of the 26 shift workers in the group given L. reuteri reported sick, compared with nine out of 27 workers in the control group.
A previous study of healthy adults has shown that L. reuteri was able to stimulate the immune system by recruiting white blood cells.
The authors of the new research were led by Dr Py Tubelius, from Tetra Pak Occupational Health and Safety in Lund, Sweden.
He wrote in the journal Environmental Health: "Although the exact mechanism of action cannot be defined from our study, it is likely that such an immune stimulation lies behind the reduced morbidity (illness) in the subjects taking L. reuteri.
"This stimulation may also explain why the beneficial effect of L. reuteri in our study was specifically apparent among shift workers
"Shift workers are known to be at risk for having a weaker immuno-defence as compared to those working day-time shifts only."
Short-term sick leave is estimated to cost more than 2.2 billion euros (£1.5 billion) each year in Sweden, said the scientists.
The findings would translate to 4.3 million working days of improved productivity a year in the total Swedish work force.
"Our results indicate that the effect on shift work productivity could probably be even more profound, but this issue should be addressed in further study," said the researchers.
Lactobacillus bacteria are found in a wide range of yoghurts and probiotic products in the UK.
Orchard Maid organic yoghurt is one product that specifically contains L. reuteri. It comes with a Life-Top straw that delivers a precise dose of the bacteria.
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7 Natural Sources for Collagen Production
Collagen is an important dietary component. As the most abundant protein in the human body , it provides structure to everything from out hair to our skin, bones, ligaments, nails, tendons and more. If your hair has a shine to it and your skin has an intangible glow, your collagen levels are likely high.
But nothing good ever truly lasts forever, and by the time we turn 40 we have lost 10% to 20% of our collagen . This protein is also under constant attack from some naturally occurring enzymes within our bodies. Even environmental factors such as pollution or the sun play a role in its gradual depletion.
Thankfully, there are a number of foods that we can turn to in order to help replenish some of what we’ve lost. While many supplements exist, their nutrients are not as easily absorbed by the body as natural sources.
Here are our seven favorite natural sources for collagen production.
Gelatin is one of the most plentiful sources available because gelatin is a cooked form of collagen , primarily made from the boiled connective tissue of cows and pigs. It is one of the fastest routes to collagen replenishment, as it is easily digested and absorbed by the body.
While it might be tempting to grab a cart-full of supermarket Jello, that’s not going to get you the best results. Supermarket gelatin is incredibly processed, so any actual health benefits you could reap from it have been stripped away. It’s important to check out what kind of gelatin you’re buying , so that you can make an informed and healthy choice.
2. Bone Broth
Bone broth is exactly what it sounds like. Broth made from the bones, tendons, ligaments, and joints of animals. By boiling down bones and connective tissue, you’re releasing pure collagen , along with a number of other beneficial amino acids, electrolytes, and proteins.
Beef bone broth works wonders for skin health, while broth made from the bones of chickens and turkeys helps the joints.
3. Dark Green Vegetables
All green plants produce a pigment called chlorophyll. This both makes them green and assists in photosynthesis . While chlorophyll help plants to convert sunlight into energy, consuming it can also help the human body produce procollagen , a precursor to collagen.
Dark green veggies are rich in vitamin C, which stabilizes the enzymes that contribute to collagen break down . Spinach and kale are excellent examples of this.
Citrus is a wonderful source of vitamin C, which will help the amino acids lysine and proline convert to collagen within the body. Vitamin C also helps neutralize free radicals , one of collagen’s greatest enemies.
This valuable natural vitamin also acts as an antioxidant to protect against toxins we regularly take in from food, water, and the air. It is especially helpful with skin cell regeneration, so stock up on some oranges!
The yolk and eggshell membranes of chicken eggs contain collagen . Egg whites are also rich in glycine and proline , two amino acids that are the main components of collagen.
Eggs also have a high concentration of sulfur, which is required for collagen production . Sulfur helps to eliminate environmental pollutants and toxins which break down the protein. From membranes containing collagen to amino acids that produce it, to protection against toxins, eggs are a collagen production super food.
6. Sulfur Foods
We spoke a bit in the last section about the importance of sulfur in the production of collagen. This trace mineral is present in a great many foods, such as beef, poultry, and dairy . All of these are excellent sources of the necessary sulfur.
But vegetable sulfur sources contain organosulfur, which is not present in animal food products. Onions, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and garlic are all great choices. Garlic even provides lipoic acid and taurine which can rebuild damaged collagen fibers .
7. Red Fruits and Vegetables
Red fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, beets, and peppers help protect the body’s collagen supply by acting as a natural sun block . This occurs thanks to an antioxidant called lycopene, which exists in all red fruits and vegetables. Lycopene helps to protect skin against the harmful effects of the sun which can lead to the destruction of collagen.
Lycopene is also believed to aid in collagen synthesis, though concrete evidence of this has yet to be discovered . Tomatoes also contain vitamin C which, as stated earlier, helps to produce collagen and protect against the toxins that destroy it.
By keeping some of the foods listed here in your daily diet, you’re helping to win the fight against collagen depletion. You’ll be shocked at how great your skin and hair will look and feel when collagen production is made a priority in your life.


