Shirdi sai baba paintings

நமஸ்தே சாயிநாதாய
மோக தந்த்ர விநாசினே
குரவே புத்திபோதாய
போத மாத்ரஸ்வரூபிணே.

Cuba has just eliminated HIV transmission between mother and baby

The World Health Organisation has confirmed that Cuba has become the first country in the world to effectively eliminate mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis.

"[This is] one of the greatest public health achievements possible," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told the press. The best part is that it was brought about by relatively simple strategies, namely, better testing and treatment of expectant parents and providing HIV- and syphilis-positive mothers with options to protect their babies, such as bottle-feeding and C-sections.

What Cuba has done differently is integrate these treatments into accessible and affordable universal healthcare so that they've become a normal part of treatment for all pregnant women.

"This is a major victory in our long fight against HIV and sexually transmitted infections and an important step towards having an AIDS-free generation," said Chan. "It shows that ending the AIDS epidemic is possible."

Around the world, each year, an estimated 1.4 million HIV-positive women become pregnant. Without any intervention, they have a 15 to 45 per cent chance of passing the virus onto their children while they're in the womb, as well as during labour, delivery and breastfeeding. But that risk drops to just 1 percent if both mother and child receive antiretrovirals.

The rate of syphilis isn't far behind, with around 1 million expecting mothers worldwide each year infected. Similarly, the risk of transmission is greatly reduced by treating the mother with penicillin during pregnancy.

In fact, the hard part about stopping mothers from passing the diseases on has simply been giving women access to these treatments, which Cuba has now done.

WHO counts a country as having eliminated mother-to-baby transmissions when the rate of children born with HIV or syphilis is so low that it "no longer constitutes a public health problem".

Basically, that means a country needs to have less than 50 cases of HIV and syphilis per 100,000 live births, maintained for at least a year, as well as at least 95 per cent of pregnant women being tested for the diseases and 95 per cent of those who test positive receiving proper treatment.

WHO reports that Cuba has now met those targets, with only two babies being born with HIV in 2013 and five with congenital syphilis. 

But it's not the only country making big improvements in this area, and Chan now expects others to follow Cuba's lead and seek validation that they've ended mother-to-baby transmission. Worldwide, childhood infection rates are quickly dropping, with just 240,000 children born with HIV in 2014 - nearly half the 2009 amount.  

Still, we have a long way to go before WHO reaches its global target of just 40,000 new child infections per year, and Cuba has shown that better healthcare can help get us there.

"Cuba’s success demonstrates that universal access and universal health coverage are feasible and indeed are the key to success, even against challenges as daunting as HIV," said Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organisation. "Cuba’s achievement today provides inspiration for other countries to advance towards elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis."

Thirty percent of world's people still have no proper toilets

An Indian girl holds a can filled with water and walks past railway tracks to defecate in the open in Mumbai, India,

"Those who make do without toilets continue to pollute water sources and jeopardize public health and safety for millions worldwide. That contributes to malnutrition and childhood stunting, impairing 161 million children both physically and mentally every year.

"Until everyone has access to adequate sanitation facilities, the quality of water supplies will be undermined and too many people will continue to die from waterborne and water-related diseases," WHO's public health department director, Dr. Maria Neira, said in a statement."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-07-one-third-world-people-proper-toilets.html#jCp

அனைவரும் நிச்சயம் பார்க்க வேண்டிய பெண்களுக்குஉரிய ஒரு குறும்படம்,Tamil Short Film

