Start from tomorrow until 30th i have an interesting trip to the village and i hope i will get something interesting and this experience will help me to get more confidence to face the lolcal community later.
It is tough at first but i am sure it will be fine.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Siesta Syndrome
This week i faced a problem where i always feel sleepy and even i can not focused on my work. I search online and i found this interesting article on the same problem. So, i just want to share some info of it here.
Sunday, 6 February 2005
Your boss calls it falling asleep on the job. You can call it 'siesta syndrome'.
It strikes after lunch, from 2-4pm. And it's costing Britain dear. Abigail Townsend reveals why.
The phone is blaring and the boss is bearing down. But you are slouched over the keyboard, doing nothing. For it is between 2pm and 4pm - and siesta syndrome has struck.
Apathy in the afternoon is severely damaging the national economy, according to a new study conducted by British scientists. And the country's workers are drifting off thanks largely to their poor diet.
Double portions of burgers and fish and chips washed down with pints of beer or sugary drinks are sending office staff across the UK into a snooze zone.
Of 1,000 workers questioned, most blamed extreme tiredness for an increase in mistakes during the two-hour wave of weariness. The drop in output is also down to a natural break taken by the body at that time of day, as well as the onset of boredom.
The catering group Avenance, which commissioned the survey, said the slump was costing British industry millions of pounds. Its chief executive, Mike Audis, added: "Less work and costly errors during the afternoon means the UK siesta syndrome is having a devastating impact on the company's bottom line and its reputation."
Too many workers are eating either sugary snacks, which cause insulin levels to rocket, or high-fat foods that are hard to digest. Drinking at lunchtime also adds to the afternoon malaise.
Stephen Harling, a director at Avenance, said he was surprised more employers had not addressed the problem. "Look at what industry spends on recruiting people, on training them, keeping them - what it spends on ergonomics, for example. But it doesn't look after workers from a food point of view. This is affecting productivity - and you don't need a significant reduction to add cost to a product."
Mr Harling also criticised the food being offered by many companies on site and warned that it could prompt lunchtime drinking. "If the food on offer is poor and does not inspire people, they will go off site, and if they do that, generally they are going to go to the pub."
Britons' unofficial office siesta has arrived as countries more often associated with an afternoon slumber are waking up to the economic costs of taking a nap while the rest of the world works. While Spaniards once drifted off after lunch, that country's new corporate culture now spurns the notion as being unproductive.
No such worries in the offices of London, Birmingham and Manchester, though. Here the big sleep is just beginning. But it's not all down to diet: the body has a natural "down" period in the afternoon which, aside from poor eating habits, is another reason people tend to feel tired after lunch.
"We naturally have a slump [in the afternoon] and for us to keep going from 8am right through the day is asking a lot," said Raffaella Piovesan, a dietician. "When it comes to recharging the body, a lot of people believe in power naps, and that is what essentially a siesta is."
However, Ms Piovesan conceded that it was unrealistic to expect the siesta to become accepted in the UK just as it is being ditched elsewhere.
Instead, to overcome the syndrome, people should eat regularly throughout the day, snacking on healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables. Lunchtime meals should be restricted to healthy options, for example a tuna salad sandwich or fish or chicken with steamed vegetables. Refuelling on light, vitamin-rich food, it seems, can keep the daytime dozing at bay.
THE BODY CLOCK
Breakfast and good night's sleep boost energy
Commute is drain on brain, but activity still high
Body and mind in optimum condition for work
Mid-morning snack required to stave off slump
Lunchtime refuelling under way - with threat of fatigue
Siesta syndrome strikes, often after big lunch
Energy resurgence, helped by power-napping and light snacks
Weariness returns towards bedtime as body prepares itself for main rest
Finally body and brain get to recuperate during sleep
Friday, April 17, 2009
Clouded Leopard (Neofelis nebulosa)
An endangered clouded leopard at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center (CRC) in Front Royal, Virginia, gave birth to a genetically valuable litter of two cubs early in the morning on March 24. Staff had been on pregnancy watch of the two-and-a-half-year-old clouded leopard Jao Chu for five days. This is Jao Chu’s first litter. She and the cubs’ father, two-and-a-half-year-old Hannibal, were born in Thailand in a collaborative research program with the Zoological Park Organization of Thailand. The cubs’ sex will not be known until the first veterinary exam.
The newborn cubs will not be on exhibit. However, visitors may get an up-close treetop view of two clouded leopards—a male named Tai and a female named Mook—in their exhibit at the Zoo's Asia Trail.
