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for energy. Diabetes is a condition that makes it difficult for the body to use glucose. This causes a buildup of glucose in the blood. It also means the body is not getting enough energy. Type 2 diabetes is one type of diabetes. It is the most common type. Medication, |
lifestyle changes, and monitoring can help control blood glucose levels. Type 2 diabetes is often caused by a combination of factors. One factor is that your body begins to make less insulin. A second factor is that your body becomes resistant to insulin. This means there is insulin in your |
body, but your body cannot use it effectively. Insulin resistance is often related to excess body fat. The doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history. You will also be asked about your family history. A physical exam will be done. Diagnosis is based on the results of blood |
testing. American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends diagnosis be made if you have one of the following: Symptoms of diabetes and a random blood test with a blood sugar level greater than or equal to 200 mg/dL (11.1 mmol/L) - Fasting blood sugar test—Done after you have not eaten for eight |
blood sugar control over the past 2-4 months mg/dL = milligrams per deciliter of blood; mmol/L = millimole per liter of blood Treatment aims to: - Maintain blood sugar at levels as close to normal as possible - Prevent or delay complications - Control other conditions that you may have, |
like high blood pressure and high cholesterol Food and drinks have a direct effect on your blood glucose level. Eating healthy meals can help you control your blood glucose. It will also help your overall health. Some basic tips include: If you are overweight, weight loss will help your body |
use insulin better. Talk to your doctor about a healthy weight goal. You and your doctor or dietitian can make a safe meal plan for you. These options may help you lose weight: Physical activity can: - Make the body more sensitive to insulin - Help you reach and maintain |
a healthy weight - Lower the levels of fat in your blood exercise is any activity that increases your heart rate. Resistance training helps build muscle strength. Both types of exercise help to improve long-term glucose control. Regular exercise can also help reduce your risk of heart disease. Talk to |
your doctor about an activity plan. Ask about any precautions you may need to take. Certain medicines will help to manage blood glucose levels. Medication taken by mouth may include: - Metformin—To reduce the amount of glucose made by the body and to make the body more sensitive to insulin |
Medications that encourage the pancreas to make more insulin such as sulfonylureas (glyburide, tolazamide), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors (saxagliptin, Insulin sensitizers such as pioglitazone—To help the body use insulin better Starch blockers such as miglitol—To decrease the amount of glucose absorbed into the bl... |
injections, such as: Incretin-mimetics such as stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin and decrease appetite (can assist with weight loss) Amylin analogs such as replace a protein of the pancreas that is low in people with type 2 diabetes Insulin may be needed if: - The body does not make |
enough of its own insulin. - Blood glucose levels cannot be controlled with lifestyle changes and medicine. Insulin is given through injections. Blood Glucose Testing You can check the level of glucose in your blood with a blood glucose meter. Checking your blood glucose levels during the day can help |
you stay on track. It will also help your doctor determine if your treatment is working. Keeping track of blood sugar levels is especially important if you take insulin. Regular testing may not be needed if your diabetes is under control and you don't take insulin. Talk with your doctor |
before stopping blood sugar monitoring. may also be done at your doctor's office. This is a measure of blood glucose control over a long period of time. Doctors advise that most people keep their HbA1c levels below 7%. Your exact goal may be different. Keeping HbA1c in your goal range |
can help lower the chance of complications. Decreasing Risk of Complications Over a long period of time, high blood glucose levels can damage vital organs. The kidneys, eyes, and nerves are most affected. Diabetes can also increase your risk of heart disease. Maintaining goal blood glucose levels is the first |
step to lowering your risk of these complications. Other steps include: - Take good care of your feet. Be on the lookout for any sores or irritated areas. Keep your feet dry and clean. - Have your eyes checked once a year. - Don't smoke. If you do, look for |
"We believe this is the first time bacterial horizontal gene transfer has been observed in eukaryotes at such scale," says senior author Igor Grigoriev of DOE JGI. "This study gets us closer to explaining the dramatic diversity across the genera of diatoms, morphologically, behaviorally, but we still haven't yet explai... |
other taxa." From plants, the diatom inherited photosynthesis, and from animals the production of urea. Bowler speculates that the diatom uses urea to store nitrogen, not to eliminate it like animals do, because nitrogen is a precious nutrient in the ocean. What's more, the tiny alga draws the best of both worldsit can... |
