Blue moon to shine on New Year's Eve - CNN.com

Blue moon to shine on New Year's Eve - CNN.com

3 overnight Bangkok river cruises | CNNGo.com

3 overnight Bangkok river cruises | CNNGo.com

Shakira -- Megastar, UNICEF ambassador

 Love this girl!!!

She is a Latin Pride.

 

Monday's Connector of the Day – Shakira

Posted: 1725 GMT

Shakira is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, having sold more than 50 million albums worldwide.
Famous for her hit record ‘Hips Don’t Lie’, (a collaboration with Wyclef Jean) –it was the most-played pop song in a single week in American radio history, with 9,637 broadcasts.

Shakira's famous dance moves help raise awareness for children's charities

Growing up in Barranquilla, on the Colombian Caribbean coast, when she was eight years old, Shakira's father declared bankruptcy. Losing most of their possessions, the young Shakira thought the world had ended, until her father took her to a local park where she witnessed the sight of orphans living there, taking drugs and sniffing glue.
At that moment Shakira made a vow to herself that one day she would become a famous artist and help these kids.
Like her hips, she didn’t lie: she became a stratospheric hit worldwide – acording to Forbes Magazine, the 4th highest-earning woman in music for 2008 – and she did not forget her promise to the children.
At just 18 years old, she founded The Pies Descalzos Foundation – named after her 3rd album – which helps deprived children get access to good education. Their work is based close to Shakira’s birthplace.
Shakira broadened her humanitarian work through the Barefoot Foundation – named after her distinctive belly dancing stance – with a mission to support the same universal education goals.
Not stopping there, as UNICEF Goodwill ambassador, Shakira has taken her humanitarian work worldwide.
A belly-dancing Latin bombshell, and philanthropist raising millions for children’s charities – Shakira is our connector of the day.

Las caracolas fetiche que inspiraron a Neruda, expuestas por primera vez

EL MUNDO.ES

EXPOSICIÓN | En Madrid

Pablo Neruda y Matilde Urrutia, abrazados en Isla Negra. Ver más fotos

• La muestra reúne 453 piezas que el poeta donó a la Universidad de Chile
• 'Neruda encontró en ellas el prodigio de la naturaleza', dice Pedro Núñez

María Pérez | Madrid

Actualizado martes 01/12/2009 23:06 horas

 

"Lo mejor que coleccioné en mi vida fueron mis caracoles. Me dieron el placer de su prodigiosa estructura: la pureza lunar de una porcelana misteriosa...". Recolectar caracolas fue casi una obsesión para Pablo Neruda. En su búsqueda de nuevas piezas, rastreó mercadillos de todo el mundo, exploró playas bañadas por los diferentes océanos y utilizó las mañas necesarias para que amigos o conocidos le obsequiaran con piezas únicas.
Ahora, parte de este tesoro que el poeta reunió durante 20 años y que le sirvió de inspiración, se despliega por primera vez ante el público. La cita es en Madrid, en la sede del Instituto Cervantes, que acoge, hasta el 24 de enero, 453 de las casi 9.000 caracolas que el poeta donó a la Universidad de Chile en 1954 gracias a la exposición 'Amor al mar. Las caracolas de Neruda', organizada por el Instituto Cervantes, la Embajada de Chile en España y la Universidad de Chile.
Las piezas desembarcadas en Madrid son las más espectaculares y el visitante puede observarlas mientras recorre las curvas del océano improvisado de la sala con el sonido del mar de fondo o escuchando, como salida de una caracola, la voz del premio Nobel de Literatura recitando sus poemas.
"Neruda encontró en las caracolas una inspiración constante, el asombro frente al prodigio extraordinario de la naturaleza, explica Pedro Núñez, comisario de la exposición.
El poeta encontró en sus caracolas la metáfora de la diversidad del mundo a pesar de las rígidas proporciones matemáticas que rigen su estructura espiral. Una cuestión que abordó en su poesía, también sacudida por la omnipresencia de un mar que conoció con 15 años. "Incluso antes de conocerlo, Neruda ya presentía la importancia que el mar tendría en su poesía. Su encuentro con él cambió su visión del mundo", afirma Núñez.
Quizás por eso coleccionara todo tipo de objetos relacionados con los océanos, desde mascarones de proa hasta barquitos en botellas.
Pero la joya de la corona eran las caracolas. La pasión de Neruda era tal que se hizo experto de la malacología. Poseía libros -algunos presentes en la muestra- y mapas de especies.

Regalos de Mao Ze Dong o de Rafael Alberti

De su colección forman parte piezas exuberantes o modestas, de formas barrocas o de una transparente sencillez. Algunas tienen grabadas inscripciones o retratos. Muchas, las recibió de personajes como Mao Ze Dong o Rafael Alberti.
El poeta atracaba con gestos a sus contertulios. Un amigo le mostró su colección de caracolas. El poeta "encontró una que no tenía y que le gustó especialmente. Le cambió la cara, la cogió y la tuvo durante bastante tiempo en sus manos. Después dijo: 'muchas gracias por este encuentro, vamos a celebrarlo con un whisky', y se quedó con la caracola", comenta Núñez.
Un grupo de caracoles terrestres fluorescentes en una vitrina recuerdan el asombro que deslumbró al escritor cuando contempló su colorida luz 'adornando' un arbol en mitad de la noche cubana. "Neruda le pidió a su compañera, Delia del Carril, que vaciara su bolso para poder seguir metiendo caracoles", comenta Núñez.
El propio Neruda confesaba así su pasión y explicaba su decisión de donar la colección a la Universidad de Chile: "Nadie me quitará el deslumbramiento de haber extraído del mar el 'espondylus roseo'. [...] Recuerdo que en el museo de Pekín abrieron la caja más sagrada de los moluscos del mar de China, para regalarme el segundo de los dos únicos ejemplares de la Thatcheria mirabilis. [...] Esta espuma de los siete mares la entrego a la universidad por deber de conciencia y para pagar, en parte mínima, lo que he recibido de mi pueblo".

