AIDS | Bitter fruit | Economist.com

AIDS | Bitter fruit | Economist.com: "LIME juice is famous in medical history. Sailors—particularly British sailors—drank it to keep scurvy at bay. But the past few years have seen another use mooted. This is that, if applied to the vagina, it might protect a woman from HIV infection, and thus from AIDS. On April 24th a group of researchers met at the Microbicides 2006 conference in Cape Town to discuss the matter.

Though a lime-juice douche sounds a ghastly idea, women have been putting acids into their vaginas for millennia, in the hope of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Indeed, cleaning with lime juice is common practice in parts of Africa. Of 200 prostitutes surveyed in 2004 in the Nigerian city of Jos, 163 said they rinsed with lemon or lime juice before or after sex to prevent pregnancy and infections. The question is, are they sensible to do so?

Acids immobilise sperm and kill pathogens, including HIV. (Laboratory studies have shown that a one-in-five dilution of lemon or lime juice inactivated 90% of HIV in just two minutes.) And, in addition to its high citric-acid content, lime juice has a second attractive feature: it literally grows on trees."

China, Vatican Edge Toward Accord

China, Vatican Edge Toward Accord: "Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong, the senior Roman Catholic cleric in China, said the Vatican's readiness to drop ties with Taiwan represents a major gain for the Chinese government and is the main motive for Beijing's decision to soften hostility toward the church. Other analysts noted that the reconciliation talks also fit into a broad effort by China to establish normal trade and other relations with countries around the world, including heavily Catholic nations in Central America whose diplomatic loyalties now lie with Taiwan."

Sure looks like commercialisation of religion. The Vatican seems to be trading with the Chinese for converts. I have known religions like Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainsim, Zorashtrianism and some other probably who teach you how to live your life and be a staisfied. All of them have a common gist but implement it with different rigors. However none of these seem to have this overwhelming desire to impose their ideas all over the world. Frankly its like dealing with a pesky salesman calling.

Unagi !!

Hahaha .. I cant forget that friend episode where Ross is practicing Unagi (some asian art which makes you very aware of your surroundings).
Its not very difficult to understand that being aware of your surroundings/environment and of what you are doing at any point of time gives you more satisfaction and peace. I am am just re-asserting this to myself. The haelth-screen yesterday was an eye-opener in a way. It made me realze that I am not aware of most of the things that i do in life. Talk about free will huh :)) .
I dont know what i am eating, or doign towards being healthy.
I dont know how I plan to accumulate wealth.
borderline a losers life : )

I think its time for rennaissance.

Lessons in harmony, the Bengal madrasa way

Lessons in harmony, the Bengal madrasa way: "In Jalpaiguri district, about 500 km north of Kolkata, 14-year-old Julita is posting higher marks in Arabic tests than her Muslim classmates at the Badaitari Ujiria Madrasa.

'I like the subject very much and that fact that I am a Christian has never been a problem with my Muslim friends.'

Tapas Layek, the Hindu headmaster of a madrasa in south Kolkata has several co-religionists as colleagues. 'We are loved and respected by our Muslim students who are also friendly with their Hindu classmates,' he said.

Bengali Muslim scholars say that the view that madrasas are simply Islamic finishing schools is a corruption of their traditional role.

'Our madrasas are the perfect examples of what such institutes should really be,' said Dr. Mohammed Sahidullah at Calcutta University.

Renowned Bengali filmmaker Mrinal Sen, a former jury member at the Cannes festival, said the state's experiment should be copied across the country."


Awesome. These are things that make you proud to be an Indian.

Movies this weekend

After a long drought 3 entertaining movies , scary movie 4, cowboy del amor and bluff master.

cowboy del amor , is a documentary about this cowboy nut who helps lonely american guys find mexican wives. interesting to see how one of them had a serious marriage.

The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order - New York Times

The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast-Food Order - New York Times: "Would you like your Coke and orange juice medium or large?' Ms. Vargas said into her headset to an unseen woman who was ordering breakfast from a drive-through line. She did not neglect the small details —'You Must Ask for Condiments,' a sign next to her computer terminal instructs — and wished the woman a wonderful day.