UC-204 Bio-monitoring & Biodiversity Management Field Studies
|Period P2a - Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal||Year 1|
|UC-204||Bio-monitoring & Biodiversity Management Field Studies||6 ECTS||Period P2a||UC|
|Objectives:This course addresses the importance of habitat selection and reserve management in assessing and maintaining biodiversity. The importance of ecological indicators in assessing the state of biodiversity and its management will be addressed. A field trip will demonstrate biomonitoring in practice |
Outcomes:Students will examine case studies, articles and will discuss and perform data analysis to demonstrate the effectiveness and usefulness of studies on habitat selection, before proposing measures for the conservation of species and ecosystems. Management plans for conservation of species and habitats will be elaborated and presented.
|Elective||Taught in EN||Mixed|
|Evaluation||Workload : 150 hours|


Object-oriented programming offers a natural approach to solving complex problems by focusing on individual aspects, or objects, and describing the ways in which they interact using interfaces. Modularity, extensibility, and code re-use often make OOP more appealing than its procedural counterpart. Code can be implemented in a more intuitive way and often mirrors the theory it derives from. Two examples are given in the form of real programs: a 3D panel code solver and a system-of-systems model for seabasing and environment sensing. Both are examples of large-scale frameworks and leverage the benefits offered by the object-oriented paradigm.
Object-Oriented Applications in Marine Hydrodynamics
Bandyk, Piotr J., Freimuth, Justin, and George Hazen. "Object-Oriented Applications in Marine Hydrodynamics." Paper presented at the SNAME Maritime Convention, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, October 2012. doi: https://doi.org/10.5957/SMC-2012-A31
Download citation file:


Essential site planning and design strategies, up-to-date with the latest sustainable development techniquesDiscover how to incorporate sound environmental considerations into traditional site design processes. Written by a licensed landscape architect with more than 20 years of professional experience, this authoritative guide combines established approaches to site planning with sustainable practices and increased environmental sensitivity.
Fully revised and updated, Site Planning and Design Handbook, Second Edition discusses the latest standards and protocols-including LEED. The book features expanded coverage of green site design topics such as water conservation, energy efficiency, green building materials, site infrastructure, and brownfield restoration. This comprehensive resource addresses the challenges associated with site planning and design and lays the groundwork for success.
Site Planning and Design Handbook, Second Edition explains how to:
Integrate sustainability into site design
Gather site data and perform site analysis
Meet community standards and expectations
Plan for pedestrians, traffic, parking, and open space
Use grading techniques to minimize erosion and maximize site stability
Implement low-impact stormwater management and sewage disposal methods
Manage brownfield redevelopment
Apply landscape ecology principles to site design
Preserve historic landscapes and effectively utilize vegetation


For three years, Hans Nilsson has been on a quest to find a rare white moose in southwestern Sweden. Finally, on two consecutive days last week, he succeeded—and, on the second day, happened to have his camera rolling, reports the Local. "Everything fell into place: the location, the light, and the calmness," Nilsson says of Friday's encounter in the Varmland region. The resulting footage, which has since gone viral, shows a white moose crossing a small river and munching on foliage. According to the BBC, the animal is believed to be one of just 100 white moose in Sweden. While some are albino, the one Nilsson recorded is piebald, meaning its coloration is the result of a genetic mutation, per National Geographic.
Though clearly rare, one expert believes white moose may be increasing in number in Sweden because hunters, apparently stunned by their beauty, tend to leave them in peace. Moose face few other predators in the country. But a local resident—whose apple tree is frequently visited by a white moose—says the animals are "constantly chased and disturbed" by non-hunters hoping for a glimpse of their white fur, per the Local. That's bad news for both the moose and humans since moose "can get aggressive," she says. Two white moose calves were spotted earlier this summer in Norway, per Nat Geo. White moose have also been seen in Alaska and in Canada, where hunters are banned from killing moose that are more than 50% white. (Pandas are piebald, too.)


In Discipline with Respect, Chapter 1, "The Principle of Purpose," I discuss the importance of building responsible behavior with tasks and responsiblities appropriate for a child's age. It does take more time than doing a job yourself, but parenting includes helping children become mature and responsible adults.
I recently saw a post from the American Counseling Association (ACA) about chores. The suggestions are similar to mine.
Here's a quote from their post.
Having your kids do assigned chores can be an important factor in helping them develop in positive ways. Chores are a way for a child to feel part of the family, and to gain a sense of contributing toward the family good. These early life lessons make it easier for a person to feel like an active, contributing member of society later in life.
And here is the link to the ACA blog so you can read their Jan 05, 2018 post about the value of having children complete chores.
Read more about evidence-based discipline strategies in Discipline with Respect -- A book used by schools and recommended by professionals.
Available on AMAZON Kindle and in paperback.
See the Discipline with Respect website for more information.
Get a FREE sample at AMAZON
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Full link to the ACA post about "chores."