sugar into fatextremely useful in times of nutrient shortage. The team documented more than 300 genes sourced from bacteria and found in both types of diatoms, pointing to their ancient origin and suggesting novel mechanisms of managing nutrientsfor example utilization of organic carbon and nitrogenand detecting cues f... |
only about one-third of a strand of hair in diameter. "The diatom genomes will help us to understand how they can make these structures at ambient temperatures and pressures, something that humans are not able to do. If we can learn how they do it, we could open up all kinds of new nanotechnologies, like for building m... |
or for biomedical applications," says Bowler. Diatoms reside in fresh or salt water and can be divided into two camps, centrics and pennates. The centric Thalassiosira resemble a round "Camembert" cheese box (only much smaller) and pennates like Phaeodactylum look more like a cross between a boomerang and a narrow thre... |
The amount of nitrogen entering the Gulf each spring has increased about 300 percent since the 1960s, mainly due to increased agricultural runoff, Scavia said. "Yes, the floodwaters really matter, but the fact that there's so much more nitrogen in the system now than there was back in the '60s is the real issue," he sa... |
contained the level of nitrogen from the last comparable flood, in 1973, the predicted dead zone would be 5,800 square miles rather than 8,500. "The growth of these dead zones is an ecological time bomb," Scavia said. "Without determined local, regional and national efforts to control them, we are putting major fisheri... |
set the goal of reducing the size of the dead zone to about 1,900 square miles. In 2009, the dockside value of commercial fisheries in the Gulf was $629 million. Nearly 3 million recreational fishers further contributed more than $1 billion to the Gulf economy, taking 22 million fishing trips. The Gulf hypoxia research... |
Research and includes scientists from the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. NOAA has funded investigations and forecast development for the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico since 1990. "While there is some uncertainty regarding the size, position and tim... |
will be larger than we have typically seen in recent years," said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco. The actual size of the 2011 Gulf hypoxic zone will be announced |Contact: Jim Erickson| University of Michigan |
The Americas IBA Directory The conservation of rare birdlife has been the focus of Birdlife International for many years. In 1995 they began a project by the name of IBA, or Important Bird Area Program, to pinpoint areas across the globe that are home to endangered species, identifying the various species and protectin... |
than ten thousand of these areas have been identified, and conservation and environmental initiatives have been implemented. Now a new program has been established, namely the Americas IBA Directory. Hundreds of bird species will benefit from the Americas IBA Directory, as it will be a guideline for both conservationis... |
most significant areas listed that need to be protected at all costs. Authorities will be able to refer to the directory to find out which of their areas are vital to the survival of birdlife, which bird species are located in that area and the biodiversity of the area, to enable them to take the right steps in protect... |
birds. Some areas that have been listed are significant in the migratory patterns of certain species, while others are crucial nesting sites for numerous endangered birds. Due to a number of these areas being inhabited by local communities, also relying on the natural resources such as water, authorities can assist the... |
birdlife as well. Hundreds of organizations have provided support and assistance in the compiling of the Americas IBA Directory. President of Bird Studies Canada, George Finney, explained: “From breeding grounds in Canada, to wintering sites in the south, and all points in between, it is imperative that we understand w... |
is proud to work closely with our international partners on this issue, so that better management decisions and conservation actions can be taken.” A large number of agencies will be working together as IBA Caretakers, tracking migratory patterns and data in regard to bird populations, to note changes being made by the... |
First ever direct measurement of the Earth’s rotation Geodesists are pinpointing the orientation of the Earth’s axis using the world’s most stable ring laser A group with researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Federal Agency for |
Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) are the first to plot changes in the Earth’s axis through laboratory measurements. To do this, they constructed the world’s most stable ring laser in an underground lab and used it to determine changes in the |
Earth’s rotation. Previously, scientists were only able to track shifts in the polar axis indirectly by monitoring fixed objects in space. Capturing the tilt of the Earth’s axis and its rotational velocity is crucial for precise positional information on Earth |