அழகிய அர்த்தமுள்ள ஓர் படைப்பு,, பெண்களுக்குஉரிய பெரும் படைப்பு, முடியும் வரை பாருங்க முட்டி விடும் கண்ணீர் துளிகள்,,, கதை,திரைகதை,வசனம்,இசை,எடிடிங்,நடிப்பு,நகைச்சுவை, என இயக்குனர் பின்னிப் பிணைந்து கலக்கியுள்ளார் ,,,,, வளரும் கலைஞர் படைப்பு அருமை எங்கிருந்தாலும் என் வாழ்த்துக்கள் அவருக்கு,,,,, இத்தகைய கதைகள் சமூக பிரள்வுகளை தடுத்து நிறுத்த முக்கிய பங்கு வகிக்கின்றது,,,,,,,! 35 நிமிட குறும்படம் சரியாக 3 நிமிடம் 35 விநாடி கடந்ததும் பகிரும் உணர்வை தூண்ட செய்தது சிறப்பு,,,,,, அதற்க்கு தலை வணங்கியே ஆக வேண்டும்,,, பெண்ணிற்கே உரித்தான சடங்குகளையும் சம்பிரதாயங்களையும் ஒடுக்கு முறைகளையும் சிறப்பாக வெறும் 35 நிமிடத்தில் வெளிக்கொண்டு வந்தது மிகப்பெரிய திறமையே,,,,! அனைவரும் நிச்சயம் பார்க்க வேண்டிய ஒரு குறும்படம்,

Why writing by hand helps you learn

Typing is fast.

Handwriting is slow.

Weirdly, that’s precisely why handwriting is better suited to learning.

Take it from research psychologists Pam A. Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of the University of California, Los Angeles, who did a fascinating study investigating just how terrible laptops are for note-taking in classrooms.

Earlier studies have argued that laptops make for poor note-taking because of the litany of distractions available on the internet, but their experiments yielded a counterintuitive conclusion: Handwriting is better because it slows the learner down.

By slowing down the process of taking notes, you accelerate learning.

It works like this. If a skilled typist (also known as an American millennial) is sitting in a classroom, he or she will be able write down almost every word that the lecturer utters. The thing is, that transcription process doesn’t require any critical thinking. So while you’re putting the words down on the page, your brain doesn’t have to engage with the material.

As learning science has discovered, if you’re not signaling that the material is important to your brain, it will discard the lecture from memory for the sake of efficiency.

But if you are taking notes by hand, you won’t be able to write down every word the speaker says. Instead, you’ll have to look for representative quotes, summarize concepts, and ask questions about what you don’t understand.

This requires more effort than just typing every word out — and the effort is what helps cement the material in your memory. The more effort you put into understanding something, the stronger signal you’re giving your brain that it’s worth remembering.

Mueller and Oppenheimer conclude that for students, “transcrib[ing] lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.”

The benefits of handwriting — though it’s a disappearing skill — have been documented by lots of educational psychologists, who have found that handwriting engages parts of the brain that typing neglects, especially areas associated with memory formation. For these reasons, the arguments go, kids come up with more ideas when they’re writing in cursive versus typing.

So, as French psychologist Stanislas Dehaene told The New York Times, you may want to step away from the keyboard.

“When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” he said. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain, it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize.”

The result?

“Learning is made easier,” he concluded.

This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

Author: Drake Baer reports on strategy, leadership, and organizational psychology at Business Insider.

Top 5 unusual school in the world

What are the Signs You May Have a Vitamin D Deficiency

By Dr. Mercola

Vitamin D deficiency is widespread in the US, but many Americans mistakenly believe they aren’t at risk because they consume vitamin-D-fortified foods (such as milk).

Very few foods naturally contain therapeutic levels of vitamin D, and even fortified foods do not contain enough to support health needs.

Despite its name, vitamin D is not a regular vitamin. It's a steroid hormone you are designed to obtain primarily through sun exposure, not your diet.

Just How Widespread Is Vitamin D Deficiency?

Before 2000, very few doctors ever considered the possibility that you might be vitamin D deficient.