Democracy in the West has been long in making and we cannot point on a single person in any of the countries whom we would credit for having brought about democracy. We can only look at a long, and troublesome, history of social competition which has resulted in a state of affairs we call democracy, through wars and killings, scandals and murders, economic progress followed by economic collapse, technological progress, and spreading of free speech and its suppression and manipulation. These and other conditions, through a bloody history of hundreds if not thousands of years, brought about the conditions for democratic competition that the West now enjoys (but less so today than a couple of decades ago).
In Russia the history has been quite different. After the years of the Communist command system which destroyed all normal traditions of social interaction, Russia had to start from scratch to build democratic traditions for itself. In fact, saying that Russia started from scratch is a gross understatement, for after the government of the inept chatterer Gorbachev the country was in ruins and Russians had to start building a free society not from zero but with a huge handicap. Gorbachev’s limited economic reforms did not serve any meaningful purpose and only created the conditions for criminal gangs and vory to take over the economy and soon the political power as well.
It was up to Yeltsin to start to get the country in order, but he came too late. Gorbachev’s perestroika had already transformed the country into a total criminal anarchy. Without more than a handful of honest and trusted people around him Yeltsin could not achieve much in those conditions of anarchy and virtual civil war. But according to the western propaganda, this period of the 1990’s is referred to as democracy, which supposedly was then destroyed by Putin. They brashly claim that Putin has “systematically dismantled” the democratic institutions of Russia, parliament, political parties, free election, media, and the courts. This is a big lie, or a naïve misunderstanding at best. Misunderstanding about what is the nature of democracy, about the recent history of Russia, and the nature of a Communist society.
Most fundamentally this criticism of Putin is based on a glorification of the Soviet Communist system. As if it would have served as a fundament for building a modern democratic society, just by way of some well-intentioned political decisions over the course of a few years. No. The work on building the democratic institutions only started with the fall of USSR. – These people think that the switch from the Communist USSR to the work on creating a democratic market economy of free Russia would be comparable to the change of ruling party in an established Western country. Say the UK, where a Tory Party comes in with its agenda after the Labor Party, or vice versa, making some decimal changes in the laws and government, which details the whole society publicly discusses with great interest. Hence, the ideas that Putin’s 12 year in power in Russia would be a long time for achieving paradise upon earth. – And who can seriously claim that the institutions that took thousands of years to emerge in the Western countries would have been ready to use in the few years of Yeltsin’s rule? The more when we know what criminal anarchy reigned during these years? Yes, Yeltsin began to develop them, and we lift our hats to his memory for this work. But it is only under Putin that they have developed to acquire the structure of real democratic institutions. The work is not finished yet, as we can see. And now, encouraged by the early success, Putin has announced further steps on consolidating the democratic competition in Russia.
The absolutely indispensable step to create the conditions for democracy was to finish with the criminal anarchy and the rule of the oligarchs. This inevitably meant a limitation of showcase democracy in favor of trusting the job of architect of democracy to the popularly elected president. This is what the Russian people did. They gave a carte blanche to Putin to bring order and create a democratic market economy. And Putin has delivered on that promise. With a renewed mandate on March 4 he will continue this work, now already from a solid base.
In the 1990’s there were no free elections. No conditions for such existed. The elections were a business for criminal gangs, oligarchs and political prostitutes, fraudulent maneuvers to have them appointed in various state organs by way of force, manipulation, money, media distortion etc. Most notoriously this was the case in regards to the regional governors, who ruled their subjects as feudal lords supported by the criminals, and being such themselves (with a few exceptions, perhaps, but I have not been told whom these exceptions could possibly be). In addition to ending the impudent rule of the oligarchs, the abolishing of the direct election of governors was the most important step towards building the conditions for ending the anarchy and bringing real democratic competition to Russia.
It is only under Putin that a free media has emerged in Russia. But according to the American propaganda organization Reporters Without Borders, the state of press freedom is dismal in Russia. They ranked Russia 142nd out of 172 countries just before Gambia, and preceded by such beacons of liberty as, for example, Zimbabwe (117), United Arab Emirates (112), Northern Cyprus (102). If Russia were in reality almost last in the list, then it would only mean that there are no problems with freedom of press in the world in general, for such is the level of freedom in Russia. Test for yourself, go any day and pick a random sample of the newspapers at sale on a Moscow newsstand. Plurality of opinion in all and most of them highly critical of Putin. The rankings themselves, courtesy of this propaganda organization, are regularly published in all the Russian press fresh as they appear, which is, to say the least, a great paradox. The blatant fraud in these rankings serves as strong evidence about all the other more sophisticated propaganda attacks against Russia.
What about the courts? There was no independent judiciary in the Soviet Union, and not even a system of law in a proper sense, just an arbitrary system of meting out punishments. All this was subject to a complete change in the new Russia of Yeltsin (but no steps were made under Gorbachev’s perestroika). But this is only when the work started on building the normative base for law and taking the first steps to form an independent judiciary. Only a little was achieved under Yeltsin’s presidency. The economic hardships meant that judges did not get a pay that could possibly sustain their living thus directing many of them towards the temptation of corruption (under Putin the salaries of judges have increased almost 6 to 10-fold). The laws were new and traditions non-existent. So the critics are totally wrong to say that Putin has supposedly destroyed the independent judiciary, for there was no such thing prior to Putin coming in power. The judiciary is still underdeveloped but great strides forward have been taken thanks to the improved economic conditions and stability provided by Putin. The judiciary does not only have to be independent of the state, which it in Putin’s Russia largely is, but also independent of criminal corruption and based on solid traditions, which can only emerge by time.
In his election campaign Putin is promising a number of liberal changes to the economic laws and laws governing the political system. Some of the changes are considered radical and the critics argue that Putin is not to be trusted because he has already been 12 years in power and could have done the changes earlier. But the changes are not radical compared to the dramatic questions that Putin had to tackle during the first decade of his rule. Those were fundamental questions of the to-be-or-not-to-be of the whole statehood of Russia; questions of war and peace; questions of life and death. And he did not only conquer the difficulties but he also put in place the conditions for fine-tuning the system, which fine-tuning are for the primitively minded opposition the only democracy there can possibly be. As if you could have put a turbo engine on a horse carriage before going through all the other stages of development of the automobile.
These same reasons explain the problem of corruption. Corruption in Russia is rampant, no doubt about that, however, it is hard to believe that Transparency International is transparent and fair in ranking Russia 143rd worst corruption plagued country out of 182 countries surveyed. I know from my own personal experience running a group of companies offering law and accounting services here in Russia that it is fully possible to conduct honest and transparent business in Russia without bribing anybody. – This comment was in regards to the ranking the western propaganda has assigned Russia, not to say that corruption wouldn’t be a big problem. It is, and perhaps the biggest problem in the country. But it is also the most difficult one. Corruption in Russia is deeply rooted in the Soviet economy where goods and services were hard to come by.
Corruption became endemic and the normal way for trying to secure what was needed as there was no real market and no currency which you could freely earn and use. It is impossible to measure the volumes of corruption in the USSR as the topic was forbidden, no surveys or studies on it could possibly have been produced. Naturally the monetary value of it must have been much less than it is in today’s Russia. This for the simple reason that as there was no private property, so big assets could not be turned around anyway. The corrupt practices were so widespread that most people engaged in it did probably not even consciously recognize doing something bad, they just did what life demanded of them to survive. Then with Gorbachev’s misconceived economic reforms these corrupt practices very taken to new heights. This is how the more brazen and criminal bent “businessmen” made their fortunes. During the years of anarchy in the 1990’s nothing was done about the problem, the virtual civil was consumed all the energy of the government. Almost no one was convicted for any kind of economic crime, and being investigated for corruption only lead to sharing the spoils with the investigators.
It is only in the last few years, two or three, that the fight has started to yield results. And today we can almost every week read about a new high profile corruption case. Why only now? ‘Why has Putin done nothing earlier?’ someone asks? Well, simply for the reason that earlier there was no state power in the country that could possibly have taken on the problem. Putin took over a country plagued by anarchy and without any central power. Most of the state apparatus where in hands of corrupt people, including the, by the western press so beloved, “freely elected governors,” the police, the prosecutors; and you could count in even a great deal of the parliamentarians. It is only now through a lot of work that escapes the lazy mind that Putin has been able to muster a response. So the reply to the ‘why not earlier’ is simply that the problems to tackle have been too enormous for such a short time. There is no doubt that during the next four years we will see a significant improvement in this regards, thanks to the continuing trust in Putin by the overwhelming majority of the people. But not much can be achieved before those who shout on Bolotnaya first start paying their taxes, demanding that their suppliers pay, and stop bribing the staff at kindergarten, schools, and hospitals.
Putin has already announced significant liberalization of the election laws, among them the proposition to further lower the threshold for registering parties with nationwide status. (We will probably never see a similar liberalization of the corresponding US laws, a country where two parties share the eternal monopoly to power. Similar business monopolies are broken up by the anti-trust laws, why don’t apply the same principle to these parties that steal the vote in the USA). Thanks to the political reforms that the Government has announced all those competing opposition leaders will soon have a chance to form their own parties by way of collecting the signature from 500 friends instead of the 40,000 needed today. I admit that this is a display of Putin’s political genius. Then each of the much touted “opposition leaders” will have the chance to form their own private pocket parties. Let them compete!
I predict that Putin will go down in history as one of the greatest leaders of all countries and all times.
Jon Hellevig, is a lawyer from Finland who has worked and lived in Russia since the beginning of 1990’s. He is the managing partner of the law firm Hellevig, Klein & Usov.


