Alchohol Comsumption Leads to Cancer for Women

"Low to moderate alcohol consumption among women is associated with a statistically significant increase in cancer risk and may account for nearly 13 percent of the cancers of the breast, liver, rectum, and upper aero-digestive tract combined, according to a report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute." 

 -Science Daily

Did you know the alcohol consumption, low or moderate, can lead to cancer for women? Of course, alcohol has it's dangers. On an average, women consume one drink per day. Not many, though, drink three or more drinks a day. I don't know about you but that sounds, to me, like a lot. And in seven years, around 68,775 women were diagnosed with cancer. The alcohol women consume, the more risk they have for cancer, including breast, rectum, and liver. The connection between alcohol consumption and risk of cancer isn't changed by the type of alcohol consumed-spirits, champagne, beer, wine, etc. Around 13% of cancers diagnosed to women are because of alcohol.

What I think is that women, when drinking, should think to themselves, "WHY am I drinking? Am I drinking 'cause I feel like drinking? Am I drinking for the heck of drinking? Is it a special occasion?" This way, they can reduce the amount of alcohol they drink. A person who would ask themselves this would be a responsible drinker. Not just women, but everyone should say to this themselves. Alcohol doesn't just effect women, but everyone. There are precautions to everything. It's OKAY to drink in special occasions such has anniversaries, weddings, receptions, and once in a blue moon it's okay. Just make sure you are of age to drink. You want your job/college resume to look good.

Click here! for the link to where I got this information from.

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Education Professor Dispels Myths About Gifted Children

Education Professor Dispels Myths About Gifted Children

Steven I. Pfeiffer is a professor from Florida State's Department of Education Psychology and Learning Systems and is a licensed who works with gifted children and their families in counseling. Pfeiffer says that there is a view sometimes expressed by people outside the gifted field who say that we don't need programs devoted to gifted students.  

" We usually hear, 'Oh, they're smart they'll do fine on their own.'And because of this anti-elitist attitude, it's often difficult to get funding for programs and services that help us develop some of our brightest, most advanced kids -- America's most valuable resources." 

Pfeiffer says "giftedness" still isn't well understood, and that children with advance academic and intellectual abilities can challenge and perplex both parents and educators.

One of the main problems working with children who are gifted is to get the right definition of this question. What does it mean to be "gifted"?

Finding ways to best identify gifted children is a key area of Pfeiffer's research. He has made a diagnostic test which complements the popularly used intelligence test that identifies children who may be gifted.This test has been used for at least 600 schools, if not more, across the nation, and has been translated for use in other countries. 

For Pfeiffer, academics isn't the only way a person can be gifted. this diagnostic test has measures the students' aptitude in six areas.

1. Intellectual Ability: measures the child's verbal and nonverbal mental skills and intellectual competence. Items on this scale rate the child's memory, reasoning ability, problem solving and mental speed.
   
2. Academic Ability: measures the child's skill in dealing with factual and/or school-related material. Items rate readiness and advanced development/proficiency in reading, math and other aspects of the early childhood curriculum.
   
3. Creativity: measures the child's ability to think, act and/or produce unique, novel or innovative thoughts or products. Items rate the child's imaginative play, original thinking and inventive approach to situations or problems.
   
4. Artistic Talent: measures the child's potential for, or evidence of ability in, drama, music, dance, drawing, painting, sculpture, singing, playing a musical instrument and/or acting.
   
5. Leadership: measures the child's ability to motivate people toward a common goal.
   
6. Motivation: refers to the child's drive, tendency to enjoy challenging tasks, and ability to work well without encouragement or reinforcement. The motivation scale is not viewed as a type of giftedness, but rather as the energy that impels a young child to achieve.
   

My opinion is that everyone has something special about them. They just have to find it themselves. You can be gifted in many different ways. For an example, I believe that I am mostly gifted with artistic talent. I play the piano and the clarinet and love to compose songs. Also, I try to choreograph dance steps to my favorite songs (when no one is looking), and love to draw eyes. 

Are you gifted? In what way? How? What is your definition of gifted?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090113123714.htm

Current Events 4

Study: Exercise Won't Cure Obesity

Exercise, the bodily or mental exertion, esp. for the sake of training or improvement of health.