But as the technology to measure vitamin D became inexpensive and widely available, more and more studies were done, and it became increasingly clear that vitamin D deficiency was rampant. For example, according to one of the leading vitamin D researchers, Dr. Michael Holick:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 32 percent of children and adults throughout the US were vitamin D deficient -- and this is grossly underestimated as they used vitamin D levels that were not consistent with optimal health.
• The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 50 percent of children aged one to five years and 70 per cent of children between the ages of six and 11, are deficient or insufficient in vitamin D
• Researchers such as Dr. Holick estimate that 50 percent of the general population is at risk of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency

Researchers have also noted that vitamin D deficiency is prevalent in adults of all ages who always wear sun protection (which blocks vitamin D production) or limit their outdoor activities.1 People with increased skin pigmentation (such as those whose ancestors are from Africa, the Middle East, or India) are also at risk, as are the elderly.

It’s estimated that over 95 percent of US senior citizens may be deficient in vitamin D, not only because they tend to spend a lot of time indoors but also because they produce less in response to sun exposure (a person over the age of 70 produces about 30 per cent less vitamin D than a younger person with the same sun exposure).2

7 Signs You May Be Vitamin D Deficient

Blood testing is the only way to know  if you’re vitamin D deficient

. However, there are also some signs and symptoms to be aware of. If any of the following apply to you, you should get your vitamin D levels tested sooner rather than later.

1. You Have Darker Skin

African Americans are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency because if you have dark skin, you may need as much as 10 times more sun exposure to produce the same amount of vitamin D as a person with pale skin!

As Dr. Holick explained, your skin pigment acts as a natural sunscreen, so the more pigment you have, the more time you’ll need to spend in the sun to make adequate amounts of vitamin D.

2. You Feel “Blue”

Serotonin, the brain hormone associated with mood elevation, rises with exposure to bright light and falls with decreased sun exposure. In 2006, scientists evaluated the effects of vitamin D on the mental health of 80 elderly patients and found those with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who received healthy doses.3

3. You’re 50 or Older

As mentioned, as you get older, your skin doesn’t make as much vitamin D in response to sun exposure. At the same time, your kidneys become less efficient at converting vitamin D into the form used by your body , and older adults tend to spend more time indoors (i.e. getting even less sun exposure and, therefore, vitamin D).

4. You’re Overweight or Obese (or Have a Higher Muscle Mass)

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble, hormone-like vitamin, which means body fat acts as a "sink" by collecting it. If you're overweight or obese, you're therefore likely going to need more vitamin D than a slimmer person -- and the same holds true for people with higher body weights due to muscle mass.

5. Your Bones Ache

According to Dr. Holick, many who see their doctor for aches and pains, especially in combination with fatigue, end up being misdiagnosed as having fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome.

“Many of these symptoms are classic signs of vitamin D deficiency osteomalacia, which is different from the vitamin D deficiency that causes osteoporosis in adults,” he says. “What’s happening is that the vitamin D deficiency causes a defect in putting calcium into the collagen matrix into your skeleton. As a result, you have throbbing, aching bone pain.”

6. Head Sweating

According to Dr. Holick, one of the first, classic signs of vitamin D deficiency is a sweaty head. In fact, physicians used to ask new mothers about head sweating in their newborns for this very reason. Excessive sweating in newborns due to neuromuscular irritability is still described as a common, early symptom of vitamin D deficiency.4

7. You Have Gut Trouble

Remember, vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, which means if you have a gastrointestinal condition that affects your ability to absorb fat, you may have lower absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin D as well. This includes gut conditions like Crohn’s, celiac and non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Researchers have pointed out that increasing levels of vitamin D3 among the general population could prevent chronic diseases that claim nearly one million lives throughout the world each year. Incidence of several types of cancer could also be slashed in half. As mentioned by Dr. Holick, one of the Nurses’ Health Studies showed that nurses who had the highest blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, averaging about 50 ng/ml, reduced their risk of developing breast cancer by as much as 50 percent. Similarly, a Canadian study done by Dr. Knight showed that women who reported having the most sun exposure as a teenager and young adult had almost a 70 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer. Dr. Holick noted:

“Studies have shown that if you improve your vitamin D status, it reduces risk of colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and a whole host of other deadly cancers by 30 to 50 percent. You’re correct. Cancer is a big deal. You need to realize that vitamin D is playing a very important role in helping to maintain cell growth and to help fight cancer when a cancer cell is developing in your body.”

