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“Years later my neighbour commented on the wonderful smell of cut grass after I had mowed the lawn and it all started to click into place,” he added.
Dr Lavidis said the aroma worked directly on the brain, in particular the emotional and memory parts known as the amygdala and the hippocampus.
He explained: “These two areas are responsible for the flight or fight response and the endocrine system, which controls the releasing of stress hormones like corticosteroids.
“The new spray appears to regulate these areas.
“There are two types of stress. The first is when you are about to perform something or you know you are going to have to do something well. That’s acute stress and can be a good form of stress.
Chronic stress has been shown to damage the hippocampus by reducing the number of connections between communicating cells, leading to memory loss. In old animals the damage is permanent.
Students working on the Australian project found that animals exposed to Serenascent – which combines three chemical released when green leaves are cut – escaped damage to the hippocampus.
The scent is said to have the “pleasant aroma of a freshly-cut lawn or a walk through a lush forest”.
It will go into production next month and sell for around £4 a bottle.
Discussion in 'Gear & Equipment Discussion' started by MRRYZER, Jun 3, 2008.
That was my thinking. I placed the order!
DAMN! That's way lower than even I can get them!
How's the sizing on these?
I heard gloves made of synthetic leather have durability issues.
I thought they were these... It's a good thing someone turned me on to that. Should have known it would be the FG3S... even still, for $9.95, they're a great glove.
Are the FG3S Crappy? For $10 I can't complain, but figured I'd ask.
For $10, no you can't complain... I've dealt a little with their synthetic series... it's not bad stuff. It's not great, but it's better than a lot of the other economy brands out there. I'm not 100% sure, but I think they're trying to steer away from synthetics in the CSI brand - they've been unloading everything that ends with an S.
About a month ago, President Trump met with his national security team — Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster — to review their proposed strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Trump rejected it, heatedly, because it proposed continuation of what we’ve been doing for nearly sixteen years.
On Friday, Trump met with them again. This time, Vice President Mike Pence was in attendance as well. Trump hinted that they had reached some sort of agreement. What it is, he didn’t say.
In between those meetings Erik Prince, former head of Blackwater, the high-end training and security force company that had extensive service in Iraq, was marketing a plan. It called for an end to U.S. troop presence but substituted a new mercenary force of about five thousand men — presumably the former special forces troops that had made up Prince’s Iraq force — as well as a private air force contingent of about one hundred aircraft, all under the control of a “viceroy” that would operate against Taliban and other terrorist forces in Afghanistan.
A similar plan is being marketed to the administration by investor Stephen Feinberg. A third similar option is, according to a source in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, being offered by Prince Ali Seraj, a member of what was Afghanistan’s royal family, who fled when the Soviets arrived in 1979.
Also, according to my source, Seraj is actively seeking face-to-face meetings with Trump or high-ranking people on his national security team. Seraj wants to offer a force of Afghan tribal fighters (which will never be more effective than the Afghan army, which is to say minimally at best).
Prince’s plan was disparaged by almost everyone in government. Afghanistan commander Gen. John Nicholson, reportedly refused to even meet with Prince.
Gen. Nicholson had asked for about five thousand more troops for a mini-surge in Afghanistan to ensure security. Also pushing for more troops were Stephen Hadley, formerly national security advisor to president George W. Bush and evidently the Washington Post.
It is impossible to misstate our goals in Afghanistan more perfectly.
Since 2001, we have fought the Taliban to stabilize Afghanistan, not to defeat it. We have failed. The Taliban control at least ten percent of the country and the rest — aside for the areas in which U.S. and coalition troops are present at the moment, is up for grabs. Taliban attacks on U.S. and coalition forces, as well as civilian targets, have increased about twenty percent in the past year.
The Afghan government under Ashraf Ghani is about as riddled with corruption as that of his predecessor, Mohammed Karzai. Efforts to establish security wax and wane as does the effectiveness of Afghani forces.
ISIS has a large presence in Afghanistan. When the Air Force dropped the “mother of all bombs” against a target in Afghanistan in April, it destroyed a big ISIS camp dug into caves.
The mujahedeen, like the Taliban, were also aided substantially by their co-religionists in Pakistan. Pakistan, though formally our ally, has undermined our efforts at every turn. They hid Osama bin Laden for years until the CIA found him in Abbottabad and the SEALs flew in to kill him, a mission that wasn’t disclosed to the Pakistanis until it was almost over.
Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) has enabled the Taliban to operate freely. In addition, ISI is also supporting, and giving safe haven, to terrorist networks such as Laskar e-Taiba (which conducted the massive Mumbai terrorist attack in India in 2008) and Jamaat ud Dawa (JuD). Both are designated terrorist groups by the U.S.
A source in the Afghanistan/Pakistan area has informed me about some of what ISI is doing in Afghanistan.
One example he points out is a massive terrorist training camp in Pakistan’s Balochistan province in Koh i Sabz (“green mountain”) outside the city of Panjgur. He theorizes that it is either Saudi-funded or supported as a Pakistani proxy group.