Jane Austen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A watercolour and pencil sketch of Jane Austen, believed to be drawn from life by her sister Cassandra (c. 1810)^[A]

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist, whose realism, biting social commentary and use of free indirect speech have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature.^[1]
Austen lived her entire life as part of a small and close-knit family located on the lower fringes of English gentry.^[2] She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to Austen's development as a professional writer.^[3] Austen's artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried and then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth.^[B] From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.
Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the eighteenth century and are part of the transition to nineteenth-century realism.^[4][C] Austen's plots, though fundamentally comic,^[5] highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security.^[6] Like those of Samuel Johnson, one of the strongest influences on her writing, her works are concerned with moral issues.^[7]
During Austen's lifetime, because she chose to publish anonymously, her works brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews. Through the mid-nineteenth century, her novels were admired only by members of the literary elite. However, the publication of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced her to a wider public as an appealing personality and kindled popular interest in her works. By the 1940s, Austen was widely accepted in academia as a "great English writer". The second half of the twentieth century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship, which explored many aspects of her novels: artistic, ideological, and historical. In popular culture, a Janeite fan culture has developed, centered on Austen's life, her works, and the various film and television adaptations of them.

Beneath the Surface of Amman, Jordan - The New York Times Travel Slide Show Slide 1 of 10

Beneath the Surface of Amman, Jordan - The New York Times Travel Slide Show Slide 1 of 10

The Grand Canyon in Winter - The New York Times Travel Slide Show Slide 6 of 14

The Grand Canyon in Winter - The New York Times Travel Slide Show Slide 6 of 14

Galileo's missing fingers found in jar

I DO BELIEVE RELIGION HAS MADE MORE DAMAGE THAN BENEFIT TO HUMANITY, AND OF COURSE, IGNORANCE THE WORST AMONG ALL EVILS.

By Richard Allen Greene, CNN

November 23, 2009 -- Updated 1405 GMT (2205 HKT)

Three fingers were cut from Galileo's hand in March 1737, when his body was moved in Florence.

(CNN) -- Two fingers cut from the hand of Italian astronomer Galileo nearly 300 years ago have been rediscovered more than a century after they were last seen, an Italian museum director said Monday.
They were purchased recently at an auction by a person who brought them to the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, suspecting what they were, museum director Paolo Galluzzi said.
Three fingers were cut from Galileo's hand in March 1737, when his body was moved from a temporary monument to its final resting place in Florence, Italy. The last tooth remaining in his lower jaw was also taken, Galluzzi said.
Two of the fingers and the tooth ended up in a sealed glass jar that disappeared sometime after 1905.
There had been "no trace" of them for more than 100 years until the person who bought them in the auction came to the museum recently.
"I was very curious," the Galluzzi said.
"There is a description from 1905 by the last person to have seen these objects. It provides us with a very detailed description of the container and the contents inside," Galluzzi explained.
The jar "matches in every minute detail" the description, Galluzzi said.
But by the time the urn went on sale, the label saying what was inside had been lost, so the sellers and the auctioneer did not realize its significance.
"Everybody knew there were fingers and a tooth, but the people preparing the auction didn't know it was Galileo," Galluzzi said.
The owner who bought the fingers wants to remain anonymous, Galluzzi said, so the museum is not giving more details about who sold them or when.
The museum plans to display the fingers and tooth in March 2010, after it re-opens following a renovation, Galluzzi said.
The museum has had the third Galileo finger since 1927, so the digits will be reunited for the first time in centuries, he added.
Removing body parts from the corpse was an echo of a practice common with saints, whose digits, tongues and organs were revered by Catholics as relics with sacred powers.
There is an irony in Galileo's having been subjected to the same treatment, since he was persecuted by the Catholic Church for advocating the theory that the earth circles the sun, rather than the other way around. The Inquisition forced him to recant, and jailed him in 1634.
The people who cut off his fingers essentially considered him a secular saint, Galluzzi said, noting the fingers that were removed were the ones he would have used to hold a pen.
"Exactly as it was practiced with saints of religion, so with saints of science," Galluzzi said. "He was a hero and a martyr, keeping alive freedom of thought and freedom of research."
He said it was little surprise that the 18th century followers of Galileo would have mimicked the practice of those who persecuted him.
"The behavior of people adhering to one pole of these antagonisms is often much like those on the other pole," he said.
It is not yet clear whether enough organic material remains in the newly discovered fingers for DNA testing, Galluzzi said, but if there is, it could shed light on the blindness that afflicted Galileo late in his life and his final illness.
Galluzzi is convinced the find is genuine.
If it was a fake, "would you have sold it at very low cost at an auction? All the story is so convincing I cannot think of a reason not to believe it," he said.

Galileo Galilei invented the telescope -- among many other achievements -- which enabled him to discover that the planet Jupiter has moons. He became the foremost advocate of Copernican astronomy, which denied that the earth was the fixed center of the universe. He died in 1642.

Sea level rise could cost port cities $28 trillion

November 23, 2009 -- Updated 1200 GMT (2000 HKT)

The melting of ice caps in Greenland and the Antarctic could mean sea levels rising by 0.5 meters, the report says.

London, England (CNN) -- A possible rise in sea levels by 0.5 meters by 2050 could put at risk more than $28 trillion worth of assets in the world's largest coastal cities, according to a report compiled for the insurance industry.
The value of infrastructure exposed in so-called "port mega-cities," urban conurbations with more than 10 million people, is just $3 trillion at present.
The rise in potential losses would be a result of expected greater urbanization and increased exposure of this greater population to catastrophic surge events occurring once every 100 years caused by rising sea levels and higher temperatures.
The report, released on Monday by WWF and financial services Allianz, concludes that the world's diverse regions and ecosystems are close to temperature thresholds -- or "tipping points."

