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Mainstream society tends to define intelligence through very limited parameters. From pre-school through the collegiate level a person's intellectual worth is quite inaccurately determined solely by his or her ability to work with numbers, remember details, and handle language skills.
Students who do not excel in mathematical operations or the ability to communicate via accepted linguistic structures are often labeled as "slow", inept, or worse. Even outside of the classroom people are measured and judged smart or dumb by virtue of their skills with numbers and written/verbal communication.
It's right to celebrate a talent with numbers. And it's good to honor an ability to master sentence structure or remember, manage, and communicate written information.
But these skills are far from being the only determinants of strong intelligence. In fact recent scientific studies have identified multiple types of intelligence.
In addition to the verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical intelligence recognized and rewarded by the standard academic system, researchers at Harvard have identified the following types of intelligence:
Visual/Spatial Intelligence ? This measure of intelligence manifests in the visual perception of the environment, the ability to form and manipulate visual imagery, and the orientation of the body and other objects in space. Simply put, an individual with great visual/spatial intelligence might excel at graphic arts, sculpting, observation of the environment, freehand carpentry, and so forth.
Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence ? This of course deals with one's physical dexterity, fine motor skills, and the ability to learn and express via physical movements. A person with enhanced bodily/kinesthetic intelligence might excel at sports, dancing, sex, and/or have a natural ability to work with hand tools or solve problems through physical means.
Musical Intelligence ? This expression of intelligence is fairly self-explanatory, and pertains not only to understanding/producing harmonious music, but also to rhythmic timing, dance response, and the intuitive relation to natural sounds and melodies.
Interpersonal Intelligence ? This form of intelligence is often manifested in the ability to understand, communicate with, coordinate, and even manage other human beings. People who are smart in this area find it easy to form relationships and maintain harmonious interaction within overall groups and communities.
Interpersonal Intelligence ? This expression of intelligence is the ability to understand the self, and to interpret and work with thoughts, emotions, instinctive reactions, and intuitive notions.
Naturalistic Intelligence ? This form of intelligence involves the ability to observe, understand, and work with the natural world of plants, animals, and even weather patterns and geological phenomenon. Strong organizational and classification skills are typical of this intelligence range.
Dr. Howard Gardner deserves our gratitude for initiating the studies that have categorized this wide range of different intelligences. In the near future it is likely that even more will be done to uncover and organize the less traditional types of human intelligence.
Reviewing the list above, and being aware of the standard verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical intelligence patterns, where do you feel your genius lies? Don't be modest here; it's very likely you have active or latent talents within one or more areas of intelligence.
Spend some time observing yourself and being honest about the things that come naturally to you in life. Refer to the basic list of intelligence types and see if you can match yourself with some of the traits mentioned.
Understand of course that I've only made a very basic outline in this article. Each form of intelligence can be greatly extrapolated on.
Often undervalued by mainstream (and especially elitist) society, these additional forms of intelligence have played a critical role in human survival over the past several thousand years! Furthermore all manifestations of intelligence, not just the two facets that are nurtured and praised by our stunted educational programs, color the vivid and wonderful nature of humanity.
It's time we as a species transcend the limitations of "traditional" definitions of intelligence and embrace our greatness in the many forms it becomes manifest.
For more content on the power of thought and the nature of thought vibrations be sure to check out the author's blog on positive thinking. Visit Finding Your Genius ? Different Kinds of Intelligence.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2012 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Egypt's President-elect Mohammed Morsi waves to supporters at Tahrir Square, the focal point of Egyptian uprising, in Cairo on Friday, June 29, 2012.
By Charlene Gubash, NBC News Cairo
Today my best and oldest friend in Egypt told me she is going abroad to prepare paperwork in the event she decides to leave her country. It's very painful to even write that sentence and even harder to reread it. My friend is Egyptian, a devout Muslim, a patriot and yet she is preparing a plan B of escape, as so many others here have done, because she fears Egypt is turning into another Iran.
Post-revolution Egyptians to US: Stay out
Among her concerns, she mentions female self-appointed moral police, veiled from head to toe, admonishing other women that they will go to hell unless they dress conservatively. I arrived in Egypt a long time ago. To give you an idea just how long ago, NBC used an old telex machine and an even older poorly functioning landline to communicate abroad. My friend helped me master the essential skill of typing my message on a thin paper strip that I would then re-feed through the machine. Suffice to say, she was the most patient of teachers.
One of the most impressive sights to me at the time was seeing unveiled and veiled women walking down the street together, arm in arm, no judgment and no pressure to dress a certain way. In those days, most women were unveiled. As a foreigner, I always felt welcomed and only distinguished as an American by the fact that almost every cab driver would give me the thumbs up sign, upon learning my nationality, and say cheerfully, "America, number one!"?
But Egypt is changing. Today, Egypt's President-elect Mohammed Morsi punctuated his first speech to the nation with a promise to work for the release of convicted terrorist, Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. Morsi addressed tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist followers in Tahrir Square, taking an unofficial oath of office before the people who put him there. He described it as the real oath rather than the oath that he will take tomorrow before the general assembly of the Constitutional Court, rejecting the legal decision that dismantled an illegitimately constituted parliament and rejecting the military's additions to the constitution that would prevent him from controlling the military.