– and thus for the accurate functioning of modern navigation systems, for instance. The scientists’ work has been recognized an Exceptional Research Spotlight by the American Physical Society. The Earth wobbles. Like a spinning top touched in mid-spin, its rotational |
axis fluctuates in relation to space. This is partly caused by gravitation from the sun and the moon. At the same time, the Earth’s rotational axis constantly changes relative to the Earth’s surface. On the one hand, this is caused |
by variation in atmospheric pressure, ocean loading and wind. These elements combine in an effect known as the Chandler wobble to create polar motion. Named after the scientist who discovered it, this phenomenon has a period of around 435 days. |
On the other hand, an event known as the “annual wobble” causes the rotational axis to move over a period of a year. This is due to the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun. These two effects cause the Earth’s |
axis to migrate irregularly along a circular path with a radius of up to six meters. Capturing these movements is crucial to create a reliable coordinate system that can feed navigation systems or project trajectory paths in space travel. “Locating |
a point to the exact centimeter for global positioning is an extremely dynamic process – after all, at our latitude, we are moving at around 350 meters to the east per second,” explains Prof. Karl Ulrich Schreiber, meanwhile as station |
director of the geodetic observatory Wettzell where the ring laser is settled. Karl Ulrich Schreiber had directed the project in TUM’s Research Section Satellite Geodesy. The geodetic observatory Wettzell is run together by TUM and BKG. The researchers have succeeded |
in corroborating the Chandler and annual wobble measurements based on the data captured by radio telescopes. They now aim to make the apparatus more accurate, enabling them to determine changes in the Earth’s rotational axis over a single day. The |
scientists also plan to make the ring laser capable of continuous operation so that it can run for a period of years without any deviations. “In simple terms,” concludes Schreiber, “in future, we want to be able to just pop |
Special thanks to our guest blogger, Chris Myers, U.S. Space and Rocket Center®, Huntsville, AL for this post Bringing the Cosmos to Space Camp®! At the U.S. Space and Rocket |
Center® and Space Camp, we are constantly looking for fun and innovative ways to teach our museum guests and trainees about space history and the science and math concepts that |
surround it. Naturally, we were excited to participate in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics series of instructional webinars in order to get some fresh ideas and content. The creativity started |
to flow as we reviewed the background material, but the amount and quality of the lesson plans and information presented to us by Mary Dussault and Erin Braswell was impressive. |
By the end of the first hour of the webinar, we had solid ideas and lesson plans that could be implemented in every program from summer Day Camp for 5-year-olds |
to Advanced Space Academy® for high-school seniors. And they meet both state and national curriculum guidelines! In this case, our target subject was astronomy. For our younger trainees, we adapted |
the activities that dealt with colors and filters into a hands-on component for our astronomy briefing “Tenacious Telescopes.” We use PVC pipe, colored felt and theater lighting gel in the |
primary colors to teach the trainees about how real telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope use filters to look for specific information, and how scientists can put these single-color images |
together to make a full-color picture. In addition to making it look more like a real telescope, mounting the color filter inside a PVC pipe telescope has the added bonus |
of keeping our filters fingerprint and wrinkle free. For our Advanced Academy (junior high to high school) trainees, we added an image processing component into our existing astronomy curriculum which |
is made up of four components. At the beginning of the week, the trainees participate in a lecture called “Exploring the Night Sky” where they learn the basics of astronomy |
and focus on finding and naming the constellations and deep space objects. Our second astronomy block is the “Micro Observatory Lab,” where our trainees use the Mobs software to compile |
full-color images of deep space objects. Our third astronomy block is a “Night Telescope” activity, where the trainees use real telescopes to find the same objects in the sky of |
which they compiled images the day before. And for our final astronomy block, our Advanced Academy trainees learn the stories behind selected constellations in our inflatable Star Lab. We have |
been running the “Micro Observatory Lab” astronomy block since December, 2011, and have had more than 1,500 trainees from all over the world participate. We have so many students participating |
that we aren’t able to display all their artwork at once, so we have set up two small rotating exhibits of 12 featured photos each here at the U.S. Space |