Video: Climate change affects Bolivia

Video: Rudd: Climate change is real

RELATED TOPICS

• Nature and the Environment

Any one of these surge events could unleash devastating environmental, social and economic changes amid a higher urban population.
According to the report, carried out by the UK-based Tyndall Centre, the impacts of passing "Tipping Points" on the livelihoods of people and economic assets have been underestimated.
Global temperatures have already risen by at least 0.7 degrees Celsius and the report says a further rise by 2-3 degrees in the second half of the century is likely unless deep cuts in emissions are put in place before 2015.
The consequent melting of the Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Shield could lead to one such tipping point scenario, possibly a sea level rise of up to 0.5 meters by 2050.
The report focuses on regions and phenomena where such events might be expected to cause significant environmental impacts within the first half of the century.
For example a hurricane in New York, which could cost $1 trillion now, would mean a $5 trillion insurance bill by the middle of the century, the report adds.
"If we don't take immediate action against climate change, we are in grave danger of disruptive and devastating changes," said Kim Carstensen, the Head of WWF Global Climate Initiative.

"Reaching a tipping point means losing something forever. This must be a strong argument for world leaders to agree a strong and binding climate deal in Copenhagen in December."

Bachchan: Bollywood needs to adapt - CNN.com

Bachchan: Bollywood needs to adapt - CNN.com

Baby gorillas in Congo getting a new playpen: Paradise

By Joe Sterling, CNN

November 21, 2009 -- Updated 0457 GMT (1257 HKT)

Ndeze cuddles with chief caregiver Andre Bauma.

RELATED TOPICS

• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Veterinary Medicine

(CNN) -- The only two baby mountain gorillas in captivity -- orphaned two years ago after their mothers were slain in massacres -- will soon be getting a lush, new playpen, Congo's wildlife authority announced Friday.
Ndeze and Ndakasi will be romping in a special sanctuary, the Senkwekwe Center now under construction in Virunga National Park, where about 200 of the world's remaining 700 mountain gorillas live.
"This is paradise for them," said Samantha Newport, the park's communications director. "They will be able to play around, climb trees and eat forest food."
Authorities began building the center in July 2007 but had to stop work after rebels invaded the park during the long-running civil war that raged in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Work resumed in September as hostilities subsided. The center is expected to be ready for occupancy by March.
The babies were found in 2007 when they were 2 months old, one on her slain mother and the other on the back of her brother, who was alive when the baby was found.
Authorities don't know who killed the mothers, but they suspect that the perpetrators were those engaging in the park's illegal charcoal industry, in which people cut down trees for fuel so they can cook and boil water.
Newport said park rangers who found the babies hustled them out of the park to the city of Goma, where they have been living on a site with a house and trees.
"If they had not been taken out of the wild, they would have died," she said.
Newport doesn't know whether the two will be moved out of the center and into the wild when they get older.
The Senkwekwe Center is a 2.5-acre plot of forest three miles from the mountain gorilla habitat in Virunga.
Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park, said that along with sheltering the baby gorillas, the center offers "a unique opportunity to enable the local population to see gorillas, and provides a launch pad for the veterinary activities that are conducted throughout Virunga."
The center will have a 40-by-40-meter interior holding facility, visitation platforms, an education center and veterinary facilities. The wildlife authority is raising $100,000 for the completion of the center, and donations will be matched by the United Nations Foundation.

Gorillas have been caught in the middle of the civil warfare in recent years, and fighters had occupied large swaths of the 8,000--square-kilometer park. The gorilla section is in a strategically important area near the borders of Rwanda and Uganda.

Un reto pendiente para la 'Viagra rosa', las mujeres menopáusicas | elmundo.es salud

Un reto pendiente para la 'Viagra rosa', las mujeres menopáusicas | elmundo.es salud

YouTube - Inspirational -Search for the hero inside yourself..

YouTube - Inspirational -Search for the hero inside yourself..

Obama respondió a bloguera cubana

Redacción

BBC Mundo

Barack Obama respondió por escrito a las preguntas de Yoani Sánchez.

El presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, respondió a un cuestionario de siete preguntas que le envió la bloguera cubana Yoani Sánchez.

La autora del famoso blog Generación Y envió sendas cartas a las oficinas del presidente de Cuba, Raúl Castro, y a la del presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama.
Ambas misivas incluían siete preguntas sobre las relaciones entre los dos países. De momento, sólo el inquilino de la Casa Blanca respondió al cuestionario.
clic Lea: Cuba responde a críticas por DD.HH.
"Después de meses de intentos he logrado hacerle llegar un cuestionario al presidente norteamericano Barack Obama, con algunos de esos temas que no me dejan dormir", aseguró Sánchez en declaraciones citadas por el diario español El País.

Respuesta de Obama

Llevo tiempo diciendo que es hora de aplicar una diplomacia directa y sin condiciones, sea con amigos o enemigos. Sin embargo, hablar por aquello de hablar no es lo que me interesa.

Barack Obama, presidente de EE.UU.

Obama se mostró "agradecido" de poder compartir sus impresiones con la bloguera y sus lectores.
Por otro lado, el mandatario estadounidense aprovechó la ocasión para pedir el respeto a los derechos humanos en la isla y para hablar de su posición ante al conflicto entre los dos países.
"Llevo tiempo diciendo que es hora de aplicar una diplomacia directa y sin condiciones, sea con amigos o enemigos. Sin embargo, hablar por aquello de hablar no es lo que me interesa. En el caso de Cuba, el uso de la diplomacia debería resultar en mayores oportunidades para promover nuestros intereses y las libertades del pueblo cubano", señaló Obama.
clic Opine: ¿El embargo empeora situación de DD.HH. en Cuba?
El blog Generación Y fue catalogado como uno de los mejores 25 blogs del mundo en 2009 por la revista estadounidense Time y su autora recibió diversos premios, entre ellos el Ortega y Gasset de periodismo en España y el María Moore Cabot de la Universidad de Columbia.

Bloguear en Cuba

Yoani Sánchez es una de las blogueras cubanas con más repercusión internacional.