The right move
The discovery of a giant transposable element may lead to breakthroughs in gene therapy
Nematodes, sea urchins and clawed frogs have something in common with the scrumptious Dover sole served up in pricey restaurants, and no sense making you guess. Their genomes are all full of Mavericks, a newly discovered, giant-sized transposable element.
Transposable elements, or transposons, are mobile genetic elements that jump around in genomes. Biology Assistant Professor Ellen Pritham likens a genome to an ecosystem. Each chromosome is a distinct geographic locale teeming with populations of these mobile elements.
In science, the honor of naming goes to the discoverer. Because the bold and distinctive little movers were discovered at UT Arlington, Dr. Pritham and her husband, biology Assistant Professor Cédric Feschotte, named them after UT Arlington’s mascot.
Nearly every organism’s genome has active transposable elements. About half of the human genome is made up of these “jumping genes.” The transposon’s movement may or may not affect genes. If it does, the impact can be positive or it can lead to disease, including cancer.
“Transposable elements are thought to have no function,” Pritham said. “They are just the baggage carried along by the genome.”
She and Dr. Feschotte were working on the genome of a disease-causing organism called Trichomonas vaginalis when they discovered the new group of mobile genetic elements.
“One very distinctive feature is their size,” Pritham said. “You could safely say they are eight to 10 times bigger than any other mobile element ever reported. So big, in fact, that together they comprise one-third of the Trichomonas genome.”
The missing link?
The professors and undergraduate student Tasneem Putliwala published a journal article in the August 2006 issue of GENE that detailed how they used computational tools to pinpoint the presence of Mavericks in the genomes of animals as diverse as worms, beetles and fish and in the human parasite Trichomonas vaginalis, where they amount to more than 1,000 copies.
While Mavericks do not inhabit the human genome, their presence in Trichomonas vaginalis is responsible for one of the most widespread sexually transmitted diseases worldwide, trichomoniasis.
“What we learn about transposable elements in the genome of Trichomonas could help us understand how pathogens can change quickly and how they can become resistant to drugs and chemicals,” Pritham said.
Mavericks appear to be evolutionary and related to adenoviruses, which infect humans and other mammals and have been harnessed as a promising tool for gene therapy. Studying the way Mavericks move within the genome will likely give researchers much more information about adenovirus replication in humans. Pritham and Feschotte further hypothesize that Mavericks represent a missing evolutionary link between seemingly disparate invasive DNA elements such as adenoviruses, plasmids and bacteriophages, the viruses that infect bacteria.
The first transposons were discovered in the 1940s by Barbara McClintock, the third woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. McClintock’s work on the structure, formation and function of cells (cytogenetics) of corn led her to theorize that genes can move around, an inference she drew by observing changing patterns of coloration in corn kernels.
Many scientists gave little credence to the theory or thought it had no implications for anything but corn. Eventually, other scientists confirmed McClintock’s breakthrough and expanded her findings to many organisms. She received the Nobel Prize in 1983.
Research takes flight
Feschotte and Pritham, who met at the University of Georgia and married in 2004, may be the only husband and wife team focused on transposon research. The partnership assures that work is not left behind at the end of the day. One evening they were sitting on the couch after dinner perusing a scientific journal when they read an article by a scientist identifying—incorrectly, they believed—a new family of genes.
“We were up all night, identifying elements,” Pritham said. Turns out the researcher was indeed incorrect. The DNA sequences were not new genes, but part of giant and selfish mobile elements.
Lately, the duo’s research has focused on bats. In the Feb. 6 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report on their latest discovery: the massive proliferation of rolling-circle transposons, or Helitrons, in a small brown bat, Myotis lucifugus, also called a vesper bat. Helitrons are another newly recognized group of transposable elements that previously had been identified only in the genomes of plants, invertebrates and zebrafish.
“This is the first time that Helitrons were discovered in a mammalian genome,” Feschotte said. “This is exciting because these types of elements are known in plants to cause numerous chromosomal rearrangements and to shuffle genes around as they move within the genome.”
Pritham and Feschotte got to name those elements as well, christening them HeliBats. In their preliminary analysis of the bat genome sequence, they found an amazing quantity of HeliBats—more than 115,000 distinct copies, the largest number of Helitrons ever reported in any species. It was not an overnight invasion. Sequence divergence and cross-species analysis indicate that HeliBats have amplified within the last 30 million-36 million years and are restricted solely to the lineage of vesper bats.
Feschotte said the mammalian transposable element landscape has been finely delineated for the genomes of humans, mice, rats and dogs. With graduate student John Pace, he recently established the first comprehensive catalog of human DNA transposons. The study published in the April issue of Genome Research shows that the human genomic landscape is rich in varied types of DNA transposons, but no Helitrons have been identified.
Furthermore, only retrotransposons are known to be recently active in humans and rodents. There has been no evidence of any primate DNA transposons jumping within the last 50 million years. In contrast, Helitrons and many other DNA transposons have exploded in the vesper bat lineage.
Among mammals, only rodents are more speciose than bats. Among bats, the vesper has the largest number of species as well as the broadest geographic distribution.
“The impact that HeliBats may have played in altering the genome organization and contributing to the extraordinary diversification of bats is a fascinating question that we are now actively pursuing,” Feschotte said.
And one that may impact gene therapy.
— Sue Stevens