Vitamin D also fights infections, including colds and the flu, as it regulates the expression of genes that influence your immune system to attack and destroy bacteria and viruses. In this interview above, Dr. Holick expounds on these and many other health benefits of vitamin D. For instance, optimizing your vitamin D levels can help protect against:

• Cardiovascular disease. Vitamin D is very important for reducing hypertension, atherosclerotic heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. According to Dr. Holick, one study showed that vitamin D deficiency increased the risk of heart attack by 50 percent. What’s worse, if you have a heart attack and you’re vitamin D deficient, your risk of dying from that heart attack creeps up to nearly 100 percent!
• Autoimmune diseases. Vitamin D is a potent immune modulator, making it very important for the prevention of autoimmune diseases, like multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease.
• Infections, including influenza. It also helps you fight infections of all kinds. A study done in Japan, for example, showed that schoolchildren taking 1,200 units of vitamin D per day during winter reduced their risk of getting influenza A infection by about 40 percent. I believe it’s far more prudent, safer, less expensive, and most importantly, far more effective to optimize your vitamin D levels than to get vaccinated against the flu.
• DNA repair and metabolic processes. One of Dr. Holick’s studies showed that healthy volunteers taking 2,000 IUs of vitamin D per day for a few months up-regulated 291 different genes that control up to 80 different metabolic processes, from improving DNA repair to having effect on autoxidation (oxidation that occurs in the presence of oxygen and/or UV radiation, which has implications for aging and cancer, for example), boosting your immune system and many other biological processes.

How Much Vitamin D Do You Need for Optimal Health?

When it comes to vitamin D, you don't want to be in the "average" or "normal" range, you want to be in the "optimal" range. The reason for this is that as the years have gone by, researchers have progressively moved that range upward. At present, based on the evaluation of healthy populations that get plenty of natural sun exposure, the optimal range for general health appears to be somewhere between 50 and 70 ng/ml. As for how to optimize your vitamin D levels, I firmly believe that appropriate sun exposure is the best way. In fact, I personally have not taken a vitamin D supplement for three or four years, yet my levels are in the 70 ng/ml range.

Generally speaking, this will be when your skin turns the lightest shade of pink or, as Dr. Holick recommends, about half of the time you suspect it would take you to get a mild sunburn (So if you know you tend to get sunburned after 30 minutes, you’d want to stay in the sun for about 15 minutes). How long you need to stay in the sun varies greatly depending on the factors below:

Antioxidant levels and diet in general	Age
Skin color and/or current tan level	Use of sunscreen
Latitude and altitude (elevation)	Cloud cover and pollution
Ozone layer	Surface reflection
Season	Time of day
Weight

If you can't get enough sunshine for whatever reason, then a safe tanning bed would be your next best option. Most tanning equipment uses magnetic ballasts to generate light. These magnetic ballasts are well-known sources of EMFs that can contribute to cancer. If you hear a loud buzzing noise while in a tanning bed, it has a magnetic ballast system. I strongly recommend you avoid these types of beds and restrict your use of tanning beds to those that use electronic ballasts.

If your circumstances don't allow you to access the sun or a safe tanning bed, then you really only have one option if you want to raise your vitamin D, and that is to take a vitamin D supplement. As a general guideline, research by GrassrootsHealth suggests that adults need about 8,000 IUs per day to achieve a serum level of 40 ng/ml. If you do opt for a vitamin D supplement, please remember that you also need to boost your intake of vitamin K2 through food and/or a supplement. If you’re getting your vitamin D from the sun, this is not as critical, although you’d be wise to make sure you’re getting sufficient amounts of vitamin K2 from your diet either way.

