Cognitive decline can begin as early as age 45: study

The brain's capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension skills (cognitive function) can start to deteriorate from age 45, finds research published in the British Medical Journal today.

Previous research suggests that cognitive decline does not begin before the age of 60, but this view is not universally accepted.

Researchers, led by Archana Singh-Manoux from the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in France and University College London in the UK, argue that "understanding cognitive ageing will be one of the challenges of this century," especially as life expectancy continues to rise.

They add that it is important to investigate the age at which cognitive decline begins because medical interventions are more likely to work when individuals first start to experience mental impairment.

Therefore the authors observed 5,198 men and 2,192 women over a 10-year period from 1997. They were all civil servants aged between 45 and 70 and were part of the Whitehall II cohort study established in 1985.

Participants' cognitive functions were assessed three times over the study period. Individuals were tested for memory, vocabulary and aural and visual comprehension skills. The latter include recalling in writing as many words beginning with "S" (phonemic fluency) and as many animal names (semantic fluency) as possible.

Differences in education level were taken into account.

The results show that cognitive scores declined in all categories (memory, reasoning, phonemic and semantic fluency) except vocabulary and there was faster decline in older people.

The findings also reveal that over the 10-year study period there was a 3.6% decline in mental reasoning in men aged 45-49 and a 9.6% decline in those aged 65-70. The corresponding figures for women were 3.6% and 7.4%.

The authors argue that robust evidence showing cognitive decline before the age of 60 has important ramifications because it demonstrates the importance of promoting healthy lifestyles, particularly cardiovascular health, as there is emerging evidence that "what is good for our hearts is also good for our heads."

They add that targeting patients who suffer from one or more risk factors for heart disease (obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels) could not only protect their hearts but also safeguard them from dementia in later life.

In an accompanying editorial, Francine Grodstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, says the study "has profound implications for prevention of dementia and public health."

She adds that more creative research, perhaps using telephone and computer cognitive assessments, needs to be undertaken.

Provided by British Medical Journal

"Cognitive decline can begin as early as age 45: study." January 6th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-cognitive-decline-early-age.html

 

Comment:
I think it is an exaggeration: for starters,  neither my seminal fluency nor dyslexia have declined with age...

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Scientists map the frontiers of vision

There's a 3-D world in our brains. It's a landscape that mimics the outside world, where the objects we see exist as collections of neural circuits and electrical impulses.

Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are using new tools they developed to chart that world, a key step in revolutionizing research into the neurological basis of vision.

For the first time, the scientists have produced neuron-by-neuron maps of the regions of the mouse brain that process different kinds of visual information, laying the groundwork for decoding the circuitry of the brain using cutting-edge, genetic research techniques only possible in mice.

"In the field of cognitive research, this puts the mouse on the map - by putting the map on the mouse," says James Marshel, a Salk research associate. Marshel and Marina Garrett, a graduate student at University of California San Diego, were lead authors on a paper reporting the advance in the December 22 issue of Neuron.

To understand the extraordinarily complex computations of the human brain, including those behind visual cognition, scientists have mostly relied on studies on primates, such as monkeys, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, and the most like us in terms of cognitive ability.

Researchers have identified what portions of the primate brain process different aspects of the sensory information they gather from the outside world. In particular, a great deal is known about what regions of the primate brain process certain visual information, helping them identify objects and follow their movements in three-dimensional space.

"We've learned a lot about how our eyes feed information to our brains, and a huge portion of our brain is devoted to processing this information," says Edward Callaway, a professor in Salk's Systems Neurobiology Laboratory, whose laboratory conducted the research. "Vision is a terrific system for understanding how the brain works and, ultimately, for studying mental diseases and consciousness."

Powerful new scientific tools are emerging that could allow scientists to better understand the human brain by studying the relatively simpler brains of mice. These methods allow scientists to alter genes, the instructions in DNA that control the behavior of cells - including the neurons that form brain circuits. By using genetic methods for mapping brain connections and controlling the activity of cells, scientists hope to generate detailed wiring diagrams of the brain and probe how these circuits function.