Industries & Application
Mercury from Waste Treatment and Recycling
Mercury waste generated from various industries must be carefully sorted, processed, and treated for disposal to prevent polluting the environment and causing health hazards to people and animals. Typical mercury-containing wastes include mercury-containing devices from medical and industrial use, waste sludges, spent catalysts, used pipelines and valves from petrochemical industries, exposed metals, and more.
Electrical/Electronic waste (e-Waste) is a significant contributor of harmful substances to the environment, including mercury. Mercury can also quickly enter the environment from improper disposal of fluorescent lamps, alkaline batteries, old TVs (CRT and LCD), printed-circuit boards (PCB), and more.
Improper disposal of electronic waste pollutes the environment and will also cause health problems to the workers in these industries due to the long-term mercury exposure in their workplace.


Here are several lessons for upper elementary students based on the K-8 Massachusetts State Standards. Submitted by Elizabeth McDonald from Somerset, Massachusetts. 3-4
Work with a partner to accomplish a variety of exercises from the fitness components and make activity choices together.
This is a great Winter Olympics event for grades 2-4. Submitted by Dick Samaria from Belmont, Massachusetts.
Here’s just a sample of the great stuff in Dr. Connie Crawford’s new book!
Here’s a great station idea for your younger students based on a “Day at the Circus” theme. Submitted by Tracy Radler from Ewing, New Jersey. K-2
Here’s a neat Field Day activity that’s great for older students. Submitted by Kevin Tiller from Sanbornville, New Hampshire. K-8
Here are some game stations that you can use to tie into your school’s multicultural lessons. Submitted by Meredith Barringer from Rolesville, North Carolina. K-5
Here are a few ideas for reinforcing basic locomotor movements for your students once they have been taught the skills. K-5.
Here’s are some ideas for outdoor activity courses. 3-8
Here’s a Christmas obstacle course that you can use with your younger students.


||Since the discovery of transparent conducting oxide (TCO) thin films，TCO has been widely used in optoelectronic devices. To increase the potential application of the TCO, this study aims at growing amorphous TCO thin films which possess visible transparency and high electric conductivity. Up to date, only IGZO exhibits these properties. However, the nature resource of indium, the main material in IGZO, is rare and expensive. In this study, searching for new materials that do not contain In, while manifest high transparent and conductivity is our major challenge. |
ZnO has an energy band gap of 3.4eV, for which visible photon does not have enough energy to excite the electron in ZnO from the valence band to conduction band. Therefore, it reveals itself as transparent. ZnO materials are relative stable in high temperature and chemical environments and thus a good candidate for been developed into amorphous TCO.
The reason for the high conductivity in amorphous IGZO thin films is because the S orbital of In is spherical symmetry and has large radius in which can overlap with the next In ions to form a continuous band for conduction. In this study, a similar strategy is employed by use of the large S orbital of the doping tin (Sn) in ZnO. A ceramic ZnO target for the pulse laser deposition system is partially wrapped with tin foil. The optimum growth condition are searching by tuning oxygen partial pressure, laser energy, the distance between the target and substrate, and substrate temperature.