and Rocket Center, one located in the Main Museum and the other located in the Science Lab used for our summer Space Academy for Educators® camp, and we plan to |
add a third, larger display to our computer lab this summer. These kinds of seminars and programs are what make it so awesome to be a part of the network |
of Smithsonian Affiliates. Imagine all the fun, innovative and educational activities you can dream up with the help of these services! So get out there and sign up for a |
Songwriting For Beginners: ‘Just Enough’ Music TheoryBy Jeff Oxenford • Category: How To Write Songs, Songwriting Articles (This is an article in the series “Songwriting For Beginners”. We are filing the series under the Songwriting Basics category.) Question: How do you stop a guitarist from playing? Answer: Put music... |
front of him. That’s me. I can’t read music and I doubt I ever will. However, over the last three years, I’ve learned just enough about music theory to be dangerous. What I’ve found is that by understanding some basic concepts, I’ve been able to find that next chord I |
was always searching for. The first step in understanding is that most songs are played in a single key and that the chords in the come from that key. The formula (i.e. what order) you use for the chords is what make up the song. For example, blues often uses |
is a half (H) step. Also, note that for B to C and E to F, there is only a half step. There is no B# (Cb) or E# (Fb). The major scale has the following intervals, W W H W W W H. (do, rae, me fae, so la, |
te, do) Applying this formula, the notes in the A major scale are: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A. As seen on the guitar the A scale looks like: Practice tip – On any string of the guitar, apply the formula W, W, H, W, W, W, H. |
In other words pick the string: Open, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12. You’ve just played a major scale. Numbers for the Notes We describe the notes in a scale by their numbers (1 – 8). When your playing in the Key of A, A is the 1 note, |
chord are major chords (A, D, E). The 2, 3 and 6 chords are minor (Bm, etc.) The 7th chord is diminished Below is a listing of the chords in the major scale for all keys. Use the table by following a row: Practice tip: Take one row and play |
the chords in order. It should like the major scale. Then try the 1, 4 and 5 chords. Move to another row and try the 1, 4 , 5. It should sound pretty familiar. How do you use this in Songwriting? Most songs in folk, rock and blues primarily use |
combinations of the 1, 4, 5 chords. The 6 and 3 are used often and sometimes the 2. The 7 chord (diminished) isn’t used as often, but it does have a very distinctive sound. *(Other books use roman numerals, so be ready to see I, IV, V). For example: The |
formula for 12 bar blues is Blues in A – the formula is 1,1,1,1,4,4,1,1,5,4,1,5 (each played for a four count). Check out more Songwriting Basics Republished with permission by Jeff’s Songwriting |
Excerpt of How To Read And Why by Harold Bloom (Page 2 of 5) Printer Friendly Excerpt I turn to reading as a solitary praxis, rather than as an educational enterprise. The way we read now, when we are alone with ourselves, retains considerable continuity with the past, however it |
is performed in the academies. My ideal reader (and lifelong hero) is Dr. Samuel Johnson, who knew and expressed both the power and the limitation of incessant reading. Like every other activity of the mind, it must satisfy Johnson's prime concern, which is with "what comes near to ourself, what |
we can put to use." Sir Francis Bacon, who provided some of the ideas that Johnson put to use, famously gave the advice: "Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider." I add to |
Bacon and Johnson a third sage of reading, Emerson, fierce enemy of history and of all historicisms, who remarked that the best books "impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads." Let me fuse Bacon, Johnson, and Emerson into a formula of how to read: |
find what comes near to you that can be put to the use of weighing and considering, and that addresses you as though you share the one nature, free of time's tyranny. Pragmatically that means, first find Shakespeare, and let him find you. If King Lear is fully to find |
you, then weigh and consider the nature it shares with you; its closeness to yourself. I do not intend this as an idealism, but as a pragmatism. Putting the tragedy to use as a complaint against patriarchy is to forsake your own prime interests, particularly as a young woman, which |
sounds rather more ironical than it is. Shakespeare, more than Sophocles, is the inescapable authority upon intergenerational conflict, and more than anyone else, upon the differences between women and men. Be open to a full reading of King Lear, and you will understand better the origins of what you judge |
to be patriarchy. Ultimately we read -- as Bacon, Johnson, and Emerson agree -- in order to strengthen the self, and to learn its authentic interests. We experience such augmentations as pleasure, which may be why aesthetic values have always been deprecated by social moralists, from Plato through our current |