"While mice can not replace the work that is being done in monkeys, these research techniques are much further along in mice than in monkeys," Callaway says. "The ability to modify neural activity using genetic tools and to study the resulting changes in brain and nerve activity is revolutionizing neuroscience."

Although such genetic engineering techniques in mice offer huge potential, little was known about what areas of the mouse visual cortex - the high-level brain region that computes the meaning of signals from the eyes - were responsible for processing different elements of the visual information.

To remedy this, Callaway and his colleagues set out to chart a map of the mouse's visual processing system. They injected mice with a calcium-sensitive fluorescent dye that glows when exposed to a certain color of light. The amount of calcium in nerve cells varies depending on the activity level of the neurons, so the scientists could measure the activity of brain cells based on how brightly they glowed.

The scientists then displayed different types of visual stimulus on a television monitor and recorded what parts of the brain glowed. To make the recordings, they used a high-resolution camera capable of discerning the activity of individual nerve cells.

They found that a mouse's visual field, the area of three-dimensional space visible through its eyes, is represented by a corresponding collection of neurons in its brain. The researchers precisely recorded which neurons were associated with which area of the animal's visual field.

The scientists studied seven different areas of the animal's visual cortex containing full neuronal "maps" of the visible outside world, and found that each area has a specialized role in processing visual information. For instance, certain areas were more sensitive to the direction objects move in space, while other areas were focused on distinguishing fine detail.

With these maps of brain function in hand, the Salk researchers and others now have a baseline against which they can compare the brain function of mice in which circuit function is manipulated using genetic methods. Ultimately, Callaway says, understanding in detail how the mouse brain works will illuminate the workings of the human mind.

"This gives us new ways to explore the neural underpinnings of consciousness and to identify what goes wrong in neural circuits in the case of diseases such as schizophrenia and autism," Callaway said.

Provided by Salk Institute

"Scientists map the frontiers of vision." January 6th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-scientists-frontiers-vision.html

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Gestures improve language learning

(Medical Xpress) -- Learning a new language usually requires written and spoken instructions but a new study shows that the use of word-specific gestures may aid in the learning process and help students better retain new words.

Led by Manuela Macedonia and Thomas Knosche from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, the study looked at 20 volunteers. These volunteers were enrolled in a six-day language class to study an artificial language known as “Vimmi.”

The use of an artificial language gave no participant an advantage to already knowing a language and made the study results easier to interpret.

The group of volunteers was broken down into two groups. The first group received traditional written and spoken instruction and participated in language exercises. The other group was taught specific body movements that went along with each individual word of the Vimmi language.

Results of the study showed that the participants in the group that were taught gestures were able to remember a significantly larger amount of words than those taught using traditional methods. In addition, these participants were more able to use the words freely in creating sentences.

While many of the words used gestures similar to their meaning (such as a cutting gesture for the word “cut”), the researchers found that the use of any gesture made a difference as long as it was unique and connected to a specific word. For example, the abstract word “rather” does not have an obvious gesture that would go with it. However, a gesture associated with this word also worked.

The researchers used fMRI scans to then argue that the use of gestures and an enactment of the words helped create a more complex representation of the word, thus making it easily retrievable from memory.

Macedonia suggests that these results could greatly improve the speed in which students are able to learn a foreign language in school.

