Babbling Brook

 

Alcohol in Your Body

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says two-thirds of adults in 2018 drank alcohol. How much obviously varies, but no one wants to end the day with a DUI because they mistakenly believed they were sober when that was not the case.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), an abundance of factors contributes to how long alcohol stays in your system. Misunderstanding these factors makes it difficult to tell whether you’re legally safe to be behind the wheel and can lead to tragic consequences.

How long does alcohol stay in your system?

Healthline.com says how long alcohol stays in your system is dependent upon age, weight, whether you’ve eaten food recently, medications, liver disease and the time between drinks. One cup of beer may stay in one person’s system longer than it will for someone else with a different weight.

The ability to metabolize alcohol slows as you age, health.clevelandclinic.org says. Alcohol will have heightened effects on those with lower weights and smaller body sizes. If you’re drinking on an empty stomach, then the effects of alcohol may be enhanced. Different medications can have dangerous side effects when paired with alcohol. Any present liver conditions can harm your ability to handle alcohol and process it. Binge drinking in a short period will also increase the effects of alcohol, all according to health.clevelandclinic.org and healthline.com.

A shot of liquor is estimated to metabolize in an hour, a pint of beer in two, a glass of wine in three, and several drinks could take multiple hours, according to healthline.com.

The NIAAA estimates that one drink would be metabolized and out of your system after three hours, two drinks after slightly over four hours, three drinks by six hours and four drinks by seven. The NIAAA goes on to state that this is, again, dependent on the factors above.

As for driving, healthline.com advises: "The safest thing you can do is not get behind the wheel after you’ve been drinking."  READ MORE...

Acrobats

 

How Emotionally Intelligent People Rewire their Minds

Emily's a passionate entrepreneur who's doing a lot of things right. But she's also a workaholic.

Emily has every intention of closing shop on Friday and spending the weekend with her family. But a potential client asked for a meeting this Saturday, and she couldn't say no. Sunday won't be a day off either, since she's trying to meet a deadline on a major project.

A similar scene repeats itself week after week, month after month.

Emily's always exhausted. She knows overwork causes here to get irritated easily. And she feels terrible every time she misses her son's soccer games.

Still, she can't unplug from her business. She finds it impossible to say no. No matter how hard she tries, she can't seem to break that bad habit.

Whether or not you face a similar situation, you can likely relate to Emily's struggle. You might feel like you're a victim of your brain's emotional programming, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

But is that true?

If you feel like Emily, you might benefit from a technique I learned from a psychologist some years ago. It's based on principles of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage your emotions.

I like to call it the rule of rewiring.

What is the rule of rewiring, and how can it help you rewire your brain and exchange bad habits for better ones?

Before we answer that question, let's learn a little about how habits work.

Change the way you think--using neuroscience
It's a common misconception that the adult brain is static or otherwise fixed in form and function. But as scientists have discovered in recent years, the brain has a remarkable property called neuroplasticity.

This plasticity means that you have some amount of control over your brain's programming. Through a combination of concentrated thoughts and purposeful actions, you can rewire your brain and exert greater control over your emotional reactions and tendencies.  READ MORE...

Racers

 

Intrusion of Robots and Artificial Inelligence

 Only 39% of Americans are PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN...

Why?

Americans have problems but this country is still the best country in the world to live...

Why?

• We have freedom of speech
• We have religious freedom
• We have economic freedom
• We have educational freedom
• We have employment freedom
• We have purchasing freedom
• We have travel freedom

Problems:

1. Wealthy Control issues
2. Racism
3. Crime & Violence
4. A Divided Country Politically
5. Inflation & possible recession
6. Government intrusion into our lives
7. A faltering economy
8. A weakened military

Why?

There is a perfect revolution in the USA between Liberals and Conservatives as our population is divided perfectly 50/50... This division will continue until one side gains substantial control over the other.

As more and more people immigrate to the USA from Central and South America, there is a strong belief that a majority of these people are not just very religious. Still, they bring strong work values that will favor the conservative side of the equation.