campus Puritans. The pleasures of reading indeed are selfish rather than social. You cannot directly improve anyone else's life by reading better or more deeply. I remain skeptical of the traditional social hope that care for others may be stimulated by the growth of individual imagination, and I am wary |
of any arguments whatsoever that connect the pleasures of solitary reading to the public good. The sorrow of professional reading is that you recapture only rarely the pleasure of reading you knew in youth, when books were a Hazlittian gusto. The way we read now partly depends upon our distance, |
inner or outer, from the universities, where reading is scarcely taught as a pleasure, in any of the deeper senses of the aesthetics of pleasure. Opening yourself to a direct confrontation with Shakespeare at his strongest, as in King Lear, is never an easy pleasure, whether in youth or in |
age, and yet not to read King Lear fully (which means without ideological expectations) is to be cognitively as well as aesthetically defrauded. A childhood largely spent watching television yields to an adolescence with a computer, and the university receives a student unlikely to welcome the suggestion that we must |
endure our going hence even as our going hither: ripeness is all. Reading falls apart, and much of the self scatters with it. All this is past lamenting, and will not be remedied by any vows or programs. What is to be done can only be performed by some version |
of elitism, and that is now unacceptable, for reasons both good and bad. There are still solitary readers, young and old, everywhere, even in the universities. If there is a function of criticism at the present time, it must be to address itself to the solitary reader, who reads for |
Short Essay Questions The 60 short essay questions listed in this section require a one to two sentence answer. They ask students to demonstrate a deeper understanding of the text. Students must describe what they've read, rather than just recall it. Short Essay Question - Prologue, Chapters 1, 2 1. If you were the alb... |
Jacques as quickly? Why or why not? 2. Why is the opening of the book so suspenseful? 3. If you were Langdon and the police wanted to question you about Jacques' murder, what would you do? 4. What are Silas' motivations, based on his actions in the first couple of chapters? Short Essay Question - Chapters 3, 4, 5 5. |
Sri Lanka: Year In Review 2011Article Free Pass In 2011 Sri Lanka continued to recover from its 26-year civil war, which had ended in 2009. Pres. Mahinda Rajapakse enjoyed great popularity among the majority Sinhalese community for having defeated the |
Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam; LTTE). As expected, the United People’s Freedom Alliance, led by Rajapakse, dominated local government elections held in March and July. Predominantly Tamil areas formerly held by the LTTE in the north and east |
of the country voted for the Tamil National Alliance. During 2011 the president moved to consolidate political power (much of it held by members of his family) in the executive branch of government while placing limits on media freedom, the |
role of civil society in Sri Lankan politics, and the expression of antigovernment dissent. In August it was announced that emergency regulations in place for nearly three decades were being lifted, but this still left many powers in government hands |
and failed to allay fears of repression among some Sri Lankans. International attention was directed throughout the year toward alleged violations of human rights in Sri Lanka. A highly critical report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in September |
charged that both the LTTE and government forces deliberately targeted civilians during the civil war. The government refused to permit an international investigation into human rights violations in Sri Lanka, and in October it announced the creation of a National |
Action Plan designed to protect and promote human rights and support reconciliation between the communities. Former general Sarath Fonseka, who had commanded the Sri Lankan army in its victory over the Tamil Tigers and later had become a political rival |
of Rajapakse, was sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly stating that the Sri Lankan government had committed war crimes during the civil war. Fonseka was already serving a 30-month jail term after having been convicted of corruption in |
military procurements. He denied both charges, claiming that they were politically motivated to keep him out of politics. Economic growth in Sri Lanka, which had continued throughout the war period, slowed in 2009 because of the global recession but then |
accelerated rapidly. GDP was expected to rise by at least 8% in 2011, despite floods in January that displaced more than a million people and damaged rice and other crops. Major economic issues included continued poverty, employment creation and skill |
provision, the reconstruction of war-damaged areas, a large deficit in the government budget, and persistent inflation. Nevertheless, an IMF mission to Sri Lanka in August–September pronounced macroeconomic conditions there satisfactory and stated that monetary and fiscal policies were appropriate. Yet |
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