Asha Anujeeva

I was reading a BBC.com website news story today about how 48% of the world’s primate species are facing extinction.  The article explains that a large reason for that was the deforestation of the world; people are cutting down and/or burning the forests that the primates live in.  That was depressing news.  But what really surprised me was to read in the article that the extinction is being exacerbated by hunters who are hunting the primates for food!  I did not realize that people considered monkeys as edible!  I don’t know why, I just never really thought people would eat monkeys.  That makes me especially sad, since I consider primates to be so closely related to humans that it almost seems cannibalistic to eat them!

According to an article dated May 29, 2008 in the LA Times, there is a company that is planning to use algae to start producing a crude oil that can be used to make gasoline and diesel fuel.  The production of the fuel uses carbon dioxide, which would help to clean up our greenhouse gases problem.  It can be refined in existing refineries and be used by the existing cars and trucks on the road.  It plans to reach full commercial scale in five years.  The company that is planning to do this is called Sapphire Energy.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful, getting oil from algae instead of fossil fuels!

I was reading that researchers have determined that eating watermelon can have a similar effect on the human body as name brand ED prescriptions do. They say you have to eat the yellow fleshed variety, and eat six cups of it, but that would do it!  Of course, you’d be so busy running the bathroom to relieve your bladder that the whole pleasure part would be pretty limited!  Watermelon is a diuretic and has been used homeopathically to help people with kidney problems.  The same chemical is found in cucumbers and cantaloupe, but at a much lower level.  And, eating that much watermelon would cause havoc with blood sugar levels, so I guess the men should stick with ED prescriptions for now, and just eat a little bit of watermelon for the other healthy benefits that eating fruit produces.

Many companies are sending their employees to enrichment programs and seminars, in the hopes that the employees will become more satisfied with their jobs and more productive.

More employers are using personality profiles now to help their employees develop their career path.  One such personality profile program is called DiSC, which is sold by Resources Unlimited.  They are an authorized Inscape Publishing Distributor of the Online Disc Classic 2.0 Profile.  This program consists of 28 questions and only takes about ten to fifteen minutes to complete, and the results are delivered immediately.  This program can be used to help build team work, improve salesmanship, and improve management skills.

For years I’ve been hearing on television shows, and from my own doctors, that taking one low-dose aspirin a day helps to prevent heart attacks.  For the most part I haven’t taken aspirin at all because it irritates my stomach.  It irritates my stomach BIG TIME!  And I know that the so-called “prevention” factor is that it acts as a blood thinner.  Ibuprofen ALSO acts as a blood thinner, and relieves my headaches better than other pain killers.  I tend to take a couple of ibuprofen almost every day, so I figure that the advice to take one aspirin a day really does not apply to me.

Today I was reading an article on the Time.com website that a study done in England has concluded that aspirin does not reduce the risk of heart attacks in people who are prone to be diabetic.  Well, I think that news is going to shake up the medical community!  I wonder what I’m going to be hearing on the television news (and from the doctors) NOW!