More information: Body in Mind: How Gestures Empower Foreign Language Learning, Mind, Brain, and Education, Volume 5, Issue 4, pages 196–211, December 2011. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01129.x

Abstract 
It has previously been demonstrated that enactment (i.e., performing representative gestures during encoding) enhances memory for concrete words, in particular action words. Here, we investigate the impact of enactment on abstract word learning in a foreign language. We further ask if learning novel words with gestures facilitates sentence production. In a within-subjects paradigm, participants first learned 32 abstract sentences from an artificial corpus conforming with Italian phonotactics. Sixteen sentences were encoded audiovisually. Another set of 16 sentences was also encoded audiovisually, but, in addition, each single word was accompanied by a symbolic gesture. Participants were trained for 6 days. Memory performance was assessed daily using different tests. The overall results support the prediction that learners have better memory for words encoded with gestures. In a transfer test, participants produced new sentences with the words they had acquired. Items encoded through gestures were used more frequently, demonstrating their enhanced accessibility in memory. The results are interpreted in terms of embodied cognition. Implications for teaching and learning are suggested.

© 2011 Medical Xpress

"Gestures improve language learning." January 5th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-gestures-language.html

 

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Robert Karl Stonjek

School pupils learn about practical philosophy

Children could learn valuable lessons in responsible citizenship, such as making moral judgements and informed choices, through taking part in philosophical dialogue, according to researchers at the University of Strathclyde.

A study of more than 130 primary and secondary pupils found that taking part in practical philosophy sessions improved the children's listening skills, gave them greater respect for other people, encouraged them to consider other perspectives and ideas they may not otherwise have thought about and helped them analyse problems so that they are thought through before making decisions.

The sessions, following an approach known as Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), involved pupils being given a stimulus such as a picture, a piece of writing or a piece of music and being asked to come up with questions prompted by it. A question was chosen and a structured dialogue followed, facilitated by a teacher trained in CoPI.

Dr Claire Cassidy, a Lecturer in Education at Strathclyde, led the research. She said: "Doing practical philosophy in this way provides children with tools to enable them to participate as active citizens.

"Teachers in Scotland are being encouraged, through Curriculum for Excellence, to foster responsible citizenship in pupils, although discussions are continuing on what citizenship actually means. We wanted to assess how effective the Community of Philosophical Inquiry approach can be in supporting children towards achieving the aims of the curriculum. While doing philosophy doesn't necessarily guarantee citizenship, it goes some way towards providing the necessary tools that a citizen requires.

"When pupils taking part in the study were asked what they thought citizenship meant, they emphasised that it related to representing the views of others, being environmentally aware, being law-abiding and sitting on committees, as well as having good manners and being respectful to others and their views.

"They found they were able to debate and discuss reasoned argument without conflict and often continued their discussions after their sessions had finished. They felt CoPI got them thinking deeply- as one pupil put it, thinking like they had never thought before."

The study involved more than 130 primary and secondary pupils around Scotland being presented with a series of scenarios in which people faced moral choices, including what to do with money they have found and choosing which charity to give funds they have raised.

They were asked what course of action the people might take, what they would have done themselves and their reasons for their decisions.

After taking part in a series of CoPI sessions over eight to 10 weeks, the pupils were presented with similar scenarios. Their answers this time tended to be considerably more detailed and offered far more justification for their responses.

More information: The research was presented at the recent EARLI (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction) conference 2011, held at the University of Exeter.

Provided by University of Strathclyde

"School pupils learn about practical philosophy." January 5th, 2012. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-school-pupils-philosophy.html

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

This is the most amazing video-MUST SEE

Great Truths

Subject: Great Truths  1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.-- John Adams  2. If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.-- Mark Twain 3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.-- Mark Twain  4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.-- Winston Churchilp 5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.-- George Bernard Shaw  6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to payoff with your money.-- G. Gordon Liddy  7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)  8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.-- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University  9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian  10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.-- Frederic Bastiat, French economist(1801-1850) 11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.-- Ronald Reagan(1986)  12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.-- Will Rogers  13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!-- P.J. O'Rourke  14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.-- Voltaire(1764)  15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!-- Pericles (430B.C.)  16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.-- Mark Twain(1866) 17. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.--Anonymous 18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.-- Ronald Reagan  19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.-- Winston Churchill 20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.-- Mark Twain  21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903) 22. There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save Congress.-- Mark Twain  23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)  24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.-- Thomas Jefferson  25. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.--Aesop  FIVE BEST SENTENCES 1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity. 2. What one person receives without working for...another person must work for without receiving. 3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.. 5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation! Can you think of a reason for not sharing this? Neither could I......!!!