You may wonder why even when you exercise often, you still have a layer of fat all around you.
Sure, exercise strengthens your bones and muscles, improves health and mood, lowers blood pressure, improves cholesterol, reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, breast cancner, and colon cancer, and improves kids' academic performance (probably why we have PE everyday), but it doesn't cure all for obesity.
Diet plays the key role.
For example, on an average, African-American women in Chicago weigh 184 lbs and Nigerian women weigh 127 lbs. Why have results shown up as this? Nigerian diet is high in fiber and carbs, low in fat and animal protien. Whereas, Chicago diet is 40-45% higher in processed foods.
"Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic," said Loyola nutritionist Amy Luke, a member of the study team. It's a burn more eat more world out there. When people burns more calories, they "compensenate" by eating more. Losing weight is more unlikely without dietry restraint.
In my opinion, choose the right decisions. Instead of having Cheez-It's, grab a banana, make something homemade at home from one of your grandparents' recipes as an alternative from eating out. Who knows what those fast foods/restuarants put in their food? A tasty but healthy drink is a blender-made strawberry-banana smoothie. I love those!
This doesn't mean you shouldn't exercise, it's important for a healthy and well-toned body.
Just because you are "chubby" doesn't mean that you are fat or obese. Who doesn't have fat on themself? It's important to have some fat and maintain that fat, and not become too skinny or too big.

Imformation was taken from http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090106/sc_livescience/studyexercisewontcureobesity;_ylt=Aqgb6mZCKxF3ghgWyKOAuezVJRIF


This is a graded assignment. If this article should offend the reader in any way, then it's purely unintentional.

Current Events #3- India Climate

India Climate
Unlike New Jersey, India falls into the tropical area, therefore experiences different seasons and weather. During Sept.-Oct. time, New Jersey gets a drastic change in temperature, from hot to cold; during Apr.-May, cold to hot. In India, on the other hand, the temperature mostly stays in the same area.

India has four seasons: Winter, Summer/Pre-Monsoon, Monsoon/Rainy, & Post Monsoon.
-Winter: Occurs between Jan and Mar. In the northwest, temperatures are
50-59°F ( 10–15 °C); in the southeast, temperatures reach 80-89 °F ( 20–25 °C).
-Summer: From March-June. Temperatures reaching 90-104 °F (32-40°C).
-Monsoon: Lasting from June-Sept. A lot of rain and humidity. South to North
-Post Monsoon: From Oct.-Dec. Cloudless. South India receives more precipitation.

I think the weather in India is nice and warm; but you aren't exposed to different types of weather. It could get boring having in it rain the whole trimester. In New Jersey, the rain would last for a week or two and be gone. Here, you are exposed to different ranges in temperature, therefore you are used to the warm and humid, and the frosty cold. When you travel, you'll be used to whatever type of weather they have.

My Current Events post if referring to the "Climate of India" article from wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_India

Current Event 1-4th Generation iPod Nano

My current events article is on the new iPod Nano manufactured by Apple Inc.. I got all my information from the website at the bottom of the post. 

The newest iPod Nano just came out and was officailly announced on 9/9/08. It is the fourth generation one. There are many cool new features that are built into this  iPod. One of the features include the Genius feature. The Genius feature tells you and makes a playlist of songs that you have in your library that go well with the one you are currently listening to. Also, you can find your music faster by simply shifting your iPod horizantally which'll change the view to Cover Flow, or you can press and hold the center button and search by artist or album. Another thing you can do by tilting your iPod is you can listen, watch and play in new ways. Instead of going all the way to the main menu to shuffle your songs, which takes five seconds, all you have to do is shake the iPod to shuffle, which takes only two seconds. You can also download picuters to your iPod, view your photos upright to see them in potrait mode or turn it to the side to see the picture in landscape mode. Did I mention that you can play games on your iPod. Not the parachute and brick breaker games, I mean real ones like Spore. These are games made especially for the iPod nano. Watching videos on your iPod has gotten even better. The fourth generation nano has 2" screen that shows more clear and vivid videos.

I chose to do my current events on the fourth generation iPod Nano because i found a cool and interesting page on the iPod. My opinion on the iPod Nano is that I think that it is very neat and advance. It gives more options than the ones earlier. The iPod nano is very cool because it has hot, new feature like the Genius.

I got my info and based my post on the iPod nano feature page on the apple website- http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/features.html.