Asha Anujeeva » Technology

I didn’t know people were eating monkeys!

Anu — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:59:39 +0000

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!

Algae turned into fuel

Anu — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:13:02 +0000

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!

Watermelon instead of

Anu — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 10:51:03 +0000

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.

Personality profiles

Anu — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:12:21 +0000

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.

Aspirin for heart attack prevention

Anu — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 15:45:35 +0000

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!

Predicting earthquakes may be a reality!

Anu — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 23:22:37 +0000

I was reading in the time.com health and science section that an accidental discovery by scientists have left them with new knowledge that may prove helpful in predicting future earthquakes! They were measuring how barometric pressure effected underground changes and discovered that there were changes shortly before a couple of earthquakes happened! So the scientists are thinking that they may be able to use this technology to help predict earthquakes and give residents advance warning to get to safer places. This is really big news and I’m surprised that I didn’t hear it on television news!

Hard work

Anu — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:35:28 +0000

Thanks for the guest post by Susan Dorman

When my husband decided to surprise me with the birthday gift of one of those upright style commercial vacuum cleaners I exclaimed that it was the best birthday gift I had ever received, he looked at me quite skeptically. “It is?” he queried. “Well, yes of course it is” I replied. “When you give me a tool for floor care it means that you are going to take on the chore, and I can’t think of a better gift than for you to take on the carpet cleaning chore.

Well, what could the poor man say after that? He said “well, I wasn’t planning on taking on the vacuuming.” My reply was “then you should not have bought me a vacuum cleaner! I was perfectly happy with the cannister style vacuum that I have owned since before we met and the upright styles are too hard for me to push back and forth, so if you expect our carpets to be vacuumed with that, then YOU are going to be the one to do the vacuuming.”

Well he hemmed and he hawed and said that it was easy to use the upright vacuum, much easier than using the cannister style. So I told him that was great news because HE was going to be the one using it. Well, he tried to put on his best game face and he DID use it to vacuum the floors for about a month. Then he declared that it was, in fact, harder to use than the cannister style vacuum and he put in out in the garage, never to be used again. Until, of course, we broke up and I kept the cannister style vacuum! And when it came time that my cannister style vacuum broke down I ended up buying another cannister style vacuum. The upright ones are just too hard to use!

Spray on snow

Anu — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:18:11 +0000

Yesterday I was reading an article about dying Christmas traditions. One of the traditions mentioned was the use of the spray-on-snow. Did you know that the snow used to be made from asbestos? I wonder how many people now are suffering from mesothelioma as a result of the spray-on-snow that they used to decorate their houses with? I can remember when I was a child my parents used it to spray on the Christmas tree!

Supermarkets of the future

Anu — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:28:03 +0000

My cousin sent me the link to a BBC website that was talking about a new store in Germany called “The Future Store.” He included the note “I thought you might get a kick out of this.” So I clicked on the link and watched a video made for a tv news show where the reporter was going around the store and explaining how new technology was being used at this store.

It really was very interesting; the customers use their cell phones to scan the bar code of the product they are buying when they take it off of the shelf before they put it in their cart. The meat counter has microchips in the meat packages to advise the store that the meat package has been removed, so the store can keep track of when they need to re-stock. When the customer is finished shopping, they press a button on their phone, which produces a “master bar code” which they use to scan at a self-service checkout counter. Really all quite interesting. The biggest question I have about the process is regarding how the store expects to keep the customers “honest” and reduce the risk of shop-lifting? I’d be curious to learn about that part of the equation!

I’ve lost ten pounds

Anu — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 23:05:57 +0000

I was surprised to discover when I stepped on the bathroom scale this morning to discover that I had lost ten pounds over the past month. No wonder my clothes don’t fit me anymore! I am going to have to go shopping and buy a whole bunch of new clothes for the fall and winter coming up. If I don’t, I will look pretty stupid with all of my clothes hanging off of my, being held up with a belt!

So, as much as I don’t like to think about buying new clothes, I will be having to be hitting the Internet sales and see what I can come up with for good looking clothes that won’t cost an arm and a leg!