The Highest Waterfall in the World = Angel Falls..

All The Shots I Take

“If having not seen Sita I shall leave from this place and go to the city ruled by the king of Vanaras, of what avail will my achievements prove to be? My crossing over the ocean, entering Lanka and seeing the Rakshasas will have all been useless.” (Hanuman, Valmiki Ramayana, Sundara Kand, 13.20-21) yadi sītām adṛṣṭvā aham vānara indra purīm itaḥ || gamiṣyāmi tataḥ ko me puruṣa artho bhaviṣyati | mama idam langhanam vyartham sāgarasya bhaviṣyati || praveśaḥ civa lankāyā rākṣasānām ca darśanam | Man’s ideal occupation is devotional service   , or bhakti-yoga, which is so powerful that the benefits of adherence to it automatically trickle down and impact other aspects of life in a positive way. The enjoyment of the fruits of action serves as the initial impetus for activity, including the most strenuous and pressure packed engagements, but the wise know that just as the body is renounced at the time of death, so the results of action have a shelf-life, a date of expiration. When operating under the proper consciousness not only are the results of action renounced, but the activities themselves are done to further a purpose beyond the interests of the body. The imperishable, gigantic spiritual powerhouse of energy is the object of all service, the enjoyer of every sacrifice, and the ultimate beneficiary to the potent potential for love found within the soul. Why not enjoy the fruits of labor? After all, we earned them, so why would we want to give them up? This line of thinking seems logical enough, and the living being does take this tact by default. Yet during the typical maturation of the human being from infancy to adulthood, we notice that the need to renounce fruits of action starts to surface regularly, enough to the point that engagements themselves are renounced before the nature of the rewards are studied. What do we mean exactly? Let’s look at something as common as playing video games. The child is dependent on elders for its sustenance; it has no pressing need to work or to worry about its well-being. In addition to not having to care about adult responsibilities, there is the advantage the child has in the energy department. Take an old man and force him to wake up early and sit in school for long periods of time, only to come home and then work on homework for several hours, and you’ll get major resistance. Yet a child doesn’t know any better. They can go to school for hours at a time, come home and play in a tiny area, sleep on the floor if they have to, and find the lifestyle to be loads of fun. Because of the child’s ability to follow difficult paths without much resistance, parents ensure that their children are given an education, even if the child doesn’t want it. After all, what opposition can a child put up anyway? “No, Dad, I’m not going to school. I’m going to sit home and do nothing.” This isn’t much of an argument, and the child is well aware of it. A good way to pass time for the child forced to get an education is to play video games. The simple, yet addictive games can run the gamut of genres and tasks. Some games are sports simulations, while others involve role playing, wherein powerful evil forces are taken on in battle. In any case, there comes an ideal end point, an achievement of victory. Either the championship is won in a particular sport or the most powerful boss is defeated. What does the child gain by putting forth all this effort? For starters, their time was spent without boredom. A few hours can seem like a few minutes when deeply immersed in a video game. Maybe some problem-solving skills were acquired as well, as for serious players success doesn’t come right away in these games. If it did there would be little enjoyment derived. Though in an episode of the famous sitcomSeinfeld one of the adult characters enrolled in a children’s Karate class to feel superior to the competition, this isn’t the norm. There has to be some kind of a challenge to feel any elation or sense of accomplishment from the resulting victory. With maturity, the child starts to realize that victory in these video games doesn’t amount to much. There is mental effort expended, but what is really gained? When these issues surface, the objectives shift to other areas of life. Maybe the new goal becomes graduating from college or earning a Masters degree. After that, the goal can be to succeed in a particular occupation or build something difficult to construct. One by one, the inquisitive human being searching for lasting happiness in a steady engagement jumps from task to task to taste the fruits that result. “The mode of passion is born of unlimited desires and longings, O son of Kunti, and because of this one is bound to material fruitive activities.