What made the $12.08 transaction remarkable was that the customer was not just outside Ms. Vargas's workplace here on California's central coast. She was at a McDonald's in Honolulu. And within a two-minute span Ms. Vargas had also taken orders from drive-through windows in Gulfport, Miss., and Gillette, Wyo. "

Parkinson's Law

Parkinson's Law: "WORK EXPANDS SO AS TO FILL THE TIME AVAILABLE FOR ITS COMPLETION’
General recognition of this fact is shown in the proverbial phrase 'It is the busiest man who has time to spare.' Thus, an elderly lady of leisure can spend the entire day in writing and dispatching a postcard to her niece at Bognor Regis. An hour will be spent finding the postcard, another in hunting for spectacles, half an hour in a search for the address, an hour and a quarter in composition, and twenty minutes in deciding whether or not to take an umbrella when going to the pillar box in the next street. The total effort that would occupy a busy man for three minutes all told may in this fashion leave another person prostrate after a day of doubt, anxiety, and toil."

When There's No Ford in Your Future

When There's No Ford in Your Future: "I know. My family was a part of the last major Ford layoff drama 25 years ago. In 1980 Ford announced the closure of several plants, including the aluminum engine plant in Sheffield, Ala., where my family was living. We were a Ford family, transferring every few years from plant to plant, from Michigan to California to Pennsylvania and, finally, to Sheffield. For years, life was good, with two cars, a nice house, even a membership at the modest local country club.

The layoff announcement threw our family, and the families of 1,500 other workers, into turmoil. Families went from planning vacations and seeking college educations to planning cutbacks and seeking low-paying but available work. There was some initial optimism. Lifetime union workers felt freed from the constraints of the factory and planned to start businesses of their own.

One of our family friends started a woodworking business. Another opened a factory outlet for mattresses that his brother manufactured in Memphis. The planning and dreaming helped ease the pain of losing a substantial paycheck. But the realities of a dwindling local economy soon shuttered these modest businesses. Wal-Mart arrived. Downtown withered.

Our own family, with me attending Stanford and my sister at Vanderbilt, took out student loans, applied for scholarships and sought positions that helped pay room and board. I bused tables at one residence and became a resident assistant my senior year, which defrayed my room-and-board cost. There was pressure to transfer back home to the University of Alabama, but I persuaded my parents to let me stay at Stanford if I could pay for my education myself."

Talking Points: The Scandal of 'Poor People's Diseases' by Tina Rosenberg - New York Times

Talking Points: The Scandal of 'Poor People's Diseases' by Tina Rosenberg - New York Times: "I. How a Beauty Regime Salvaged a Cure for Sleeping Sickness

The story of sleeping sickness is a scandalous illustration of the politics of neglected diseases — and of how much wealthy people drive the global medical market. After malaria, sleeping sickness is the most deadly parasitic disease. It is endemic in 36 African countries and is always fatal if it is not treated. The cure used in most places is melarsoprol – an arsenic-based drug so toxic that it collapses each vein into which it is injected and kills between two and eight percent of those who take it. There is another cure, eflornithine, so effective that it is called the 'resurrection drug' – it makes people in comas get up and walk.

Eflornithine is an old anticancer drug that turned out to be not very effective against cancer. In the mid-1990's, the company that made the drug stopped making it. The fact that it was extraordinarily effective at treating sleeping sickness didn't matter, because victims of that disease had little money to pay for it. After it stopped production, the company, which is now known as Sanofi-Aventis, licensed the drug to the World Health Organization, which together with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, searched for another manufacturer. But by 2000, the existing stocks of eflornithine were dwindling and no other manufacturer was interested.It looked as though the miracle cure would disappear. Then lightening struck. Eflornithine reappeared in a six-page ad in Cosmopolitan magazine as the active ingredient in the Bristol- Myers Squibb product, Vaniqa, a new cream that impedes the growth of women's facial hair. Doctors Without Borders, which had just won the Nobel Peace Prize and was launching an initiative to find cures for neglected diseases, seized the opportunity to launch a publicity campaign. Christiane Amanpour went to southern Sudan "

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com: "But instead of letting her emotions eat away at her, she is treating herself to an unusual form of anger management.

At the Isdaan restaurant in Gerona, about three hours north of Manila, Vescara and other patrons work out their stress for 15 pesos (30 U.S. cents) a go by hurling plates at the 'wall of fury' emblazoned with words such as ex-wife, boss and lover.

A shout of 'tacsiyapo' -- or 'shame on you' in the local dialect -- usually accompanies the sound of smashing crockery.

Vases and bowls are also available, while the wealthier of the furious patrons can toss an old TV set for 1,300 pesos."