But, there is an even greater problem looming over Americans that will be revealed over the next 5 years and that is the huge intrusion of technology into our society and personal lives and that is the growth of robots with artificial intelligence...

Robots with AI will replace jobs...  this replacement will be gradual but also will gradually intensify...  and, there will be layoffs with no chance of returning... so, workers will need retraining to pursue new opportunities.

These jobs will be replaced by 2030:

                1. Customer service executives
                2. Bookkeeping and data entry
                3. Receptionists
                4. Proofreading
                5. Manufacturing and pharmaceutical work
                6. Retail services
                7. Courier services
                8. Doctors
                9. Soldiers
                10. Taxi and bus drivers
                11. Market research analysts
                12. Security guards

Source:  Saviom.com

Survivng 2022

Once a month, I have an infusion of a substance referred to in the medical community as IVIG...  it is supposed to boost my immune system and assist my body with eliminating my anemia that has resulted from over 12 years of chemo treatments.

Unfortunately, every month I forget that prior to my IVIG infusion I am given a steroid which typically prevents me from sleeping unless I take 2 Benedryl...  and each month I forget to take these pills, so at midnight I am up waiting for the two pills I just took to kick in.

This week I had to fill up the Venza with gasoline and the bill was $60 which is twice what I was paying at the time Biden was elected to the Presidency...  I blame him and he assumes no blame as he points the finger in all sorts of other directions...  a typical politician.

While it may not seem like much, I now drive the speed limit which saves gas and when accelerating from a dead stop, I do so gradually to save gasoline as well.  

Sounds silly?

Maybe so...  but over a 12-month period of time, I am saving hundreds of dollars.

Food prices have increased as well, especially red meats...  some have doubled in price while others have more than doubled in price...  so, I now I substitute other food items for meat like:  fish, chicken, turkey, and beans... 

And, as far as beans are concerned, it is cheaper to buy dried beans rather than can beans...

I also have an outside garden where I grow: cucumbers, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes...  

I built myself a planter using 2X6 lumber to create a 3-foot by 3-foot frame...  laid it on the ground and filled it with planting soil.  Each food item has its own frame and will yield enough food to eat all summer, including having the ability to freeze several bags.

Again, it ain't much but it also might save a couple hundred bucks each year.

I am sure that there are many other ways to save money  like:

• taking stay-at-home vacations
• going to local parks and lakes
• not going out to a restaurant for meals
• not buying all the clothes you thought you needed
• substituting less expensive items for expensive ones

If you are clever, you can enjoy life around you just as before, with higher prices, by making a few changes and choices...

It also may be a good time to quit smoking...  and, with that said, it might be a good idea not to drink so much alcohol...  especially this FOURTH OF JULY.

Increasing one's debt is not that smart either as our economy is heading for a recession and many will be out of work...   Plus, on the near horizon, many labor-intensive jobs will be replaced by robots.

Also, the Democrats are pushing for the end of gasoline vehicles...  so, there is a good possibility that you will be purchasing an electric vehicle soon...  and, that is debt that you will have to create.

DON'T WORK HARDER...  

WORK SMARTER...

Facts About PRISON BREAK

 

Hurricanes and Typhoons

(CNN)—Before the era of satellites, it was next to impossible to know whether a hurricane occurred out in the open ocean unless a ship was unlucky enough to run into it. And scientists for decades have been trying to piece together a historical record to better understand how the climate crisis is changing these storms.

But researchers said Monday they have constructed a clearer picture than ever, and found that the frequency of the planet’s most devastating storms has decreased over the past century.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the annual number of global hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms — or tropical cyclones, more generally — declined by roughly 13% as the planet warmed during the 20th century.

Scientists found that trend in most of the world’s oceans — except for the North Atlantic, where the number of storms increased.

The lead researcher on the study told CNN that while his team found a drop in frequency, that doesn’t mean storms are becoming less of a threat. In fact, said Savin Chand, a senior lecturer at the Federation University in Australia, while there may be fewer tropical cyclones in the future, it is likely they will be more intense.