Egypt elections only the beginning of a transitional process
Morsi underlined several times that the people were the source of power and decision-making, not the institutions. Despite the fact that he initially addressed all Egyptians, Muslim and Christian, men and women, and all countries in the free world, Muslim and non-Muslim, his message was in fact directed to the hardcore constituency in front of him, fervent Islamists who would eventually like to see Egypt become an Islamic state governed by Islamic religious law.?
Although President-elect Morsi repeated a message of love for all Egyptians, the vast majority of Egyptians have little in common with the Islamists who now crowd Tahrir Square.?
"He handed power to the mob," lamented a Coptic Christian viewer on a talk show following the speech.
Egypt has elected a conservative president who has said he wants to impose Islamic law. How he will change the country remains unclear. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
Many felt it was improper to take the oath of office in Tahrir Square rather than before the Constitutional Court. "It's basically very amateurish," said Hisham Kassem, veteran publisher. "He made lots of mistakes to the point you think he's going to be a trial-and-error president... making a promise to hand over Omar Abdul Rahman, the first man to attack the World Trade Center. He will never be released. He is just going to annoy the Americans now," Kassem said.
"[Taking the oath of office in Tahrir] eroded his legitimacy. If he is banking on the street, it's not very savvy, his presidency will collapse in a year if he banks on that," Kassem added.
Analysis: Egypt's big turn under the Muslim Brotherhood
Morsi's impassioned speech is more likely to add to the atmosphere of uncertainty rather than quell it. By telling the crowded square that they were the source of power, Morsi thumbed his nose at the military generals who are trying to deny him control over the Ministry of Defense and the judiciary that has dissolved the parliament due to party members competing for independent seats.??
Most Egyptians just want to get the country -- which many say is close to the brink of economic collapse -- back on track. They would rather hear about plans for restoring tourism, creating jobs and ending bottled gas and gasoline shortages than stoking anger against the military. Most would rather see Tahrir Square become a main thoroughfare, open to traffic. Instead, Morsi has further empowered the party faithful who are camped out there.?
During the past week, the president-elect has reached out to those who are most apprehensive of a Muslim Brotherhood president, Egypt's eight million Coptic Christians, by meeting with their religious leaders.
"We are worried about the Islamization of Egyptian society," said Father Fafic Greiche, a church spokesman, in an interview with Vatican Radio. He also met with opposition parties and youth groups to discuss forming a new government that people hope will be representative of Egypt's women and secular and socially progressive groups.?
The Muslim Brotherhood party also went on the offensive to stem fears women have about the rise to power of an Islamist. A party spokesman posted a message on the official website blaming other parties for a deliberate smear campaign by linking "individuals attacking women or girls or women's hairdressers claiming to be religious police" to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Female Member of Parliament Azza al Garf condemned the severe sexual attack on a British journalism student in Tahrir Square on the day Morsi was declared president and demanded perpetrators be brought to justice. Ironically, Al Garf herself has been sued by a women's rights non-governmental organization for wanting to reverse Egyptian laws that criminalize sexual harassment and female genital mutilation.?
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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The ugly truth is that almost thousands of people who get involved with a business opportunity end up part of a huge market segment that's being misled, manipulated, and exploited.
There seems to be no shortage of opportunities out there nowadays. Within the home based business industry, you'll find all kinds of different 'flavors' of money-making opportunities, usually, you will find 3 primary business models that many individuals are familiar with inside the home business arena. I want to tell you about one of them: affiliate marketing business.
Internet affiliate marketing Business - Yes it is a business along with a large one at this. This really is among the simplest ways to earn money with internet affiliate marketing because there are hundreds, otherwise a large number of affiliate marketing programs that you could sign-up with and begin earning money immediately. Most of them are free to become listed on. When affiliate marketing, you market a particular company's product or service, and when you send them a person (make a sale), you're paid a commission.
Here's a quick example to make money with affiliate marketing... ever notice the number of websites promote books from Amazon.com? Well, most of these websites are in fact Amazon.com affiliates... so when someone clicks one of their links from their site and buys a magazine on Amazon, the web site owner automatically gets to be a commission from Amazon.
make money online
Here are 4 Advantages of Affiliate Marketing:
1. Work at home - With unemployment at record highs and many people unhappy with their jobs, people are embracing other helpful information on extra monthly income.
2. Launch Cost Are Minimal - A joint venture partner Marketing Business is very cost efficient. Normally, you can get started for under $100. Best marketers may have their own website name, hosting package and autoresponder. All fairly inexpensive business necessities when starting an online internet business.
3. No products to create - When joining a joint venture partner program, you choose these products you need to promote without all of the hassles of actually needing to produce the product. As the affiliate additionally you do not have to handle the shipping and customer support issues.
4. The power of the web - It really works for you 24/7. You place ads on various marketing platforms, some paid some free and generate a sale which leads to a commission whenever during the day or evening. This is actually the great thing about making money with internet affiliate marketing!
