Category: Science

End of the Big Gulp

Learned by Gale:

Today I learned that I should not be gulping down huge glasses of water just to get my daily water intake because the bloodstream can only handle being diluted by about 4 ounces at any one time. Any additional goes to the kidneys to be filter out out to maintain the osmotic balance of the blood. This means more work for the kidneys to filter water that hasn’t even had the chance to filter through the lymph system and clean the body’s tissues.

This process takes about a 1/2 hour so actually we should drink 16 4-ounce glasses of water per day. That sounds so much nicer to just keep a glass of water nearby and sip and enjoy. Ok, I can do that.

source – “Natural Eye Care, an encyclopedia by Marc Grossman

 

 

Empty Means Empty

Sally shared this:

This week, I learned that when they tell you to empty your pockets at airport security, they mean it- I had to have two full body x-rays because I had a tissue and a hair elastic in my pocket.  And I feel lucky, compared to a woman who had the same experience in this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/business/19security.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

[From Jane: Wait she really means the same 2 items in her pocket!]

 

Carry On for Carrion!

This was an awful lesson.

I have learned that if a huge bird crashes into your picture window of your beach house, dying on your front porch chair, and you want to move it for Other Creatures to dispose of it for you and return it to nature from whence it came, then you must move it FAR!

Like get a shovel and bring it to the beach!

Because otherwise those Other Creatures will do their work, surely enough, within hours, but they will leave ALL the feathers right there in front of the porch !!

Ickkkkkkkkkk.

Brain of a Boy

From Gina R:

I learned a long time ago that if I let my son (who is now 17 and a high school senior) do homework his way (meaning he does homework while he’s plugged into his iPod, watches tv and IMs his friends), he will get A’s (including scoring 100 on both his Latin and Biology finals one year). This week I went to an amazing talk called “Connecting Boys with Books” by author Michael Sullivan, who confirmed that the average boy is wired differently than a girl … not only does his brain fail to reach adult size until he is about 14 1/2 (compared to 11 1/2 for a girl), a boy’s brain often fires hot on one side while the other side is quiet. In order to stimulate the other side of their brain, the average boy needs stimulation to learn, which they instinctively know. Studies show that boys learn best in a room with bright colors, some noise, and while fidgeting. This is hard for most adults to understand, since many of us need quiet to focus, but if you have a “busy” boy who can’t settle down long enough to finish their homework or read, try handing them one of this squishy stress balls and/or putting on some music in the background.

Fish or Frogs. But Not Both.

From Lava:

I learned that if your kids go to the fair and win two goldfish and you put them in your frog pond, two years later you will end up with hundreds of little goldfish and then you have to decide if you want to let your frog pond turn into a fish pond. It’s one or the other because the fish eat all the frog eggs.