“Cyclones are no doubt one of the costliest natural disasters everywhere,” Chand told CNN. “What’s happening with global warming is that these underlying conditions are getting more unfavorable for cyclones to form in the first place. But even though cyclones are getting fewer, those that do form are now feeding more energy from the warming atmosphere, so that’s why they’re getting more intense.”  READ MORE...

Keys to Success

 

Putting a Nuclear Reactor on the Moon

Fission surface power systems – depicted in this conceptual illustration – could provide reliable 

power for human exploration of the Moon under Artemis. Credits: NASA

NASA is one step closer to finalizing nuclear power some 238,900 miles away from Earth.

The space agency and the U.S. Department of Energy have selected three design concept proposals for a fission surface power system that would be stationed on the moon.

The hope is that a nuclear reactor would produce the power needed to operate rovers, conduct experiments and help support life.


Scientists say that the concepts for the technology will benefit future exploration under the Artemis umbrella and will be ready to launch by the end of the decade.

The contracts fund the development of initial design concepts for a 40-kilowatt class fission power system planned to last at least 10 years in the lunar environment and valued at approximately $5 million each, NASA says. Forty kilowatts of power is enough to run 30 households for ten years continuously.  READ MORE...

Wild Hampster

 

Monkeypox Outbreak in US

On June 13, a man in New York began to feel ill.

"He starts to experience swollen lymph nodes and rectal discomfort," says epidemiologist Keletso Makofane, who's at Harvard University.

The man suspects he might have monkeypox. He's a scientist, and knowledgeable about the signs and symptoms, Makofane says. So the man goes to his doctor and asks for a monkeypox test. The doctor decides, instead, to test the man for common sexually transmitted diseases. All those come back negative.

"A few days later, the pain worsens," Makofane says. So he goes to the urgent care and again asks for a monkeypox test. This time, the provider prescribes him antibiotics for a bacterial infection.

"The pain becomes so bad, and starts to interfere with his sleep," Makofane says. "So this past Sunday, he goes to the emergency room of a big academic hospital in New York."

At this point the man has a growth inside his rectum, which is a symptom of monkeypox. At the hospital, he sees both an ER doctor and an infectious disease specialist. Again, the man asks for a monkeypox test. But the specialist rebuffs the request and says "a monkeypox test isn't indicated," Makofane says. Instead, the doctor speculates that the man might have colon cancer.  READ MORE...

Hungry Dogs

 

Mainstream Media Not Reporting

Censorship in an authoritarian society is obvious, from a distance, at least. There is a central agent or agency responsible for it and the lines are clearly drawn. That's not the case in America, yet some stories rarely, if ever, see the light of day.
Why?
One reason: While journalists every day work hard to expose injustices, they work within a system where some injustices are so deeply baked in that stories exposing them are rarely told and even more rarely expanded upon to give them their proper due.

Check out these 10 stories below...
1. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
2. Monsanto "Intelligence Center" Targeted Journalists and Activists
3. U.S. Military: A Massive, Hidden Contributor to Climate Crisis
4. Congressional Investments and Conflicts of Interest
5. Inequality Kills: Gap between Richest and Poorest Americans Largest in 50 Years
6. Shadow Network of Conservative Outlets Emerges to Exploit Faith in Local News
7. Underreporting of Missing and Victimized Black Women and Girls
8. The Public Banking Revolution
9. Rising Risks of Nuclear Power Due to Climate Change
10. Revive Journalism with a Stimulus Package and Public Option

SOURCE: Sonoma State University

What kind of a society do you want to live under?

One that keeps the news from you or one that does not keep the news from you?

You better start checking things out and compare news outlets to see what stories are being covered and which ones are not....

and, more importantly, WHY?

Why do they (that side of the political spectrum) want to keep you in the dark???

WOULD YOU COMPLAIN IF YOU KNEW?

Remember in the movie, A FEW GOOD MEN with Tom Cruise, the Colonel on the stand in the military courtroom said:  "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH..."

Is this you?

After Having Back Surgery

It has been 3 weeks since I had my back surgery and 5 disks in my lower back were fused together...  my incision was 7 inches and there were 10 screws and two rods connected to those vertebrae...  the pain was there for a couple of days then it became manageable when I moved around and tried to sleep.