What is CHAOS?
CHAOS, or Congenital High Airway Obstruction Syndrome is a blockage of the fetus’s trachea (windpipe) or larynx (voice box). This obstruction can be due to a number of factors including narrowing of the airway (stenosis), a web-like membrane, or even an area of the trachea that is missing (atresia). While in the uterus the fetal lungs constantly produce fluid. As a result of this airway blockage in the trachea, the lung fluid cannot escape out of the fetal mouth. Because of this the fetus’s lungs become distended with fluid. Overdistention of the lungs can put pressure on the heart and effect the heart’s ability to function. If the heart cannot beat effectively hydrops (congestive heart failure) can occur.
The cause of CHAOS is currently unknown. It is a very rare condition and not thought to recur in families.
What is the outcome for a fetus with CHAOS?
The outcome for a fetus with CHAOS depends greatly upon the type of malformation causing the obstruction. If the obstruction is minor, such as a thin tissue membrane covering the larynx, it may be correctable through minimal surgery before or after birth with no lasting complications. A complete blockage of the larynx, or a missing section of trachea is more serious. Babies born with this problem will not be able to breathe when they are born; as a result, require placement of a tracheostomy (breathing tube through the neck) after birth. Also multiple operations to correct the airway will be required after birth. There may also be problems with normal voice functioning, the ability to talk, or the ability to eat/drink by mouth. In more extreme cases of CHAOS where the lung swelling endangers the heart function, surgery before birth may be a treatment option.
The condition can also be complicated by the presence of other birth defects; thus, it is important to test for other abnormalities. These are done by testing the chromosomes of the fetus through amniocentesis and microarray, and also performing a cardiac echo to look more closely at the fetal heart structure and function.
How serious is fetus's condition?
CHAOS is often a very serious and life-threatening condition. The severity depends partly on whether the blockage is complete. When the blockage is complete, the lungs can become hugely overdistended and can lead to hydrops fetalis (congestive heart failure); In order to determine the severity of the problem a number of tests are recommended.
Accurate assessment requires four tests:
- amniocentesis and/or microarray to assess the fetal chromosomes
- a level II ultrasound to look for other anomalies and define the anatomy of the airway
- a fetal echocardiogram to determine whether or not the fetus has an associated heart defect or if the function of the heart has been affected
- an MRI to obtain an accurate picture of the airway and determine the level and length of the obstruction in the airway
If the chromosomes are normal, and there are no additional birth defects other than the CHAOS, the severity of the condition depends on the type of malformation causing the airway obstruction.
What are my choices during this pregnancy?
After your fetus’s condition is fully diagnosed through a formal evaluation, you will be presented with treatment options. In severe cases, where the fetus has hydrops (heart failure), surgery before birth to relieve the obstruction may be offered. Hydrops in the fetus is defined as the build up of excess fluid in the fetus. This extra fluid can be seen in the fetal abdomen, lungs, skin or scalp.
If there is no fetal hydrops, we recommend your delivery will be scheduled via EXIT (Ex Utero Intrapartum Treatment) procedure. The EXIT Procedure is used in situations in which there is a known airway obstruction in the baby. The goal of the procedure is to deliver the baby in a controlled situation so that they are not deprived of oxygen, to minimize the chance of damage to the brain of the baby.
The goal with the EXIT procedure is to provide the baby with a functioning airway so that adequate oxygen can be delivered to the lungs after the baby is separated from placenta. The EXIT procedure is a planned, specialized delivery involving both the mother and the baby. It should only be performed at a hospital that has a team consisting of a pediatric surgeon, obstetrician, anesthesiologist, and neonatologist.The start of the procedure is conducted like a Cesarean section. However, unlike a Cesarean, the mother is put under general anesthesia in order to ensure that the uterus is completely relaxed.
The head of baby is delivered but the baby remains attached to the placenta. A pediatric surgeon uses a bronchoscope through the baby’s mouth to look more closely at the airway. Depending on the type of blockage the surgeon may then attempt to pass an endotracheal tube (tube through the baby’s mouth into the trachea) and give breaths to the baby. If this is successful, and oxygen is being delivered to the baby through the tube, the infant is delivered and the umbilical cord cut. If a tube cannot be passed from the mouth through the obstruction, the pediatric surgeon will need to place a tracheostomy tube through the neck directly into the trachea, bypassing the blockage. The surgeon will make an incision in the neck of the baby and place a tube below the level of the airway blockage. Once the tube is placed, and the surgeon is confident that it is functioning and can be used to deliver oxygen to the baby, the infant is delivered. Care of the infant is then provided by the Intensive Care Nursery team.
What will happen after birth?
To provide a functioning airway your baby will likely be delivered via an EXIT procedure. After which, your baby will be brought to the Intensive Care Nursery for close observation and further assessment. Additional reconstructive surgeries may be required.


by David Andrade, http://tinyurl.com/edtechguy
The future. What do our students really need to know and be able to do to succeed in future education and careers?
Content is a part of what they need to know. Standardized tests test content knowledge and some skills. There are huge debates raging over standardized testing, curriculum, and the like. But what it is that students really need to know for the future. Hint: it isn’t all content.
Content is important to a point. Having certain knowledge of facts and information helps us put things in context as we work and live. Content helps us evaluate other information we are working with. However, in today’s world of the web and smart phones, facts and content are less important. Students, and the workforce, need to know how to think critically, find and evaluate information, work in teams, communicate effectively, solve problems and apply knowledge and skills to new things and be able to learn on their own. These are some of the “21st Century Skills” that have been talked about for years. I agree that these are the most important skills and I feel that Project Based Learning is one of the best ways to teach these skills.
I learned many of these skills in college because even 20 years ago, my school, WPI, understood these ideas. The WPI Plan is an excellent model of project based learning, core competencies, and needed skills. This base has allowed me to be successful as an engineer, and successfully transition to being an educator. It has also helped me to learn on my own.
Research by the Institute for the Future released in a report entitled “Future Work Skills 2020? shows that preparing for a specific career area based on content is difficult and, instead, people should be developing certain broad skills. These same skills are important for our students to learn. The report explains each of the skills in detail, and also goes into the implications for education and policies.
Here are the skills:
Sense-making. The ability to determine the deeper meaning or significance of what is being expressed
Social intelligence. The ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions
Novel and adaptive thinking. Proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions and responses beyond that which is rote or rule-based
Cross-cultural competency. The ability to operate in different cultural settings
Computational thinking. The ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning
New-media literacy. The ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms and to leverage these media for persuasive communication
Transdisciplinarity. Literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple disciplines
Design mind-set. Ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for desired outcomes
Cognitive load management. The ability to discriminate and filter information for importance and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques
Virtual collaboration. The ability to work productively, drive engagement and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team
A summary map of the skills:
Gigacom.com article (list of skills came from this site)
David Andrade is a Physics Teacher and Educational Technology Specialist in Connecticut. He is the author of the Educational Technology Guy blog, where he reviews free educational technology resources for teachers, discusses ways to use technology to improve teaching and learning, and discusses other issues in education.
He is also a professional development trainer and presenter at conferences, helping educators learn new and innovative ways to educate students. He is also a Discovery Education STAR Educator and member of the CT DEN Leadership Council.
Disclaimer: The information shared here is strictly that of the author and does not reflect the opinions or endorsement of his employer.