There are thousands of great affiliate marketing programs you are able to join and earn a resale commission when your customers buys their product. In most cases commissions can range from 25% - 50%. Some commissions are a once deal (selling a magazine on Amazon) and some are monthly residual incomes. You might suggest an autoresponder to some customer/web visitor and they purchase from your link and you will receive commission each month once they remain a customer.
Which is better: property flipping or real estate property investing?
To get to an answer, it may help to identify each phrase and put each one in perspective.
Home flipping is the strategy of acquiring a residence then reselling it at a profit in the smallest period possible. A house flipping pro aims to make the biggest amount of cash really fat by flipping the house, therefore the term is called house flipping.The house flipper does not hold on and rent the house. As a matter of fact, the shorter they hold the house, the better it is.
Real estate investors want to keep the property for income then selling later after he has gotten rental income.
Real estate investors may buy with the intention of selling later, but may hold onto the house for many years.
Which is right for you?
The main difference between the two investment schemes is that in house flipping, the investor is looking for quick profits and real estate investors want appreciation and income from rent
House flippers target houses that they can buy at a cheaper rate than the normal market rate. In doing so, it guarantees a quick profit from a quick sale.
Usually, the house will be sold at a cost a lot less compared to its market price (within the cover anything from 40-80% lower than the market will bear).
Buying and renovating a home is the easiest way to house flip. The house flip pro purchase the house, quickly renovates it and then sells it under a month or so.
House flip renovations are popular because if you estimate your fix up costs, you can turn a profit quickly. It is usually easy to get hold of industry professionals in the precise refurbishments needed and therefore the house will have a very good look in the end.
This permits the home flipper to get a quick market for the house and at the same time getting a very good price for the house.
House flipping tends to be simpler than buy and hold real estate investing because the flipper does not deal with landlord issues and the profit is made more quickly instead of it being done over time.
Depending on the market or community where a house flipper works in, more money can be made if the market allows for a quick sale. The real estate investor holds the property and rents it to renters, thus making cash flow instead of a quick buck.
With buy and hold real estate, the investor makes money through income, provided his expenses are less than his income from rent. A major advantage is if the market is poor he can hold on and receive income and not worry about resale.
The profits fetched can also be higher if the investor is getting benefits such as economies of scale where he/she is able to buy building materials at a much lower price.
For hassle free and quick return on investment, I am biased in favor of house flipping...but you be the judge!
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To do that, Sergey Brin rushed onstage at Google I/O wearing the glass units to give us a brief live action demo courtesy of a skydive over San Francisco. Video of the jump, performed by four divers in a blimp, was streamed live through Google Hangouts to attendees at the Moscone Center. In keeping with the extreme vibe of this demonstration, the showcase was handed off to bikers on the rooftop, also outfitted with the lenses, who jumped from building to building via ramp and then eventually cycled into the arena and right up to Sergey, himself. As a finishing touch, Brin also snapped a shot of the team using his own headset. All told, it's a pretty incredible way to once again officially tease this forward-looking tech.
Check out our full coverage of Google I/O 2012's opening keynote at our event hub!
Update: Google's posted the entire segment by itself, it's embedded after the break if you want to relive every step (stage to blimp and back to stage, with a few handoffs in betwee) as it happened.
Google wants to bring back conversation-based music sharing for the digital age. At its I/O keynote Wednesday, Google unveiled Nexus Q, a sleek streaming-media sphere that?s 4.6 inches in diameter and looks like pop art. The device hooks directly into Google Music, and let's anyone with an Android device control community playlists.
I was a bit amused when I read a press release headline this week: ?Scientists struggle with mathematical details.? I expected the story to be about occasions when scientists had misunderstood, misinterpreted, or misapplied mathematical formulas in their published research, but instead the study in the June 25 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that research papers with lots of mathematical details are cited by other scholars less often than papers with fewer. Clearly, this disparity could slow scientific progress if important but technical papers are ignored.
Being a mathematician, I wanted to know how someone would go about quantifying such citational differences. I learned that it?s not an exact science, but the research provides some interesting data and suggestions about how to improve scientific communication.
The study featured an analysis of 649 papers from 1998 about ecology and evolution, fields that at times employ complicated equations. The researchers used the number of equations per page as a proxy for technical level. Equations were counted only if they were printed on a separate line from text, not if they were in line; if two equations were printed on the same line, they were counted separately.
The study authors, biologists Tim Fawcett and Andrew D. Higginson of the University of Bristol, assessed the impact of a paper by drawing on citation data from? Thomson Reuters, excluding self-citation, which was defined as shared surnames between any authors of the two papers. Fawcett and Higginson note that this approach may have led to a few spurious self-citations (two unrelated Smiths, perhaps) but think that these errors probably exerted only a very small effect. (They don?t mention spurious non-self-citations that may have arisen from name changes because of marriage, spy activity or the witness protection program, but I?m sure that problem is even smaller.)