"Los blogueros cubanos, muchos de los cuales nacieron después de la Revolución de 1959, están tratando de mover el debate lejos de la doctrina oficial establecida para explorar asuntos sociales y económicos", aseguró el reportero de la BBC, George Ballantine.
"Sin embargo, la actual tolerancia del gobierno podría cambiar, a medida que un creciente número de blogueros están empezando a condenar el acoso a los escritores independientes y están exigiendo reformas estructurales", agregó.
clic Lea: "Nueva modalidad represiva" en Cuba
En este sentido, Yoani Sánchez relató a BBC Mundo cómo el pasado 6 de noviembre fue detenida durante casi media hora y golpeda por un grupo de hombres para impedir que llegase a una manifestación pública.
"No he pasado yo la línea roja sino ellos, están temiendo. Ven que el tema de la blogósfera se extiende como un virus. Creo que esto fue una acción aleccionadora, es darte un susto y decirte 'hasta aquí'", aseguró Sánchez a BBC Mundo en aquella ocasión.

Women 'bearing brunt' of climate change

By Simon Hooper, CNN

November 18, 2009 -- Updated 1601 GMT (0001 HKT)

(CNN) -- On the steep, dusty slopes of the Chacaltaya mountains, thousands of meters above sea level in the Bolivian Andes, the hardy farmers tending root crops or herding llamas have no need of scientists or climatologists to measure the impact of global warming.
For as long as anyone can remember, communities such as the village of Botijlaca have relied on melting ice flowing down from the Chacaltaya glacier as a source of drinking water, to irrigate their crops and water their animals.
Now the 18,000-year-old glacier -- once home to the world's highest ski resort -- has almost disappeared, reduced to a slither of snow and ice in the space of a few decades. Researchers say Chacaltaya has lost around 80 percent of its volume in just 20 years.
"There is less water now," says Leocadia Quispe, a 60-year-old mother, grandmother and potato farmer. Seven of her eight children have left the region, she says, because there is no way for them to make a living. Most of the men of the village have also gone, heading to the conjoined urban sprawl of nearby La Paz and El Alto in search of work, returning just once or twice a month to see their wives and families.
Each day Quispe spends hours hauling two five-litre containers of water by hand from a nearby river. "We used to be able to get water for irrigation from the streams that came down from the glacier. But the streams are no longer there, so now we supplement the water from a river further up in the valley," she explains.
Jaime Nadal, the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) representative in Bolivia, said that Quispe's situation was far from unusual. "Young people tend to leave these areas. Old women are typically left in the community having to perform harder and harder tasks to keep up the household. We already see mostly old women in many of these communities."
In a report released on Wednesday, UNFPA warns that it is women in the developing world such as Quispe who are bearing the brunt of the worsening and accelerating impact of climate change.
"Women are on the front lines of many societies buffeted by climate change -- and research indicates they tend to be more vulnerable to these impacts," said the report's lead author, Robert Engelman.
According to the report, women in poorer societies are most at risk because they make up a larger share of the agricultural workforce and have fewer income-earning opportunities. They also shoulder the burden of caring for other family members and household management, limiting their mobility and trapping them in a cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality.
"For many people, especially poor women in poor countries, climate change is here and now," said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid. "Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change even though they contributed the least to it."

Women are on the front lines of many societies buffeted by climate change.
--Robert Engelman

RELATED TOPICS

• Global Climate Change
• Women's Issues
• Bolivia

Quispe and women like her may be at the sharp end of environmental change but they will not be suffering in isolation for long. In Bolivia, the disappearance of the glaciers -- the mountain's "white ponchos" in the words of President Evo Morales -- has profound implications for the Andean nation water and energy supplies.
Glacial melt provides 15 percent of La Paz's drinking water and 40 percent of the country's energy comes from hydroelectric sources, according to an Oxfam report released earlier this month. Yet in 2000, South America's poorest country contributed just 0.35 percent of the world's carbon emissions, Oxfam said.
"We are losing something that is a human right, a source of life -- water for drinking, for food, for the animals, for electricity," said Bolivian climate change expert Jose Gutierrez.
But if the world's poor -- and women in particular -- are already paying a disproportionate price for the vast quantities of carbon pumped into the atmosphere by industrialized societies, UNFPA argues that they can also play an important role in helping to mitigate the potentially "catastrophic" consequences of global warming.
According to the report, universal access to reproductive healthcare and family planning -- a UNFPA goal since 1994 -- in combination with improved education of girls and gender equality would lead to significant declines in fertility, stabilizing the population of the planet at a level far below estimates commonly used in scientific models of future climate change.
In turn, the argument goes, carbon emissions would also fall, reducing the risk of global warming reaching a "tipping point" and running out of control.
"Helping women to make their own decisions about family size would protect their health, make their lives easier, help put their countries on a sustainable path towards development -- and ensure lower greenhouse-gas emissions in the long run," said Obaid.
But critics said that conflating population control with efforts to tackle climate change was overly simplistic. Caroline Boin, an analyst at London-based think tank International Policy Network, also said the report was patronizing to women in the developing world.
"Whatever the problem, UNFPA repeats the same old mantra -- the culprit is population and the solution is condoms," she said. "Food scarcity, water shortages, and health problems in poor countries truly are threats for women. Population and climate control policies are not the solution, and if anything, will give governments an excuse to remain complacent in addressing poverty."
But Obaid said the debate over tackling climate change needed to take into consideration "how individual behavior can undermine or contribute to the global effort to cool our warming world," especially in the run-up to December's COP15 summit in Copenhagen.
"We cannot successfully confront climate change if we neglect the needs, rights and potential of half the people on our planet," she said.

"Women should be part of any agreement on climate change -- not as an afterthought or because it's politically correct, but because it's the right thing to do. Our future as humanity depends on unleashing the full potential of all human beings, and the full capacity of women, to bring about change."

