Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Why Is It Important Is to Be Have a Healthy Diet?



It all starts from taking nutritious food, doing some physical activity like running and jogging. Refrain yourself from bad things which harm your health like alcohol, smoking and unhealthy food.

Now, getting into details of healthy eating


Having good diet includes rich amount of carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and water. Your body needs all of them to function properly. If you miss even one of them your face, nails and skin (also other body parts) show you that you're not giving them what they need. Skin becomes dry, nail starts peeling out and your face losses glow your body loses its immunity power

Like mentioned before, your body parts need vitamins to carry on their work. If you stop giving them what they need, you can imagine what happens when your boss stops paying you. Exactly the same way, your parts stop working not because they want to stop but they can't work.
Skin which has three main layers, first one is epidermis, this acts like a barrier and cover all your body parts and protects from bacteria, fungus and other germs. When skin loses its moisture it becomes dry, this stimulates itching and when you scratch do you know what happens? Though this may give you a pleasure or a comfortable feeling it again starts itching. This is how it rotates itching, scratch, again itching.

But what causes skin to be itchy?

Coming back to the point, dehydration or dry skin is the main cause. A question may pop in your mind, why skin becomes dry? The outer skin needs some important nutrition to lock the moisture. When you don't eat or drink vitamins or nutrients which help skin to maintain moisture this is what happens. Anyway, dry air or wind also causes dry skin, in this case your skin needs moisturizer from the outside.

Why my nails break?

Most people have this problem of brittle or weak nails. I want to point out an old and well known proverb, "Nails show what you eat". Yes you can say they're your health mirrors. Even if you see a dark vertical line on fingernails then this is a sign of calcium, zinc or any other vitamin deficiency (or when your nails are exposed to water for longer period). Nails are made of a protein called keratin (you'll find this protein in hair and skin).

American Academy of Dermatology's says, change in nail color often signals some serious health issues like liver or kidney disease. Don't worry if you've a discolored nail, sometimes fungus can also cause discolored nails.

So, the common point in above examples is your heath shows what you eat.

Overall Health

Fighting Diseases

Proteins and vitamins you take in your diet increase your immune system and help your body to fight diseases. Protein helps to build tissues which are damaged, where as carbohydrates and fats acts as fuel to your body and vitamins/minerals boost all your body parts to process function.

For instance, Vitamin A

Vitamin A which is fat soluble vitamin helps to maintain a healthy skin, teeth, skeletal and soft tissue and mucus membranes. It also promotes good vision. Retinol is a form of vitamin A which is found in animal meat. There are more than 500 unknown Carotenoids which are formed to vitamin A through metabolism. Beta-carotene is one such form found in vegetables and fruits. Beta-carotene which is Provitamin A type prevents cancer.

Consider doing physical activities

Though you've a rich diet you must run or do some physical activity to burn fat. Else you may end up having overweight body. Also digestion system functions effectively when you do workouts. Not doing any physical activity increases heart attack chances.

Geeks you've got a serious problem here. You've no option but to do yoga or running to maintain healthy body.

Do you've any more tips to share with us? Do share in comments.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Global Warming Causes and Effects

The Earth is growing warmer and warmer. "Global warming" is also used to refer to increases in average temperature of the air and sea at Earth's surface. Since the early 20th century, the global air and sea surface temperature has increased about 0.8°C. And of course, as soon as we started noticing this phenomenon, we started to scientifically analyze the data available to understand the possible causes of this phenomenon.

Now, the entire phenomenon is called “climate change”- so that it takes other related phenomena, such as hurricanes, monsoon variations, tidal waves and typhoons into account as well. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed by many nations to study the causes and effects of global warming in 1988.

The IPCC produces reports that support the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is the main international treaty on climate change.The ultimate objective of the UNFCCC is to "stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic [i.e., human-induced] interference with the climate system". It took many years to convince the public at large (indeed much of it is still not convinced) that human activity can, and has, messed with the climate.  But it is now scientifically accepted that due to the Industrial Revolution and increase in overall population, the level of greenhouse gases (gases like carbon-dioxide and methane which trap heat) has increased and is leading to the unprecedented acceleration in increase of surface temperature. Temperature changes vary over the globe. Since 1979, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25°C per decade against0.13°C per decade). Ocean temperatures increase more slowly than land temperatures because of the larger effective heat capacity of the oceans.

More on Greenhouse Effect And Global Warming

The impacts of climate change tend to vary from region to region. Observed events are:
  • Melting of polar ice caps
  • Change in precipitation
  • Changes in sea level
  • Expansion of subtropical deserts
  • Increase in frequency of extreme weather events (for example, hurricanes, ocean acidification, droughts and flash floods)

Such change in temperature is of much concern because it threatens the food security of regions due to failure of crops. It also leads to species loss due to loss of habitat- there are entire species being wiped out because the forests or glaciers which were their home now lie destroyed.

While many political and social discourses are ongoing about this increasing problem, the solution lies with all of us. Until we reduce consumption of goods that cause pollution and make a real effort to live in a way that is healthy for the ecosystems around us, no Kyoto protocol can mitigate   the pollution we have caused. It is not about saving the Earth- the Earth will be fine. It is about saving species- including our own.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

4 Websites to Connect Students to Real World Math

Mathematics has been played a major role in our scientific and technological discoveries. But for many students math is just a 4 letter word which evokes dislike and fear. This fear in its sever form, math phobia, has kept many capable students out of those things in which mathematics plays an internal role.

When compared to other subjects math is discussed less, this increased more fear for math. To overcome math phobia teachers must teach math with real world examples. Like we explain Biology and Physics, math needs a real world example. But not all can do this.

To help teachers teach real world math here are few notable sites.
#1 Yummymath.com

This deliciously named website provides teachers with real world math example. With which teachers can make math more interesting subject than any other. Lessons with grade specific listed here. Also major math concepts like Algebra, Data and Probability, Geometry etc... Topics are covered with real time examples.

Few notable topics:
  1. How is the Olympic torch lit?
  2. How has the cost of a Super Bowl ad changed?
#2  TED ED (Lessons worth sharing)

TED which is well known for its global set of conferences also serves educational videos to match education with real time world. You can see Math in real life series here.

Few notable videos:
  1. Logarithms, explained - Steve Kelly 
  2. How to organize, add and multiply matrices - Bill Shillito 
  3. Gridiron physics: Scalars and vectors - Michelle Buchanan 
#3 Get the Math

Except human no other living being go to school. Do they? But how come they learn everything with perfection. Because they see, practice, fail - learn, fail - learn...then they become perfect. Same can go with human if opt this procedure. Thirteen.org started this approach with videos. And when you're done watching videos you're asked to take the challenge. See the video, take the challenge; this way easily you can learn a concept.

Few notable videos:
  1. Math in Videogames
  2. Math in Basketball (take the challenge)
  3. Math in Special Effects
#4 Real World Math

This site provides a different way to learn math, it virtually takes student to real world scenario and explain in a math way. It uses Google Earth to this purpose. If you're new to Google Earth, this site provides a tutorial section for it over here.

Few notable topics:
  1. Measurement lessons
  2. Project-Based Learning
  3. Space lessons
Conclusion:
When student starts learning math with real world examples then learning become more personalized this way we can leverage students interaction with the world in the math way.