Fawcett and Higginson found on average a 22 percent decrease in citations for every additional equation per page. They attribute this drop mainly to fewer citations in non-theoretical papers. The proxy for theoretical versus non-theoretical paper is whether the word ?model? appears in the title or abstract, taking out common phrases such as ?model species? and ?experimental model.? This choice seems like a pretty rough estimate, and they note that a random sample of articles indicated that 84.5 percent were correctly classified. That hit rate sounds like a low level of accuracy, but categorizing every one of the 28,068 citing papers was impossible.
In any case, Fawcett and Higginson found little correlation between equation density and citations by theoretical papers, and a large reduction in citations by non-theoretical papers for papers with more than 0.5 equations per page. They found that equations appearing in appendices had no effect on citation rate.
Some of the proxies seem a bit problematic to me, but overall this correlation may be real. Of course, the elephant in the room is how to measure, in some objective way, the ?true? impact each paper should have and compare it with the citation data. Unfortunately, that would require some sort of voodoo.
Taking this study at face value, I think it might provide a lot of us with a bit of relief. Scientists are just people like us who prefer reading words to wading through equations. Frankly, I?m curious about a similar study for mathematical papers. I don?t think I?m the only mathematician whose eyes sometimes glaze over when presented with a solid page of equations, nary an English sentence in sight.
The question, though, is what to do with the technical details. Even if people don?t like reading them, that is where the science happens. And writing a paper based on your analysis without including the details of that analysis seems like a recipe for disaster.
The researchers suggest two main approaches: better mathematical education for scientists and better explanations of mathematics in papers with lots of equations. They stress that the latter is more immediate and easier to implement, noting that better education would take quite a while to trickle down and be effective. But I wonder whether better education would actually help at all. I am never one to take a stand against further math education for scientists, but the problem doesn?t seem to be poor understanding; people just don?t like reading equations.
Based on my own experiences as a mathematician, I can understand that. Even if I can wade through an equation in a paper, a sentence explaining it is valuable. The better explanation approach would probably lead to more readable papers, but adding text for readability makes papers longer, and space is at a premium in print journals. The authors also note that technical details can be relegated to appendices, either in print or online, with the caveat that theoreticians should make all assumptions explicit in the main text. Otherwise, those who don?t travel to the appendix to see the nitty-gritty details might misinterpret the results. Many journals already leave some technical details to appendices already, so the authors are just advocating this approach on a larger scale.
I have another suggestion: Eye tracking and mild electroshock therapy. If scientists skim over pages of equations or stare into space for too long while reading a technical paper, they get a gentle jolt of electricity to bring them back to the important equations at hand. Just kidding. Papers shouldn?t be literally electrifying, but more readable papers might help ensure that the best science makes an impact.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Contempt of Congress? Subpoenas? Stonewalling?
Maybe there's a smoking gun in the Republican-led investigations of the Obama administration ? and President Barack Obama's pushback. But a large part of them could be what always goes on during a presidential campaign: political gamesmanship.
It ranges from House GOP contempt threats against Attorney General Eric Holder to Obama's waving a to-do list in the face of lawmakers.
Within two weeks, Obama fired a new pair of volleys across the bow of the congressional GOP leadership.
The first was his decree ? bypassing Congress ? that the U.S. will not, in most cases, deport illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The other was his assertion of executive privilege to shield certain internal Justice Department documents from a House subpoena.
Both actions drew expressions of GOP outrage in Washington and on the campaign trail.
The documents involved a botched U.S. gun-trafficking operation which was designed to track firearms headed into Mexico but which led to disappearance of thousands of weapons and the 2010 shooting death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
House Speaker John Boehner said the Terry family deserved answers about the guns that killed him and went so far as to suggest a White House cover-up. Others specifically likened the actions of Obama and Holder to the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974.
That may seem like a bit of a stretch, but in an election year outsized charges and countercharges tend to swirl.
Executive privilege has been claimed by presidents going back to George Washington to hide the inner workings of their administrations from congressional eyes.
As a senator, Obama sharply criticized President George W. Bush's invocation of executive privilege ? a blast from the past Republicans were quick to exploit.
Republican challenger Mitt Romney's team leaped into the fray. "President Obama's pledge to run the most open and transparent administration in history has turned out to be just another broken promise," Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.
Holder insisted he and his aides have spent countless hours cooperating with Congress and already have provided nearly 8,000 documents on the ill-fated operation.
Escalating tensions on Capitol Hill are likely to intensify as the Supreme Court rules later this week on Obama's health care law and lawmakers face June 30 deadlines on a crucial transportation reauthorization bill and a scheduled rise in student loan interest rates.
The pattern of investigations by Republican-led House panels recalls the many congressional probes during President Bill Clinton's administration.
They ranged from the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, which led to an impeachment vote by the House, to probes of the suicide of White House aide Vince Foster, the Clinton's Whitewater property dealings in Arkansas, Hillary Rodham Clinton's investment gains, the workings of her health care task force and the mass firing of the White House travel office.
"There were 80 different investigations roughly between 1995 and 2001, and that doesn't include the later investigations of Clinton's 11th-hour pardons and gifts," said Paul Light, professor of public service at New York University. He noted that some of the same committees that relentlessly investigated Clinton are now pursuing Obama.