Anticonceptivos contra el cambio climático

MEDIDA PARA MEJORAR LA SALUD

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundosalud/2009/09/17/mujer/1253210576.html

• La presión que ejerce el exceso de población en el medio ambiente podría aliviarse
• Se calcula que las medidas de control de la natalidad son más baratas que las ecológicas

Un grupo de mujeres protesta en la India (Foto: AP | Mustafa Quraishi)

ISABEL F. LANTIGUA

MADRID.- ¿Qué tienen que ver los métodos anticonceptivos con el cambio climático? Según un editorial de la revista médica 'The Lancet' mucho. El equipo de la publicación lo hila así, "los países en vías de desarrollo, que son los menos responsables de las emisiones que calientan el planeta, son en cambio quienes más sufrirán el impacto en la salud de esta alteración del clima. El rápido crecimiento de población en esos lugares aumenta aún más su vulnerabilidad". Por lo tanto, si se puede controlar la demografía, además de mejorar la salud, se reducirá la presión que el exceso poblacional ejerce sobre el medio ambiente y, en consecuencia, se estará luchando contra el cambio climático.

Alrededor de 200 millones de mujeres en el mundo quieren, pero no pueden, acceder a métodos anticonceptivos. El resultado es que cada año se producen unos 76 millones de embarazos no deseados. "Sólo con reducir esta tasa de natalidad se estará ayudando al planeta".
De hecho, un informe británico establece que las estrategias de planificación familiar son cinco veces más baratas e igual de efectivas que las tecnologías verdes para combatir el cambio climático. "Cada siete dólares (casi cinco euros) gastados en planificación familiar durante las próximas cuatro décadas reducirían las emisiones globales de dióxido de carbono más de una tonelada", establece el documento.
Así, 'The Lancet', que considera que "el cambio climático es la mayor amenaza global para la salud del siglo XXI", establece que la educación universal y el acceso a información sobre salud sexual y reproductiva "son las mejores vías para un desarrollo sostenible y concienciado con el ambiente".
Esta relación entre las cuestiones reproductivas y el cambio climático está ganando cada vez más peso científico. Un estudio de los primeros 40 Programas Nacionales de Acción (NAPA), firmado por los países menos desarrollados durante la Convención de la ONU sobre el cambio climático, mostró que 37 de estos países relacionaban el aumento de población con el cambio climático. Pero tan sólo seis de ellos identificaban los programas de planificación familiar como parte de una estrategia para combatir el calentamiento global.
Por eso, la revista médica cree que ha llegado el momento de que la salud sexual y reproductiva entre en la agenda del cambio climático y obtenga la atención que la salud de la mujer, normalmente olvidada, merece. Hasta ahora los progresos en este campo han sido inadecuados. Los últimos 15 años han estado dominados por una falta total de inversión financiera y política, que es hora de cambiar, concluye.

Macadamia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Macadamia
Macadamia integrifolia foliage and nuts
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
Order:	Proteales
Family:	Proteaceae
Genus:	Macadamia F.Muell.
Species
Macadamia claudiensis Macadamia grandis Macadamia hildebrandii Macadamia integrifolia Macadamia jansenii Macadamia ternifolia Macadamia tetraphylla Macadamia whelanii Macadamia neurophylla

Macadamia is a genus of nine species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, with a disjunct distribution native to eastern Australia (seven species), New Caledonia (one species M. neurophylla) and Sulawesi in Indonesia (one species, M. hildebrandii).
They are small to large evergreen trees growing to 2–12 m tall. The leaves are arranged in whorls of three to six, lanceolate to obovate or elliptical in shape, 6–30 cm long and 2–13 cm broad, with an entire or spiny-serrated margin. The flowers are produced in a long slender simple raceme 5–30 cm long, the individual flowers 10–15 mm long, white to pink or purple, with four tepals. The fruit is a very hard woody globose follicle with a pointed apex, containing one or two seeds.
The genus is named after John Macadam, a colleague of botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, who first described the genus.^[1] Common names include Macadamia, Macadamia nut, Queensland nut, Bush nut, Maroochi nut, Queen of Nuts and bauple nut; Indigenous Australian names include gyndl, jindilli, and boombera.

Macadamia nut in its shell and a roasted nut

Contents 1 Production 2 Nutritional qualities 3 Skincare 4 Cultivation and processing 5 Cultivars 5.1 Beaumont 5.2 Maroochy 5.3 Nelmac II 5.4 Renown 6 History 7 Trivia 8 References 9 External links

Production

The nuts are a valuable food crop. Only two of the species, Macadamia integrifolia and Macadamia tetraphylla, are of commercial importance. The remainder of the genus possess poisonous and/or inedible nuts, such as M. whelanii and M. ternifolia; the toxicity is due to the presence of cyanogenic glycosides. These glycosides can be removed by prolonged leaching, a practice carried out by some Indigenous Australian people in order to use these species as well.
The two species of edible macadamia readily hybridise, and M. tetraphylla is threatened in the wild due to this. Wild nut trees were originally found at Mount Bauple near Maryborough in southeast Queensland, Australia. Locals in this area still refer to them as "Bauple nuts". The macadamia nut is the only plant food native to Australia that is produced and exported in any significant quantity.^{[citation needed]}
The first commercial orchard of macadamia trees was planted in the early 1880s by Charles Staff at Rous Mill, 12 km southeast of Lismore, New South Wales, consisting of M. tetraphylla.^[2] Besides the development of a small boutique industry in Australia during the late 19th and early 20th century, macadamia was extensively planted as a commercial crop in Hawaii from the 1920s. Macadamia seeds were first imported into Hawaii in 1882 by William H. Purvis. The young manager of the Pacific Sugar Mill at Kukuihaele on the Big Island, planted seed nuts that year at Kapulena.^[3]
The Hawaiian-produced macadamia established the nut internationally. However, in 2006, macadamia production began to fall in Hawaii, due to lower prices from an over-supply.^[4]
Outside of Hawaii and Australia, macadamia is also commercially produced in South Africa, Brazil, California, Costa Rica, Israel, Kenya, Bolivia, New Zealand and Malawi. Australia is now the world's largest commercial producer - at approximately 40,000 tonnes of nut in shell per year, with a total global production of 100,000 tonnes.