Get Your Vitamin D Levels Tested with the D*Action Project

How do you know if your vitamin D level is in the right range? The most important factor is having your vitamin D serum leveltested every six months, as people vary widely in their response to ultraviolet exposure or oral D3 supplementation. The test is called 25(OH)D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and you can have it done by virtually any physician. You should test at your highest point, which (if you live in the US) is typically in August and again at your lowest point, which is usually February. Knowing your vitamin D levels is one of the most important tests you can take, so please, if you haven't checked your levels before, do it now -- I cannot stress the importance of this enough.

If you’re interested in having your vitamin D levels tested right from home, consider joining the D*Action Project. The D*Action project has been initiated by GrassrootsHealth along with 42 leading vitamin D researchers to demonstrate how health can be achieved right now with what’s known about vitamin D with a combination of vitamin D measurement and health outcome tracking. In order to spread this health movement to more communities, the project needs your involvement. To participate, simply purchase the D*Action Measurement Kit and follow the registration instructions included. (Please note that 100 percent of the proceeds from the kits go to fund the research project. I do not charge a single dime as a distributor of the test kits.)

As a participant, you agree to test your vitamin D levels twice a year during a five-year study, and share your health status to demonstrate the public health impact of this nutrient. There is a $65 fee every six months for your sponsorship of this research project, which includes a test kit to be used at home, and electronic reports on your ongoing progress. You will get a follow up email every six months reminding you "it's time for your next test and health survey."

Remember, more than 75 percent of the world's population is vitamin D deficient and most don't know it! GrassrootsHealth D*Action is an integrated set of performance and feedback systems to give you complete control of your individual vitamin D performance systems, which will help you gain a total picture of your health. There’s no doubt in my mind that the D*Action programs can be a major key to help turn the current health paradigm from “treatment” to “prevention.”

The evolutionary ecology of decorating behaviour

Many animals decorate themselves through the accumulation of environmental material on their exterior. Decoration has been studied across a range of different taxa, but there are substantial limits to current understanding. Decoration in non-humans appears to function predominantly in defence against predators and parasites, although an adaptive function is often assumed rather than comprehensively demonstrated. It seems predominantly an aquatic phenomenon—presumably because buoyancy helps reduce energetic costs associated with carrying the decorative material. In terrestrial examples, decorating is relatively common in the larval stages of insects. Insects are small and thus able to generate the power to carry a greater mass of material relative to their own body weight. In adult forms, the need to be lightweight for flight probably rules out decoration. We emphasize that both benefits and costs to decoration are rarely quantified, and that costs should include those associated with collecting as well as carrying the material.

Quotes About Being More Successful at Life and Entrepreneurship

Whether you're an entrepreneur, business owner, or manager you most likely have varying definitions of success. But, one thing we can all agree on is that being successful isn't just about how much money you have in your bank account. It's about having an attitude that makes us want to wake up every morning and do something bigger and better than the previous day. But, sometimes you need a little bit of inspiration. Even if you believe that you're already successful, here are 22 quotes that can motivate you to strive for even more.

1. "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." - Vince Lombardi

2. "I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down." - Abraham Lincoln

3. "Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life-think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success." - Swami Vivekananda

4. "All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them." - Walt Disney

5. "I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint - and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you." - Oprah Winfrey

6. "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." - Thomas A. Edison

7. "I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success ... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything."
Nikola Tesla

8. "Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great." - John D. Rockefeller

9. "Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." - Harriet Tubman

10. "Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die." - Henry Ford

11. "Chase the vision, not the money." - Tony Hsieh

12. "You can say anything to anyone. How you say it to them will determine how they react to you and the future of your relationship together." - John Rampton

13. "If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn

14. "Quality is more important than quantity. One home run is much better than two doubles." - Steve Jobs

15. "People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy." - Tony Robbins

16. "If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve." - Jeff Bezos

17. "Don't count the days, make the days count." --Muhammad Ali

18. "Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming." - Richard Branson

19. "Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso

20. "It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed." - Theodore Roosevelt

21. "Don't limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve." - Mary Kay Ash

22. "If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it." - Elon Musk

23. "So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act. And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and percent guaranteed) Kid, you'll move mountains." - Dr. Seus, 'Oh, The Places You'll Go