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita   , 14.7) The Vedas, the ancient scriptures of India, accurately note that no fruit related to the body can ever provide lasting happiness. What to speak of the video game victory, not even the monumental achievement of the largest business mogul in the world really amounts to much. How can we say this? Isn’t building a skyscraper a big deal? What about the invention of airplanes and the railroad? Surely these made a huge impact, no? All the shots endured through struggles and defeat are worth it when the success is meaningful. But beyond the temporary fruits found in material existence is the spirit soul, an eternal spark of energy. As soon as there is birth there must be death. This means that as soon as a fruit manifests, it must be destroyed at some point in the future. The fruit itself doesn’t have to crumble right away; our relationship to it, i.e. our ability to enjoy it, is automatically checked by the definition of our existence. For instance, if I work hard and construct a large home to reside in, at most I can live in it for one hundred years. At the time of death, the housing structure may still be there, but I will be forced to leave its company. This holds true of every one of our relationships, including the strong bonds we have to friends and family. Why are we bringing this up? Isn’t this something we know already? Can’t we just forget about death and live happily enjoying life? The Vedas don’t remind us of the obvious truths about material existence without good reason. Because the spirit soul is eternal, it can have an engagement which brings everlasting fruits. Have we introduced a contradiction here? After all, for something to be created, it must be destroyed also, no? If we produce a fruit through some effort, it must mean that the enjoyment derived cannot last forever. “Work done as a sacrifice for Vishnu has to be performed, otherwise work binds one to this material world. Therefore, O son of Kunti, perform your prescribed duties for His satisfaction, and in that way you will always remain unattached and free from bondage.” (Lord Krishna   , Bg. 3.9) The cycle of creation and destruction holds true with what we’ve witnessed thus far in our current life, but beyond our memories accumulated in this lifetime is our original home of the imperishable spiritual sky, whose leader is the person most of us refer to as God. Work done for the Supreme Lord - who is known as Vishnu because of His all-pervasiveness and His brilliant and opulent four-armed form that resides in the spiritual realm of Vaikuntha - should always be performed because the results don’t bind the living entity to the cycle of birth and death. Even if you don’t want to believe in reincarnation   , you can plainly see that the results of action bind one further to fruitive activity. As a common example, buying a house and getting married brings the reward of a stable family life. The objects of enjoyment can be considered the fruits, or results, of work. In Sanskrit these are referred to as karma-phala, the fruits of work performed under the jurisdiction of karma, which is the cause-and-effect chain governing action in the material world. With the rewards of the home and family comes the pressure to maintain. Before the fruits were there, the pressure was absent. This means that the work that was used to produce the results served as the cause for the bondage, or the new responsibilities, the beasts of burden. “This thorn in my side is from the tree I planted”, is a nice way to think of it. You sow the seeds to be able to get trees to provide what you need. But every tree also brings thorns that tear into your skin and cause you to bleed. The two-sidedness of enjoying the fruits of your labor is likened to the camel that eats the thorns that cut its tongue, thus enjoying the false taste of its own blood along with the food items. Work for Vishnu is not binding. If anything, it keeps one tightly wrapped around devotional service, or divine love. This bondage is not material, as there is no burden placed upon the body. Indeed, the body can be completely replaced and the divine love still followed. Another nice side effect of action in devotion is that the worker is conscious of the purpose to his actions. We take many shots in our journey towards success in a fruitive venture, but if the enjoyment from the fruit is temporary and also carries future bondage, what use was there to all the work? The devotee keeps this in mind when