Chocolate-covered macadamia nuts

Nutritional qualities

Macadamias are highly nutritious nuts. They have the highest amount of beneficial monounsaturated fats of any known nut. They also contain 9% protein, 9% carbohydrate, 2% dietary fiber, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, selenium, iron, thiamine, riboflavin and niacin.^[5]

Raw Macadamia kernel, per 100 grams

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 740 kcal   3080 kJ
Carbohydrates     7.9 g Fat 74.0 g *Saturated fat: 10.0 g *Monounsaturated fat: 60 g *Polyunsaturated fat: 4.0 g Protein 9.2 g Vitamin B6  0 mg 0% Vitamin C  0 mg 0% Vitamin E  4 mg 27% Calcium  64 mg 6% Iron  2 mg 16% Magnesium  0 mg 0%  Phosphorus  241 mg 34% Potassium  410 mg   9% Zinc  0 mg 0%
Percentages are relative to US recommendations for adults. Source: USDA Nutrient database

Skincare

Macadamia oil is prized for containing approximately 22% of the Omega-7 palmitoleic acid,^[6] which makes it a botanical alternative to mink oil, which contains approximately 17%. This relatively high content of "cushiony" palmitoleic acid plus macadamia's high oxidative stability make it a desirable ingredient in cosmetics, especially skincare.

Cultivation and processing

Macadamia integrifolia flowers

The macadamia tree is usually propagated by grafting, and does not begin to produce commercial quantities of nuts until it is 7–10 years old, but once established, may continue bearing for over 100 years. Macadamias prefer fertile, well-drained soils, a rainfall of 1,000–2,000 mm, and temperatures not falling below 10 °C (although once established they can withstand light frosts), with an optimum temperature of 25 °C. The roots are shallow and trees can be blown down in storms; they are also susceptible to Phytophthora root disease.
The macadamia nut has an extremely hard shell, but can be cracked using a blunt instrument, such as a hammer or rock applied with some force to the nut sitting in a concave surface, or a custom made macadamia nutcracker can be used. Nuts of the "Arkin Papershell" variety crack open more readily.

Macadamia Beaumont new growth

Cultivars

Beaumont

A M. integrifolia / M. tetraphylla hybrid commercial variety widely planted in Australia & New Zealand. Discovered by Dr. J. H. Beaumont. It has a good taste, high in oil, but not sweet. New leaves reddish, flowers bright pink, borne on long racemes. It is one of the quickest varieties to come into bearing once planted in the garden, usually carrying a useful crop by the fourth year, and improving from then on. It crops prodigously when well pollinated. The impressive grape-like clusters of nuts are sometimes so heavy they break the branchlet they are attached to. In commercial orchards, it has reached 18 kg of nuts per tree by 8 years old! On the downside, the nuts don't drop from the tree when ripe, and the leaves are a bit prickly when you are reaching into the interior of the tree during harvest. Beaumonts' shell is easier than most commercial varieties to open.

Macadamia Maroochy new growth

Maroochy

A pure M. tetraphylla variety from Australia, the tree is productive, and the small nut has a particularly good flavor. It is a good pollinator for Beaumont.

Nelmac II

A South African M. integrifolia / M. tetraphylla hybrid cultivar. It has a sweet nut, which means that it has to be cooked carefully so that the sugars do not caramelise. The sweet nut does not taste good when processed, but people who eat it uncooked relish the taste. The nut has an open micropyle (hole in the shell) which lets in mould. The crack out percentage is high. Ten year old trees average 22 kgs per tree. It is a popular variety because of its pollination of Beaumont, and the yields are almost comparable.

Renown

A M. integrifolia / M. tetraphylla hybrid. A rather spreading tree. On the plus side it is high yielding (commercially, 17 kgs off a 9 year old tree has been recorded), and the nuts drop to the ground, but the nut is thick shelled, and with not much flavor.

History

• For thousands of years before European settlement the aborigines ate the native nut that grew in rainforests of eastern Australia. One of these nuts was called gyndl or jindilli (Macadmaia integrifolia), which was later borrowed as kindal kindal by early Europeans. In New South Wales, the southern species is known traditionally as boombera (Macadamia tetraphylla).^[7]

• 1828 - Allan Cunningham is the first European to discover the macadamia plant.

• 1857 - German-Australian botanist Ferdinand von Mueller gave the genus the scientific name Macadamia - named after von Mueller’s friend Dr.John MacAdam, a noted scientist and secretary to the Philosophical Institute of Australia.

• 1858 - Walter Hill, Superintendent of the Brisbane City Botanical Gardens, observes a boy eating the nut without ill effect, becoming the first non-indigenous person recorded to eat Macadamia.

• 1860s - King Jacky, Aboriginal elder of the Logan River clan, south of Brisbane, Queensland, is the first known macadamia nut entrepreneur as he and his tribe regularly collected and traded the nuts with settlers.

• 1881 - William H. Purvis introduces macadamia nuts to Hawaii as a windbreak for sugar cane.

• 1882 - First commercial orchard of macadamia nuts planted at Rous Mill, 12 km from Lismore, by Charles Staff.

• 1889 - Joseph Maiden, Australian botanist, wrote "It is well worth extensive cultivation, for the nuts are always eagerly bought."^[8]

• 1910 - Hawaiian Agricultural Experiment Station encourages planting of macadamia on Hawaii's Kona District, as a crop to supplement coffee production in the region.^[9]

• 1922 - Ernst Van Tassel formed the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Co in Hawai‘i.

• 1925 - Tassel leases 75 acres (300,000 m²) on Round Top in Honolulu (Nut Ridge) and begins a macadamia nut orchard, Hawaii's first macadamia nut farm.