I started walking two weeks after the surgery and at the end of the week, which will be this Saturday, I will have worked myself up to 1 mile...  I walked with a cane then used a rail to balance my stride.  What I discovered that walking with a cane gave me a third leg and I was only using 60% of my body.  Without the cane, I was using 90+% of my body, making it a lot more difficult and put more stress on my body...

My success to get back to the way I was where I can walk normally, is for me to continue walking and continue increasing the distance for at least 12 weeks from the date of surgery...  this will take me into September...

If I am not walking correctly by then, the surgery was not 100% successful...

The Postman

 

Shared Jumping Genes

According to a new study, the neural and cognitive complexity of the octopus could originate 

from a molecular analogy with the human brain.

New research has identified an important molecular analogy that could explain the remarkable intelligence of these fascinating invertebrates.

An exceptional organism with an extremely complex brain and cognitive abilities makes the octopus very unique among invertebrates. So much so that it resembles vertebrates more than invertebrates in several aspects. 

The neural and cognitive complexity of these animals could originate from a molecular analogy with the human brain, as discovered by a research paper that was recently published in BMC Biology and coordinated by Remo Sanges from Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) of Trieste and by Graziano Fiorito from Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples.


This research shows that the same ‘jumping genes’ are active both in the human brain and in the brain of two species, Octopus vulgaris, the common octopus, and Octopus bimaculoides, the Californian octopus. 

A discovery that could help us understand the secret of the intelligence of these remarkable organisms.

Sequencing the human genome revealed as early as 2001 that over 45% of it is composed of sequences called transposons, so-called ‘jumping genes’ that, through molecular copy-and-paste or cut-and-paste mechanisms, can ‘move’ from one point to another of an individual’s genome, shuffling or duplicating.

In most cases, these mobile elements remain silent: they have no visible effects and have lost their ability to move. Some are inactive because they have, over generations, accumulated mutations; others are intact, but blocked by cellular defense mechanisms. 

From an evolutionary point of view even these fragments and broken copies of transposons can still be useful, as ‘raw matter’ that evolution can sculpt.  READ MORE...

How to Escape Zip Lock

 

Climate Change Alters Wine

Soon after the devastating Glass Fire sparked in California’s Napa Valley in September 2020, wine chemist Anita Oberholster’s inbox was brimming with hundreds of emails from panicked viticulturists. They wanted to know if they could harvest their grapes without a dreaded effect on their wine: the odious ashtray flavor known as smoke taint.

Oberholster, of UC Davis, could only tell them, “Maybe.”

Industry laboratories were slammed with grape samples to test, with wait times of up to six weeks. Growers didn’t know whether it was worth harvesting their crops. About 8 percent of California wine grapes in 2020 were left to rot.

Winemakers are no strangers to the vicissitudes wrought by climate change. Warmer temperatures have been a boon to some in traditionally cooler regions who are rejoicing over riper berries—but devastating to others. Scorching heat waves, wildfires, and other climate-driven calamities have ruined harvests in Europe, North America, Australia, and elsewhere.

And as 2020 showed, climate change can take its toll on grapes without directly destroying them. Wildfires and warmer temperatures can transform the flavor of wine, whose quality and very identity depends on the delicate chemistry of grapes and the conditions they’re grown in. Many growers and winemakers are increasingly concerned that climate change is robbing wines of their defining flavors, even spoiling vintages entirely.

“That’s the big worry,” says Karen MacNeil, a wine expert living in Napa Valley and author of The Wine Bible. “That’s the heartbeat of wine—it’s connected to its place.”

The greatest challenge that climate change brings to winemaking is unpredictability, MacNeil says. Producers used to know which varieties to grow, how to grow them, when to harvest the berries, and how to ferment them to produce a consistent, quality wine—but today, every step is up in the air. This growing recognition is spurring researchers and winemakers to find ways to preserve beloved grape varieties and their unique qualities under the shifting and capricious conditions of today’s warming world.  READ MORE...