working for the SupremeLord Vishnu   . The awareness ensures that their actions are done to fulfill the highest purpose of satisfying God. Shri Hanuman   , the faithful Vanara warrior and devotee of Lord Rama   , gave us a wonderful example of this attitude in action. Vishnu is God, and depending on His will He makes appearances on earth every now and then. In the Treta Yuga, the second time period of creation, He roamed the earth as a warrior prince named Rama. As vishnu-bhakti can be applied to any of Vishnu’s non-different forms, accepting Rama as God is as good as exclusively worshiping Vishnu or Krishna. To worship, there must be a worthwhile engagement. Since Rama was there personally in front of Hanuman, just attending a temple or contemplating on the Lord within the mind wouldn’t have been the best use of the opportunity. Hanuman is a divine figure endowed with tremendous strength, both physical and mental. To correspond with his natural abilities, Rama found a difficult task to give Hanuman. Sita Devi   , Rama’s wife, had been taken from Him through a backhanded plot hatched by Ravana, the king of Lanka at the time. Rama outwardly did not know where Sita had gone or who had taken her, so He took the help of Sugriva, the king of monkeys residing in Kishkindha. Hanuman was Sugriva’s chief minister, and he was entrusted with Rama’s ring to give to Sita should he meet her. What a wonderful mission to be given. At the same time, there was a lot of pressure on Hanuman. There were many powerful monkeys in his pack, but it was expected that Hanuman would be the only one who could find Sita. Sure enough, he would have to separate from his group when it was learned that Sita was on an island far away from the mainland. Only Hanuman was capable of leaping far enough to reach the island. Not only did he brave the obstacles thrown his way during his aerial journey, but Hanuman also knocked away the impediments found within Lanka. He managed to infiltrate the city without being noticed and look through every inch of space, including Ravana’s numerous palaces. Yet he still could not find Sita. At this point he started to run through the different options, what might have happened to the princess. He was thinking that maybe she wasn’t alive anymore, for how could he have not found her if she were still living? It’s one thing to think negatively, but it’s another to act off of that depression. In the above referenced passage from the Ramayana   , Hanuman has reached the point where he must decide what to do next. If Sita really weren’t alive, he’d have to return to Kishkindha and tell everyone what had happened. But then he started thinking to himself, “What purpose would my leap across the ocean and my infiltration into Lanka have served?” Just see how keenly aware Hanuman is of the mission in life and the need for detachment from the results of action. Pride emerges from the young child after beating a video game and from the wealthy tycoon after making billions of dollars, but Hanuman surpasses everyone in ability. His leap across the ocean was so unique that the denizens from heaven looked on in amazement. His ability to change his shape at will, to go from being as large as a mountain in stature to the size of a cat within seconds is so marvelous that others can’t believe these events really happened. Yet Hanuman knew that these feats wouldn’t be meaningful unless the mission at hand was completed. His only business in life is to please Shri Rama, so the fruits of his devotional efforts always appear. No attachment does he harbor for his dexterity or strength, for he knows that the Supreme Lord is the ability in man and the cause of the creation. Rather than take credit for himself, Hanuman always thinks about how his actions will affect others. At a crossroads, Hanuman would eventually choose to fight ahead, to continue his search for Sita. With such a kind attitude, can Hanuman ever fail? Not a chance. Throw whatever you have at him, and he will absorb your blows and not be deterred in his dedication to Sita and Rama. May we have the same level of dedication in honoring and adoring him. In Closing: Hanuman’s leap across the ocean most amazing, But not interested was he at personal feats gazing. Unnoticed into enemy land of Lanka did he crawl, To stay incognito in search for Sita an order tall. But divine vision of Rama’s wife is what he sought, So returning home unsuccessful make efforts for naught. For personal achievements Hanuman never does care, Only thinks, “In doing Rama’s business how did I fare?” Such a sincere worker never in devotion does fail, Would find Sita and then burn Lanka with his tail.