• 1931 - Ernest Van Tassel establishes a macadamia nut processing factory on Puhukaina Street in Kakaako; nuts sold as Van's macadamia nuts.

• 1937 - W.W. Jones and J.H. Beaumont reports in "Science," the first successful grafting of macadamia nuts that paved the way for mass production.

• 1940s - Steve Angus, Murwillumbah, Australia, forms Macadamia Nuts Pty Ltd, doing small scale nut processing.

• 1948 - A large plantation is planted in Hawaii.^[10]

• 1953 - Castle & Cooke adds a new brand of macadamia nuts called "Royal Hawaiian," which is credited with popularizing the nuts in the U.S.

• 1964 - Macadamia Nuts Pty Ltd, opened Australia’s first purpose-built processing plant at Slacks Creek, near Brisbane, Queensland.

• 1997 - Australia surpasses the United States as the major producer of macadamia nuts.^[9]

• 2001 - Boo Yong Sia Estate planted 12,000 trees on 400 acres (1.6 km²) in the State of Johore, Malaysia.

• 2003 - Human nutrition research in Australia shows that macadamia nut lowers total and LDL cholesterol levels.^[11]

Trivia

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (March 2009)

• Macadamia nuts are often fed to Hyacinth Macaws in captivity.^[12] These large parrots are one of the few animals, aside from humans, capable of cracking and shelling the nut.

• Macadamia nuts are toxic to dogs. Ingestion may result in macadamia nut toxicosis, which is marked by weakness with the inability to stand within 12 hours of ingestion. Recovery is usually within 48 hours.^[13]

• The trees are also grown as ornamental plants in subtropical regions for their glossy foliage and attractive flowers.

• Macadamia species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Batrachedra arenosella.

• Macadamia nuts are often used by law enforcement to simulate crack cocaine in drug stings.^[14] When chopped, the nuts resemble crack cocaine in color.

Las nueces de la eterna juventud

GUATEMALA | Tratamiento de belleza

Este fruto exótico tiene diversas propiedades medicinales | J. B.

• Larry creó sus productos de belleza antes que las multinacionales
• 'La idea es ayudar a las poblaciones indígenas para que salgan de la pobreza'
• Ha plantado más de 300.000 arbolitos en la región

Jorge Barreno | Antigua

Actualizado sábado 14/11/2009 01:41 horas

 

Comentarios 7

Larry era un bombero ‘gringo’, de San Francisco, al que diagnosticaron una enfermedad crónica en la espalda. Hace casi 30 años creó su propia línea de cremas para el cuidado de la piel, diez años antes que Lancome o que Nivea. “Mucho tiempo antes de que las multinacionales descubrieran las propiedades de esta planta mágica y se forraran, yo llevaba años experimentando, injertando, probando mezclas…”, manifiesta este alquimista vegetal.
Con 32 años, y con una pensión vitalicia de 2.500 dólares mensuales libres de impuestos, Lawrence Gottschamer se marchó a ‘pasear’ por Centroamérica. Trabajó durante tres meses en una finca costarricense dedicada a la nuez de macadamia y cuando se cansó se fue de viaje por Guatemala. Llegó a Antigua por tres días, se enamoró de Emilia y se quedó a vivir allí. A diez minutos de esta ciudad cafetera, Patrimonio de la Humanidad, compró la finca Valhalla y montó una plantación de nogales de macadamia.
Con su llegada, Guatemala se convirtió en uno de los principales productores de nueces de macadamia en el mundo, el país de “las reinas de las nueces”. El centro experimental empezó a colaborar con el desarrollo de la zona. “La idea es ayudar a las comunidades indígenas a salir de la pobreza, dándoles un cultivo lucrativo y, al mismo tiempo, reforestar con el árbol de macadamia”.
El frondoso vegetal tiene la cualidad de fijar grandes cantidades de dióxido de carbono, previendo la erosión de los suelos y contribuyendo al ciclo de la lluvia. “Los campesinos tienen la oportunidad de acercarse a la finca, recoger semillas o árboles jóvenes de macadamia y plantarlos en su propiedad de forma gratuita. A cambio de su cuidado, reciben una compensación económica cuando el fruto se vende, tras su correspondiente tratamiento en Valhalla. Ya hemos plantado más de 300.000 arbolitos por la región” explica el divertido Larry.
El centro ha evolucionado y hoy es posible visitarlo para comprobar in situ el proceso de elaboración de los productos derivados de la macadamia. Por ejemplo, aceites o cremas cosméticas. Además dispone de un restaurante donde degustar de un menú basado en esta nuez.
“El aceite de macadamia tiene un alto contenido en ácido palmiloléico. Se encuentra de forma natural en la piel de los bebés. A medida que envejecemos, la cantidad de este ácido disminuye. La macadamia actúa como antioxidante y retarda el envejecimiento. Contiene mucha vitamina E. Es un excelente hidratante y suavizante para la piel quemada o madura”, indica Luis, un indígena que trabaja en la finca de Larry.
Detrás, su mujer Andrea da masajes faciales con las cremas que preparan en los laboratorios de Larry. Del corazón de Guatemala, los pequeños botecitos rejuvenecedores viajarán por todo el mundo, a Nueva York, Londres y París. La gata Lola los protege entre sus garras, consciente de que los ungüentos de la finca Valhalla son elixires de la eterna juventud.
“No me gusta el primer mundo, ni Europa, ni Estados Unidos. Estoy mejor aquí. Mira, esta es mi oficina”, comenta Larry, una tabla lasa sobre un verde y húmedo prado, debajo de los cientos de exuberantes nogales de macadamia que ha visto crecer.
“Esta planta es mágica, la única que tiene frutos y flores al mismo tiempo. Llevo más de 30 años cultivándola y hemos creado un banco genético único en el mundo. Soy feliz en Antigua, entre la exuberancia de las nueces y la bondad de estas tierras que huelen a café”.