Light called the gun-trafficking probe and the contempt of Congress threat against Holder "a highly partisan effort to create a big issue for the 2012 election to undermine Obama's credibility through this particularly flawed operation." But he also suggested that Obama's use of executive privilege "makes him look like he might be hiding something."
In any event, Light said such politically charged probes can "tarnish both the president and Congress."
It isn't only Republicans who investigate. When Bush sat in the Oval Office, congressional Democrats launched high-profile probes of the secret deliberations of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and the Justice Department's 2006 midterm firing of nine U.S. attorneys.
The myriad investigations of the Clintons, however, transpired against a far different backdrop than now.
"In Clinton's time, the economy was relatively good and getting better. In Obama's time, it's relatively bad and getting worse," said Doug Schoen, who served as Clinton's pollster and who has criticized Obama's economic performance.
"The picture of intransigence coming out of Washington is not helpful to the president," Schoen said. And, borrowing a Watergate-era term, he added: "Stonewalling can't help Obama. I'm not sure it will hurt him, but it certainly can't help him."
The strictly party-line contempt recommendation came last week from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, even though its chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., later acknowledged that Congress has no evidence of a White House cover-up such as alleged by Boehner and several other GOP lawmakers.
Issa had kept alive the possibility of a deal "if we can have those documents." On Tuesday, however, administration officials and House Republican staff members failed to resolve the document dispute.
White House press secretary Jay Carney, quoting Issa, on Monday told reporters, "The chairman said over the weekend that there was no evidence ? let me repeat ? no evidence of White House involvement in any cover-up or attempt to cover up this issue."
Holding an attorney general in contempt of Congress would be unprecedented. It also would probably be unenforceable since it is the Justice Department itself ? headed by the attorney general ? that must act on such recommendations.
"It's clear that this is nothing more than a political witch hunt to distract from the fact that Republicans in Congress have no interest in focusing on what we need to focus on, which is jobs and the economy," said Democratic Party chief Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.
The gun-trafficking probe joins ongoing ones into the California solar-panel company Solyndra, which received a $528 million federal loan from the Obama administration before filing for bankruptcy protection and laying off 1,100 workers.
___
Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum
Avoiding Bad Feng Shui in Your Bathroom - According to the ancient art of Feng Shui, bathrooms are known to have bad Feng Shui because this is the area of the house where energy is removed. However, with a few tips, you can get rid of bad bathroom Feng Shui and encourage the flow of energy and promote prosperity. Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of geomancy that believes that the laws of both Heaven and Earth need to be followed. In doing so, a person can achieve balance and harmony and receive good energy or qi that promotes prosperity and wellness. Feng Shui is now applied in home and interior design. It is mainly used in bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens and home offices. Bathrooms have earned a bad reputation in Feng Shui because this is the area of the house where energy is drained. Nevertheless, you can still get food Feng Shui for your bathrooms if you plan carefully.
Location
When thinking of the location of your bathroom, keep in mind that this particular room is governed by the water element. According to Feng Shui experts, this element is connected with wealth and prosperity. You also need to consider what is the primary function of the bathroom: the elimination of waste. Knowing these details can help you in planning the right location for your bathroom.
There are several areas that are not ideal locations for your bathroom. Here are some of them:
? Near the front door
The front door is a literal and figurative entryway where wealth and prosperity enter and having a bathroom near it will cause them to leave the house.
? Opposite the kitchen
The kitchen is governed by the fire element and if the bathroom is located at the opposite side of the kitchen, their elements are most likely to clash.
? At the center of the house
According to Feng Shui experts, this is the worst location for your bathroom. The center of your home is supposed to be left open because this is the area where all the energies in your house congregate. It is considered bad Feng Shui to allow these energies go out of the house.
Colors and D?cor
Remembering that the bathroom is governed by the water element is also important when it comes to choosing colors and decorations for your bathroom. The flow of water in the bathroom is usually downwards so you need to balance this out by introducing the wood element. Having colors and d?cor from the wood element will introduce an upward movement in the bathroom. Good colors for bathrooms include pale blue, shades of cream and grayish hues. For the wood element, you can use wooden accessories or add a small picture of trees on the wall.
Clutter and Other Things to Consider
Here are other good Feng Shui tips for your bathroom:
? To promote good Feng Shui, get rid of the clutter in your bathroom or else the energies will stay stuck in the room.
? Keep your bathroom neat and carefully clean it once a week.
? Keep the bathroom door closed and the toilet seat down when it is not used.
? If your bathroom has windows, keep it open.
About Guest Blogger
About the Author: Article written by Ericka who writes content for Aqua Protection a wall coatings and roof coatings company based in Scotland, UK This post was written by a guest contributor. Please see credential in the post above. If you'd like to guest post for Home design inspiration check out our write home design tips at Home design inspiration page and know more about how you can share your home design tips with our community.
The promise of ultrafast quantum computing has moved a step closer to reality with a technique to create rewritable computer chips using a beam of light. Researchers from The City College of New York (CCNY) and the University of California Berkeley (UCB) used light to control the spin of an atom's nucleus in order to encode information.