Due to deforestation and hunting, clouded leopards are vulnerable to extinction. National Zoo scientist JoGayle Howard and colleagues are aggressively working to save this species from decline. The Zoo has been working with clouded leopards at CRC since 1978, with the goal of creating a genetically diverse population. In the past 30 years, more than 70 clouded leopards have been born at the Zoo’s research facility in Virginia, with the last litter born in 1993.
Breeding clouded leopards in captivity has been a challenge, primarily due to male aggression, decreased breeding activity between paired animals, and high cub mortality. In 2002, the National Zoo in collaboration with the Nashville Zoo and the Clouded Leopard Species Survival Plan (SSP) created the Thailand Clouded Leopard Consortium—the largest population of confiscated clouded leopards in Southeast Asia. The Clouded Leopard SSP oversees clouded leopard populations in zoos worldwide, and makes breeding recommendations for potential pairs based on the genetics of each cat. Since Thailand’s captive cubs are only one or two generations removed from the wild, their genes are especially valuable.
To date, the Thailand Clouded Leopard Consortium has produced 33 surviving cubs. The National Zoo’s program at CRC is the only one of its kind combining breeding with scientific research. For example, scientists still do not know why male clouded leopards attack their possible mates, but several graduate students at the Zoo are studying the males’ behavior—one student plans to test anti-anxiety drugs used in humans and domestic cats in an attempt to suppress male aggression.
Howard and colleagues have learned how to reduce the risk of fatal attacks by hand-rearing cubs for socialization and also introducing males to their mates when they are six months old, allowing the pair to grow up together. Hannibal and Jao Chu, the only compatible pair of clouded leopards at CRC, are proof that these techniques work. The new cubs also will be handreared by experienced CRC staff.
Following mating, the gestation period for clouded leopards is about 86 to 93 days. The average litter size for clouded leopards is two to five cubs. Clouded leopard cubs weigh about half a pound when born.
Little is known about clouded leopards. These cats are native to Southeast Asia and parts of China in a habitat that ranges from dense tropical evergreen forests to drier forests if there is suitable prey.
They are the smallest of the big cats, weighing 30 to 50 pounds and measuring about five feet long. Their short legs, large paws, and long tail, which accounts for half their length, help them balance on small branches, and their flexible ankles allow them to run down trees headfirst.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Great Picture of Moments
Take away fast food
An elephant just came out from water
A real fight
Smallest horse in the world 40cm tall, American farm10 Most Alien Like Insects on Earth
I have recieved an email from a friend and this is really interesting. I want to share it here. I credited the brilliant photographer that took this wonderful and amazing photos. It's really interesting. Take a look.
This praying mantis looks straight out of Alien or Men in Black… No prizes for guessing who inspired whom.
"Call me a cricket one more time!" Grasshoppers have horns or antennas that are shorter than their body, unlike their relatives', the bush crickets. They may look well shielded but lose many a battle when they end up as a protein-rich delicacy on someone's plate in many parts of the world.
"Who you're calling an alien? Our ancestors have been around since 350 million BC!" Wasps are said to be terrestrial but some of them look positively extra-terrestrial. Though often called pests, they are in fact very important for ecosystems: as food for other insects and birds or as predators limiting the populations of many other species.
This praying mantis male would certainly score a role in any alien movie. His acting talent is undisputed as he's part of the flower mantis species - they pretend to be flowers and then attack their prey. How very cunning, indeed.
"I might look cute but I can sap you out!" Treehoppers have long fascinated biologists because of their unusual appearance. They belong to the Membracidae family and are closely related to cicadas and leafhoppers. They feed upon the sap found in plant stems, which they prick with their beaks. 
"Hullo there, did I startle you? If I did pretty please, will you be my… ahem… buy my dinner?" This praying mantis is one of 2,000 species in the mantis order of insects. As predatory aliens, ER, insects, they might better be called preying mantis.
"Listen to me, Earthling, feel the mighty wrath of Gandalf the Green!" This green bush cricket of the TettigoniidaeLord of the Rings.
This species of aliens has fooled humans for many years. Popularly known as a bumblebee of the Apidae family, they have donned a fuzzy yellow-and-black fur and spread rumours that some of them are stingless. Right, whatever, just careful with that … thingy, dude!
"Give me… FOOD!" This fuzzy yellow alien with black spots is called Dasychira Pudibunda and is the larval form, or caterpillar, of the red-tailed moth.
This alien poses as a damselfly of the Zygoptera suborder. People often fail to notice that they hold their wings differently when at rest and are also smaller than dragonflies. Oh, and did you notice, their eyes are separated. Though running might be better than waiting to see the blue in their eyes…
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