New Delhi's 'eunuchs' forge lives in conservative nation - CNN.com

New Delhi's 'eunuchs' forge lives in conservative nation - CNN.com

The Secret

So what are you feeling now? Take a few moments to think about how you feel. If you’re not feeling as good as you’d like to, focus on feeling your feelings inside and purposefully lift them. As you focus on your feelings, with the intention to lift yourself you can powerfully elevate them. One way is to close your eyes, focus on your feelings inside and smile for one minute. (The Secret Daily Teachings)

Yoga helps even little ones channel energy, emotion

Great news!!! Yoga can help children to deal with all kinds of problems and best of all, no medication.

By Ashley Fantz, CNN

Decatur, Georgia (CNN) -- Gigi reaches up into her sun salutation. She steps back into her high lunge and kicks her legs straight into plank pose, a push-up she holds without wobbling for 10 seconds before looking up impatiently at her yoga teacher.
It's close to 6 p.m. She's had a long day.
She collapses on her mat, rolls on her back and closes her eyes. And then sends one finger digging up her nose.
What? C'mon, she's only 5.
This is yoga for kids. Once an oddity reserved for only the crunchiest communities, downward dog for the grade-school set is now being taught in studios from Minnetonka, Minnesota, to Moscow, Russia. And educators, including Chicago's Namaste School, which serves mostly poor kids who speak a language other than English, are turning to yoga to connect with a generation that many say has been dismissed as deficit this or hyperactive that.
At Decatur Yoga and Pilates studio, just outside Atlanta, Georgia, Dylan Laakmann, sits quietly next to his mother. The lanky 12-year-old whose fashionably shorn hair hangs in his face, describes himself as a "downer" before he started taking yoga two years ago.
"I wasn't really that happy a kid, I guess, and my grades, they weren't that good," he says, his taut mouth easing as he relaxes in conversation. "I wasn't that joyful."
Dylan goes to an Atlanta school known for its highly serious curriculum that offers German to first graders and lessons in "circle games" and "beeswax modeling." His mother, Hanlie Laakmann, wanted her son to get involved in something and thought his sensitive nature might take to yoga. She's been especially glad about the move lately since she and her husband told Dylan that they are divorcing.
"Like, it's hard, with the divorce," he says, sitting on a yoga mat, replying to a stranger asking him to open up in front of a television camera. He tunes it all out for a moment, crosses his legs and closes his eyes. He begins to breathe deeply and then slowly lifts himself into a headstand. When he comes down, he's ready to answer more questions.
Dylan's stoicism is broken for a moment by a dozen miniature yogis who've been unleashed in the studio. Kids like Gigi, some as young as 3, can take seven-week long sessions with names such as Charlie and the Chakra Factory and the Wizard of Ohm.

Video: Pint-sized Yoginis

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Watching a class is like watching puppies. It's adorable. They bark in Downward Dog and hiss on their bellies in Snake pose. They imagine aloud what color their gum would be while repeatedly breathing deeply for "Bubble Gum Breath." They act out "Go To Your Room" by bending over, grabbing their ankles and stomping backward, squatting down and mimicking slamming a door.
Except for a few tears and a brief tug-of-war over a mat, it all seems nothing more than cute until this stunning moment: Many of these first and second-graders remain completely still and quiet, in a meditative pose, for nearly five minutes.
"It's just incredible," Al-Yasha Williams said, shaking her head in disbelief when her 6-year-old daughter Sole Williams-Brewer walks out of class much more dialed back than when she bounded in. "My daughter has a lot of energy and this has channeled it."
Marsha Wenig saw the calming effect yoga breathing gave her young students more 20 years ago when she taught in a California school. "I thought, yoga calms me so why wouldn't kids get the same thing out of it? Yoga works for people willing to open their minds and you don't get anymore open-minded than a child," she said.
"Parents heard about it and wanted to know what I was doing. I just invited them over, shoved the furniture aside and showed them some poses they could do with their kids."
Though radical at that time, teaching yoga to kids still isn't entirely free of controversy. A Baptist minister complained a few years ago that a public school in Aspen was teaching a form of Hinduism.
But the objections are rare and don't appear to be hurting business. Wenig's company YogaKids has sold millions of how-to flashcards, books, DVDs and board games -- think Twister with a Yoga twist -- and hosts training seminars ($849 for four days) to certify instructors in its 200-pose practice.
At least 150 U.S. schools follow YogaKids' extensive lesson plan. For example, "Polar Bear" -- sitting on the heels, knees apart, chest to the floor -- can lead to discussions about where polar bears live and why they hibernate. The balancing pose "Flamingo" asks children to calculate how the bird's wingspan in feet and meters.
There are several other entrepreneurial kids yoga endeavors -- the Decatur studio teaches a style called Grounded Kids that offers bandanas much like karate belts for students who master increasingly difficult poses. But though styles differ, they stay faithful to one tenet: There is no baby talk in kids yoga. If a pose is meant to stimulate the thymus -- like Tarzan's Thymus Tap, a light tapping on an organ in the chest cavity that regulates immunity -- then that anatomy is explained.
Lynda Meeder appreciated that directness. She quit her job as a guidance counselor in the Boston, Massachusetts, area to teach yoga to children and teens in a studio and the classroom.
"The older a kid gets, 13, 14, 15, we all know how hard it is for them to understand their bodies. It's especially difficult when you have a child that's been told they have ADHD, they've been told they cannot because that's the way they are," she said. "I've seen yoga give kids their control back. They feel like they're taking it and they can steer again."
In Columbia, Missouri, mom Sarah Wells Kohl heard about yoga for kids and enrolled her 9-year-old, Dakota. She had been struggling for months, trying every alternative arts program she could find, to address her son's exceptionally high energy.
"He couldn't settle himself, he was just very high-strung and bored with everything," she said. "But, wow, yoga opened something in him. Pranayama breathing (slow, steady deep yogic breaths) put him in his space. When things get too tight, rough and crazy, do his own little Eagle pose.

"I once found him in his bedroom chanting," she said. "It almost seems like we put him on a yoga mat instead of putting him on medication."