The technique could pave the way for quantum computing, a long-sought leap forward toward computers with processing speeds many times faster than today's. The group will publish their results on June 26 in Nature Communications.
Current electronic devices are approaching the upper limits in processing speed, and they rely on etching a pattern into a semiconductor to create a chip or integrated circuit. These patterns of interconnections serve as highways to shuttle information around the circuit, but there is a drawback.
"Once the chip is printed, it can only be used one way," explained Dr. Jeffrey Reimer, UCB professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the study co-author.
The team ? including CCNY Professor of Physics Carlos Meriles and PhD graduate students Jonathan King of UCB and Yunpu Li of CCNY? saw a remedy for these problems in the emerging sciences of spintronics and quantum computing.
They have developed a technique to use laser light to pattern the alignment of "spin" within atoms so that the pattern can be rewritten on the fly. Such a technique may one day lead to rewritable spintronic circuits.
Digital electronics and conventional computing rely on translating electrical charges into the zeros and ones of binary code. A "spintronics" computer, on the other hand, would use the quantum property of electron spin, which enables the electron to store any number between zero and one.
Imagine this as if the electron were a "yin-yang" symbol in which the proportions of the dark and light areas?representing values from zero to one?could vary at will. This would mean that multiple computations could be done simultaneously, which would amp up processing power.
Attempts at using electrons for quantum computing have been plagued, however, by the fact that electron spins switch back and forth rapidly. Thus, they make very unstable vehicles to hold information. To suppress the random switching back and forth of electrons, the UCB and CCNY researchers used laser light to produce long-lasting nuclear spin "magnets" that can pull, push, or stabilize the spins of the electrons.
They did this by illuminating a sample of gallium arsenide ? the same semiconductor used in cell phone chips ? with a pattern of light, much as lithography etches a physical pattern onto a traditional integrated circuit. The illuminated pattern aligned the spins of all the atomic nuclei, and, thus, their electrons, at once, creating a spintronic circuit.
"What you could have is a chip you can erase and rewrite on the fly with just the use of a light beam," said Professor Meriles. Changing the pattern of light altered the layout of the circuit instantly.
"If you can actually rewrite with a beam of light and alter this pattern, you can make the circuit morph to adapt to different requirements," he added. "Imagine what you can make a system like that do for you!"
###
City College of New York: http://www2.ccny.cuny.edu
Thanks to City College of New York for this article.
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Contact: Bill Steigerwald William.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov 301-286-5017 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Turbulent jet streams, regions where winds blow faster than in other places, churn east and west across Saturn. Scientists have been trying to understand for years the mechanism that drives these wavy structures in Saturn's atmosphere and the source from which the jets derive their energy.
In a new study appearing in the June edition of the journal Icarus, scientists used images collected over several years by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to discover that the heat from within the planet powers the jet streams. Condensation of water from Saturn's internal heating led to temperature differences in the atmosphere. The temperature differences created eddies, or disturbances that move air back and forth at the same latitude, and those eddies, in turn, accelerated the jet streams like rotating gears driving a conveyor belt.
A competing theory had assumed that the energy for the temperature differences came from the sun. That is how it works in the Earth's atmosphere.
"We know the atmospheres of planets such as Saturn and Jupiter can get their energy from only two places: the sun or the internal heating. The challenge has been coming up with ways to use the data so that we can tell the difference," said Tony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, N.Y., the lead author of the paper and a member of the Cassini imaging team.
The new study was possible in part because Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn long enough to obtain the large number of observations required to see subtle patterns emerge from the day-to-day variations in weather. "Understanding what drives the meteorology on Saturn, and in general on gaseous planets, has been one of our cardinal goals since the inception of the Cassini mission," said Carolyn Porco, imaging team lead, based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "It is very gratifying to see that we're finally coming to understand those atmospheric processes that make Earth similar to, and also different from, other planets."
Rather than having a thin atmosphere and solid-and-liquid surface like Earth, Saturn is a gas giant whose deep atmosphere is layered with multiple cloud decks at high altitudes. A series of jet streams slice across the face of Saturn visible to the human eye and also at altitudes detectable to the near-infrared filters of Cassini's cameras. While most blow eastward, some blow westward. Jet streams occur on Saturn in places where the temperature varies significantly from one latitude to another.
Thanks to the filters on Cassini's cameras, which can see near-infrared light reflected to space, scientists now have observed the Saturn jet stream process for the first time at two different, low altitudes. One filtered view shows the upper part of the troposphere, a high layer of the atmosphere where Cassini sees thick, high-altitude hazes and where heating by the sun is strong. Views through another filter capture images deeper down, at the tops of ammonia ice clouds, where solar heating is weak but closer to where weather originates. This is where water condenses and makes clouds and rain.
In the new study, which is a follow-up to results published in 2007, the authors used automated cloud tracking software to analyze the movements and speeds of clouds seen in hundreds of Cassini images from 2005 through 2012.