With the right community service ideas and opportunities from pre-nursery to 12th, young people can move from developing an idea of self to an understanding of how they can help solve societal problems. This developmental process fosters empathy within a child and builds their identity as a responsible citizen of the future. It therefore becomes important for them to make social work/community service a habit and a way of life rather than something forced upon them. Research also shows empathy is a prime quality required in top leadership positions around the world.
At Vega we view social responsibility and resulting values as intrinsic to every child’s development. Engaging them actively from early childhood years will lead them to become proactive, mindful and productive citizens of the future. We believe that it is important for our learners to become self-reliant and mindful of their own environment & surroundings while thinking beyond themselves: their family and underprivileged & vulnerable communities as well.
This thinking feeds directly into Vega’s PBL pedagogy of taking a driving question, and thorough inquiry and innovation and using 21st-century skills of critical thinking & collaboration, create a product that can be used by those who need it.
Unmukt is a voluntary organization formed by learners of grades III and V as a product of one of their projects in September 2018.
The idea of creating Unmukt was born from the thought by learners that all knowledge and understanding gained by them about core content of diseases, health, and hygiene, was futile if they could not apply it meaningfully and make a difference in the community. With this altruistic intent and unflinching spirit, they forged ahead and created Unmukt, developing their own vision, mission and goal statements.
However, over time Unmukt expanded beyond a single project culmination. It has evolved into the implementing body of all social work/call to action projects undertaken by the learners at Vega.


Indexed on: 17 Oct '03Published on: 17 Oct '03Published in: American journal of mental retardation : AJMR
Adaptive behavior over time in 70 children with fragile X syndrome, ages 1 to 12 years, was examined using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. With a mean of 4.4 assessments per child, adaptive behavior skills increased steadily and gradually over time. Children with less autistic behavior and higher percentages of FMPR expression showed better performance on all areas of adaptive behavior. Children without autistic behavior displayed higher scores and rates of growth on the Daily Living Skills domain, with the lowest scores in Socialization. Comparison to Brief IQs indicate that children with fragile X syndrome display nonverbal IQs superior to their adaptive behavior when they are below age 10 but that these skills seem to converge as they get older.


1845January 9, 1840
The Republic of Texas becomes a state of the United States of America.
Drawing of Austin 1844
1932/5-21, Courtesy of Texas State Library and Archives Commission
1846-47January 1, 1846
- War between the United States and Mexico.
- Elias Howe patents the sewing machine.
- Iowa becomes a state.
Governor: James Pinckney Henderson
1847-49March 7, 1847
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, are published.
- Marx and Engels issue the Communist Manifesto.
Governor: George T. Wood
Image: Andy Lidstone / Shutterstock.com
1849-53March 7, 1849
- Zachary Taylor becomes the 12th US President in 1849, dies in 1850 and is succeeded by Millard Fillmore.
- The Compromise of 1850 resolves some slavery issues and Texas border disputes.
- California becomes a state in 1850.
- The Taiping Rebellion takes place in China.
Governor: Peter Hansborough Bell
Historic Map of California
1853-57March 7, 1853
- Franklin Pierce becomes the 14th US President.
- Births of Vincent van Gogh and Sigmund Freud.
- Introduction of the Bessemer process in steel production.
- Guiseppe Verdi debuts his operas Il Trovatore and La Traviata.
Governor: Elisha Marshall Pease
Vincent Van Gogh
Image: Everett – Art / Shutterstock.com
1854March 7, 1854
Construction begins on the Texas Governor’s Mansion.
Master Builder Abner Cook, circa 1870
Image Courtesy: PICB01890, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library
1856March 7, 1856
The Governor’s Mansion completed in June, 1856.
1857-59March 7, 1857
- James Buchanan becomes the 15th US President.
- Laying of the transatlantic cable begins.
- Minnesota becomes a state in 1858.
Governor: Hardin R. Runnels
President James Buchanan
1859-61March 7, 1859
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is published.
- The first oil well is drilled in Pennsylvania.
- Abraham Lincoln elected as 16th president.
- U. S. population is approximately 32 million.
- Pasteur develops the germ theory of fermentation.
Governor: Sam Houston
H.B. Hillyer – One of the earliest photos of the Mansion in 1860s
1932/5-50, Courtesy of Texas State Library and Archives Commission
1861-63March 7, 1861
- Texas secedes from US; Sam Houston forced from the office of governor.
- Civil War begins when Confederates take Ft. Sumpter on April 12, 1861.
- Publication of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables.
- West Virginia becomes a US state in 1863.
Governor: Francis R. Lubbock
1863-65March 7, 1863
- Mexico City is captured by the French who install Maximilian as emperor.
- Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, gives the Gettysburg Address, 1863.
- Lee surrenders at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.
- President Lincoln assassinated on April 14, 1865; succeeded by Andrew Johnson.
Governor: Pendleton Murrah
1865-66March 7, 1865
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
- Premier of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde.
- Invention of dynamite by Alfred Nobel.
Governor: Andrew J. Hamilton (provisional governor)
Alice in Wonderland, vintage engraving
1866-67March 7, 1866
- Nebraska becomes a US state.
- Diamond field discovered in South Africa.
Governor: James W. Throckmorton
1867-69March 7, 1867
- Texas Governor’s Mansion occupied by military commander Gen. J. J. Reynolds.
- Gen. Sheridan restores military rule in Texas.
- Ulysses S. Grant becomes the 18th president of the US
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is published.
Governor: Elisha Marshall Pease
President Ulysses S. Grant
1870-74March 7, 1870
- Standard Oil Company is founded by John D. Rockefeller.
- Salt Creek Massacre led by Kiowa chief Satanta, Young County, Texas.
- Publication of Anna Karenina, written by Tolstoi.
Governor: Edmund J. Davis
1874-76March 7, 1874
- First modern toilet facility installed in the Governor’s Mansion.
- First gas lights installed in the Mansion.
- In Paris, France, first exhibition of Impressionist paintings takes place.
- First zoo in America started in Philadelphia.
Governor: Richard Coke
1876-79March 7, 1876
- Texas drafts a new state constitution; Reconstruction ends.
- First performance of the opera Carmen, composed by Bizet.
- Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell.
- Rutherford B. Hayes becomes the 19th US President.
- Birth of Albert Einstein.
Governor: Richard B. Hubbard
1879-83March 7, 1879
- Running water first installed in the Governor’s Mansion.
- Rodin sculpts The Thinker
- James A. Garfield becomes 20th President.
- Chester A. Arthur sworn in as President after the assassination of Garfield.
- Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is published.
Governor: Oran M. Roberts
The Thinker, Rodin
1883-87March 7, 1883
- Buffalo Bill Cody organizes his Wild West Show.
- The Texas Capitol building burns down.
- Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn is published.
- Dedication of the Statue of Liberty in New York City.
Governor: John Ireland
Image Courtesy: neftali / Shutterstock.com
1887-91March 7, 1887
- Dedication of the newly completed Texas Capitol.
- Queen Victoria celebrates her 50th year as queen of England.
- “Kodak” box camera design completed by George Eastman.
- Inauguration of Benjamin Harrison as the 23rd President.
- Hollerith creates the first punch card system.
- Wyoming and Idaho become US states.
Governor: Lawrence Sullivan Ross
Goddess of Liberty, February 1888
1965/90-1, Courtesy of Texas State Library and Archives Commission
- Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History: A Horizontal Linkage of People and Events. New York: Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1991. Jean Daniel, Price Daniel and Dorothy Blodgett. The Texas Governor’s Mansion.
- Austin: Texas State Library and Archives Commission and the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center, 1984.
- The Governor’s Mansion of Texas: A Tour of Texas’s Most Historic Home. Austin: Friends of the Governor’s Mansion, 1997.