"With our improved tracking algorithm, we've been able to extract nearly 120,000 wind vectors from 560 images, giving us an unprecedented picture of Saturn's wind flow at two independent altitudes on a global scale," said co-author and imaging team associate John Barbara, also at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The team's findings provide an observational test for existing models that scientists use to study the mechanisms that power the jet streams.
By seeing for the first time how these eddies accelerate the jet streams at two different altitudes, scientists found the eddies were weak at the higher altitudes where previous researchers had found that most of the sun's heating occurs. The eddies were stronger deeper in the atmosphere. Thus, the authors could discount heating from the sun and infer instead that the internal heat of the planet is ultimately driving the acceleration of the jet streams, not the sun. The mechanism that best matched the observations would involve internal heat from the planet stirring up water vapor from Saturn's interior. That water vapor condenses in some places as air rises and releases heat as it makes clouds and rain. This heat provides the energy to create the eddies that drive the jet streams.
The condensation of water was not actually observed; most of that process occurs at lower altitudes not visible to Cassini. But the condensation in mid-latitude storms does happen on both Saturn and Earth. Storms on Earth the low- and high-pressure centers on weather maps are driven mainly by the sun's heating and do not mainly occur because of the condensation of water, Del Genio said. On Saturn, the condensation heating is the main driver of the storms, and the sun's heating is not important.
###
Images of one of the strongest jet streams and a figure from the paper can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
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Contact: Bill Steigerwald William.a.steigerwald@nasa.gov 301-286-5017 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Turbulent jet streams, regions where winds blow faster than in other places, churn east and west across Saturn. Scientists have been trying to understand for years the mechanism that drives these wavy structures in Saturn's atmosphere and the source from which the jets derive their energy.
In a new study appearing in the June edition of the journal Icarus, scientists used images collected over several years by NASA's Cassini spacecraft to discover that the heat from within the planet powers the jet streams. Condensation of water from Saturn's internal heating led to temperature differences in the atmosphere. The temperature differences created eddies, or disturbances that move air back and forth at the same latitude, and those eddies, in turn, accelerated the jet streams like rotating gears driving a conveyor belt.
A competing theory had assumed that the energy for the temperature differences came from the sun. That is how it works in the Earth's atmosphere.
"We know the atmospheres of planets such as Saturn and Jupiter can get their energy from only two places: the sun or the internal heating. The challenge has been coming up with ways to use the data so that we can tell the difference," said Tony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, N.Y., the lead author of the paper and a member of the Cassini imaging team.
The new study was possible in part because Cassini has been in orbit around Saturn long enough to obtain the large number of observations required to see subtle patterns emerge from the day-to-day variations in weather. "Understanding what drives the meteorology on Saturn, and in general on gaseous planets, has been one of our cardinal goals since the inception of the Cassini mission," said Carolyn Porco, imaging team lead, based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "It is very gratifying to see that we're finally coming to understand those atmospheric processes that make Earth similar to, and also different from, other planets."
Rather than having a thin atmosphere and solid-and-liquid surface like Earth, Saturn is a gas giant whose deep atmosphere is layered with multiple cloud decks at high altitudes. A series of jet streams slice across the face of Saturn visible to the human eye and also at altitudes detectable to the near-infrared filters of Cassini's cameras. While most blow eastward, some blow westward. Jet streams occur on Saturn in places where the temperature varies significantly from one latitude to another.
Thanks to the filters on Cassini's cameras, which can see near-infrared light reflected to space, scientists now have observed the Saturn jet stream process for the first time at two different, low altitudes. One filtered view shows the upper part of the troposphere, a high layer of the atmosphere where Cassini sees thick, high-altitude hazes and where heating by the sun is strong. Views through another filter capture images deeper down, at the tops of ammonia ice clouds, where solar heating is weak but closer to where weather originates. This is where water condenses and makes clouds and rain.
In the new study, which is a follow-up to results published in 2007, the authors used automated cloud tracking software to analyze the movements and speeds of clouds seen in hundreds of Cassini images from 2005 through 2012.
"With our improved tracking algorithm, we've been able to extract nearly 120,000 wind vectors from 560 images, giving us an unprecedented picture of Saturn's wind flow at two independent altitudes on a global scale," said co-author and imaging team associate John Barbara, also at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The team's findings provide an observational test for existing models that scientists use to study the mechanisms that power the jet streams.
By seeing for the first time how these eddies accelerate the jet streams at two different altitudes, scientists found the eddies were weak at the higher altitudes where previous researchers had found that most of the sun's heating occurs. The eddies were stronger deeper in the atmosphere. Thus, the authors could discount heating from the sun and infer instead that the internal heat of the planet is ultimately driving the acceleration of the jet streams, not the sun. The mechanism that best matched the observations would involve internal heat from the planet stirring up water vapor from Saturn's interior. That water vapor condenses in some places as air rises and releases heat as it makes clouds and rain. This heat provides the energy to create the eddies that drive the jet streams.
The condensation of water was not actually observed; most of that process occurs at lower altitudes not visible to Cassini. But the condensation in mid-latitude storms does happen on both Saturn and Earth. Storms on Earth the low- and high-pressure centers on weather maps are driven mainly by the sun's heating and do not mainly occur because of the condensation of water, Del Genio said. On Saturn, the condensation heating is the main driver of the storms, and the sun's heating is not important.
###
Images of one of the strongest jet streams and a figure from the paper can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/cassini, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://ciclops.org.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ScienceDaily (June 25, 2012) ? Adults who are exposed to secondhand smoke have higher rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes than do nonsmokers without environmental exposure to tobacco smoke, a new study shows. The results were presented June 24 at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston.
"More effort needs to be made to reduce exposure of individuals to secondhand smoke," said study co-author Theodore C. Friedman, MD, PhD, chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at Charles R. Drew University, Los Angeles.
Studies have shown an association between cigarette smoking and an increased rate of Type 2 diabetes despite the fact that most smokers are leaner than nonsmokers and obesity is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. Although some studies have suggested a relationship between Type 2 diabetes and passive, or secondhand, smoking, Friedman said these studies have not verified exposure to secondhand smoke through serum (blood) levels of cotinine. Cotinine is a metabolite of nicotine, and serum cotinine measures a person's exposure to tobacco smoke.
In their current study, Friedman and his fellow researchers used serum cotinine levels to verify passive smoking. They examined data from more than 6,300 adults who participated from 2001 to 2006 in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative sample of the U.S. population.
The investigators defined current smokers, which made up 25 percent of the sample, as survey participants who reported that they smoke cigarettes and who had a measured serum cotinine level greater than 3 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). Nonsmokers (41 percent of the sample) were those who answered "no" to the question "Do you smoke cigarettes?" and who had a cotinine level below 0.05 ng/mL. Participants who answered "no" to this question but whose cotinine level was above 0.05 ng/mL were defined as secondhand "smokers" (34 percent).
In analyzing these groups, the researchers controlled for age, sex, race, alcohol consumption and physical activity. They found that, compared with nonsmokers, secondhand smokers had a higher measure of insulin resistance, a condition that can lead to Type 2 diabetes; higher levels of fasting blood glucose, or blood sugar; and a higher hemoglobin A1c, a measure of blood sugar control over the past three months.
Secondhand smokers also had a higher rate of Type 2 diabetes, as defined by a hemoglobin A1c greater than 6.5 percent. Secondhand smokers had a similar rate of diabetes to that of current smokers, according to Friedman.
Secondhand smokers also had a higher body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat, compared with nonsmokers, Friedman reported. Current smokers had a lower BMI than nonsmokers but a higher hemoglobin A1c. When the researchers controlled for BMI, they found that secondhand smokers and current smokers still had a higher hemoglobin A1c than did nonsmokers.
"This finding shows that the association between secondhand smoke and Type 2 diabetes was not due to obesity," Friedman said. "More studies are needed to show whether secondhand smoke is a cause of diabetes."
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(ARA) - For those considering buying a home, the current real estate market presents some unique opportunities. One of the side effects of the economic roller coaster ride of the past few years is that home prices have gone down and more homes have gone on the market. For buyers, that means more choices and better deals. However, those same tumultuous years also can also teach buyers a lesson: Make smart buying decisions and be wise with your finances.
Impulsive buying is never a good idea when it comes to a purchase as significant as a home, but it was something of a trend at the height of the mid-2000s. Now, with banks lending far more cautiously, you need to be absolutely certain that your finances are in order - and healthy - to be able to get the best deal on your purchase.
There are a number of steps you can take to get ready to buy a home, and you might need to work on them simultaneously. Consider that you'll need to start saving, if you haven't already, but you'll also need to review your credit score and do what you can to either maintain it or work toward healthier credit. Both of these tasks will help make the home-buying process better for you.
Your credit is an important factor in determining the terms under which you can get a mortgage. Broadly speaking, the better your credit is, the more positively you'll be viewed by lenders - and that can lead to better interest rates. And because you'll be paying off your home for years to come, it's important to get the best rate possible.
Start by checking your credit report. You're entitled to one free check of your report, from TransUnion and other credit reporting agencies every year. As much as you need to check your report to find out what shape your credit is in, it's also essential to review it for inaccuracies or fraudulent activity, both of which can have a negative impact on your score.
If your credit health needs some work, start taking action immediately. Paying bills on time, reducing your overall debt and limiting new credit inquiries can all help to build your credit - but be patient as it can take time for your positive actions to take effect. Nevertheless, the sooner you make the effort, the sooner you'll see results.
Making a prudent decision about buying a house comes down to an honest assessment of what you can afford. Keep in mind that you might be approved for a loan that's larger than what is practical for you to afford. While it may be tempting to buy a pricier house, the stress of struggling to make payments could diminish your enjoyment of your new home and even put you at financial risk. One rule of thumb is that most borrowers can afford a home loan that runs about two and a half times their annual salary.
Buying a home is a complex process, but one that is ultimately very rewarding when done right. By organizing your finances well in advance, you'll help set yourself up for success. For more information about credit and buying a home, visit www.transunion.com.
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