Cheat codes in video games enable the player to access different features and functions by entering in a series of characters or button commands into the game, which activates a secret action within the game's code. Such commands are often only accessible through the code rather than playing the game.Continue Reading
Video game cheat codes often give the player special powers or advantages that would otherwise need to be gathered through continuous game play. Some codes provide additional lives or infinite ammunition, unlock special vehicles or change game physics. Some games feature a special cheat code menu, where the player enters an exact phrase or series of numbers and letters to trigger the code. Other games require the player to press the controller buttons in a certain order on a Pause or Start screen in order to activate the code.
One popular example of a video game cheat code is the Konami Code, which appears in games such as "Gradius" and "Contra." To activate this code, the player must access the game's Start screen and press "Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start" on the controller before the demo plays. In most games, the code gives the player 30 additional lives. Another common purpose of cheat codes is to give the player access to special content on demand, such as rare vehicles or weapons.Learn more about Video & Online Games


St. Joan of Arc
St. Joan of Arc was born on January 6 1412 in France. In her childhood she was said to have heard the voices of St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. At 13 years old each of them told her to drive the English from French territory.
When Joan turned 16 has asked permission from a relative to visit the French Royal Court. Despite being laughed at, she returned the following January with two soldiers. She predicted a military reversal at the Battle of Rouvray near Orleans, which were confirmed several days later. When it was discovered that Joan could not have known that information it was believed to be Divine revelation and she gained the trust of the commander. For her own safety, she was escorted through hostile territory dressed as male soldier (which later led to charges of her cross dressing.)
Joan arrived to Orleans and quickly turned the conflict into a religious war. In April 1429 upon concern that her claims of “doing Gods work” and how that could easily be twisted by their enemies, she was declared “a good Christian, possessed by the virtues of humility, honesty, and simplicity.”
On May 4, English troops approached the army to stop their advances but a cavalry charge turned them away without a fight. Joan was shot with an arrow between her neck and shoulder as she held her banner , but returned to take the fortress. The next day the English retreated and the siege was over.
Joan was captured and held for ransom, there were several attempts to free her and she even made escape attempts, including jumping from her 70 ft tower. Eventually she was sold to the English for 10,000 gold coins and was tried as a heretic and a witch. She was thrown in prison where she wore military clothing she could tie together to avoid being raped.
Despite a lack of incriminating evidence, Joan was sentenced to death in 1431.
Accounts of Joans death by burning on May 30 described how she was tied to a pillar and burned three times to reduce her to ash and her remains thrown into the river. The executioner later said he “greatly feared to be damned."
Joan is the patron of soldier and France


Landslide causes many social and economic losses in many parts of the world every year. These losses can be greatly reduced by using appropriate management measures such as mapping landslide susceptibility mapping in the basin. The aim of this study is landslide susceptibility mapping using Mahalanobis distance in the Latyan catchment. First, a total of 208 cases of landslides identificated and geo-referenced using geographic information systems based on an interpretation of aerial photographs and extensive field surveys and provided a landslide inventory map. The map of 12 factors, including rainfall, land use, distance to fault, distance from river, distance from road, lithology, altitude, slope, aspect, plan curvature, Peak Ground Acceleration and topographic wetness index as the most important factors in landslides was prepared. Then the correlating each factor and the landslide was examined. Finally landslide susceptibility zoning map was provided based on the Mahalanobis distance in Latyan catchment. To evaluate the results, the ROC and chi-square tests were used. The results show more than 80 % of the catchment located in range of high and very high susceptibility classes and need to suitable management operations. AUC index (area under the curve ROC) for this model is achieved to 0.896 or 89.6% which represent capability and high accuracy. Chi-square test results also reflect the proper separation of landslide susceptibility classes by model.