Another example is a man named Muneer Mullazai. He is, according to the source, a high-ranking and key ISI asset in Afghanistan. He lives in three locations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, one in Quetta City in Pakistan, from which the infamous Taliban “Quetta shura” has operated for many years. My source says that Muneer works closely with ISI and is always guarded by armed men. He publishes and oversees distribution in Afghanistan of an Islamist pamphlet called “the Jarrar,” and one of his associates, “Saifullah,” runs media accounts in Afghanistan for JuD.
It’s reasonable to conclude that the biggest problem in Afghanistan is Pakistan. It’s also reasonable, and essential, to conclude that the reason Pakistan is doing so is its adherence to the Salafist Islamic jihadi ideology, which brings us to the point that many faithful readers have come to expect from this column.
The reason we cannot defeat the Taliban is twofold: first, we have never defeated their ideology, and second, nuclear-armed Pakistan has supported our enemies — Taliban, LeT, JuD, al-Qaeda and the rest — while still pretending to be our ally.
Whatever the president decides, if he fails to engage and defeat the Islamist ideology we will lose the war. If he fails to deal decisively with Pakistan, we cannot defeat the terrorist networks it sponsors.
McMaster will never allow the ideological war crucial to winning this or any other anti-Islamic terrorist conflict to begin despite the president’s promise to do so. McMaster has, for years, insisted that terrorism is “un-Islamic.” While he is on Trump’s team we cannot deal with either the Islamist ideology or Pakistan.
Our ground and air forces have done all that we have asked of them except to defeat the Taliban. It is time to pull them out and leave a residual force — either a US/NATO force or one of the mercenary forces — that is aimed solely at accomplishing the only goal we ever had: to defend American interests in Afghanistan.
Those interests are exclusively to prevent Afghanistan from returning to its pre-9/11 status as a central safe haven for terrorists wishing fervently to attack American people and assets both here and abroad.
Unless and until we defeat the Salafist-Islamist ideology, the war in Afghanistan will go on indefinitely until we withdraw altogether. Then, Afghanistan will return to its pre-9/11 form. If the president chooses any of the options he has — withdrawal, a residual U.S. force aimed at terrorist suppression, or one of the three mercenary army proposals — he will do no more than continue to play “whack-a-mole” in Afghanistan for the remainder of his presidency.
And we will continue to spend lives and treasure in indefinite amounts for the rest of our national existence.
CIOs are under enormous pressure to align their technologies with the organization’s business strategies so that it contributes more value, advances business objectives and drives revenues. In the quest for more productive, digital workplaces, this e-book shows new ways that CIOs can use their technology to improve employee communication and collaboration. Plus, you can see how one consulting firm made its employees more productive by streamlining the scheduling and booking of its meeting rooms.
Although a veritable cornucopia of birth control options exists for women, men currently only have the condom available to them — which is unfair, if you think about it, because it takes two to create a wriggling human life. Fortunately, science may have finally come up with a contraceptive equalizer: the elusive male birth control.
Male birth control has existed as a scientific possibility for years now. However, because it's not exactly profitable, the pharmaceutical industry has essentially shoved it aside while looking to engorge its profit margins in an avaricious celebration of capitalism. Despite this lack of substantive funding, the Parsemus Foundation recently announced a reversible form of non-hormonal male birth control called Vasalgel is proving effective in a baboon study.
Three baboon subjects from the original study have now had Vasalgel for 6 months... To make sure that it is still working prior to reversal, we decided to give all of the males an opportunity to mate with females to ensure that no pregnancies occur. Each of the three male baboons was moved into enclosures with 10-15 females (yes, that's 10-15 each!) a month ago. And the good news? So far no pregnancies. But they will remain with the females for at least a few more weeks just to be sure.
Vasagel functions like a temporary vasectomy: in the procedure, a polymer contraceptive is injected directly into the vas deferens — the tube through which sperm is transported — blocking any sperm that attempts to travel through. If a man wishes to restore the flow of sperm, he can get a second injection to flush the polymer out. (The Parsemus Foundation press release says they'll attempt to flush the Vaselgel out of the baboons next month, and the procedure has proven effective in a prior rabbit study).
According to the foundation's FAQ page, they hope to start human trials in 2015, and, "if everything goes well and with enough public support," they hope to get Vasalgel on the market by 2016-2017.
As Samantha Allen points out at the Daily Beast, this could change the entire way we conceptualize birth control. Since the advent of contraception (which was a really, really long time ago), we've "been approaching birth control as a way of temporarily preventing fertilization inside a woman's body," she notes. But Vasalgel and other treatments like it show that that's not necessarily the only way to prevent pregnancy. We can, as she puts it, "block sperm at the source." Having a multitude of options makes sense: again, it takes two to get someone pregnant, so why should women alone bear the entire responsibility for avoiding unwanted pregnancies?
Especially now, when a war is continually being waged on women's reproductive autonomy under the flimsy auspice of "sincerely held religious beliefs," it would be interesting to see how male contraception is treated. As the saying goes: "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." If men could have semi-permanent contraception procedures, would their insurance coverage constitute a violation of religious beliefs? Somehow I doubt it.
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Roger Federer has given cold comfort to the next generation of men’s players hoping for Grand Slam glory, saying he, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal are still deserving favorites to claim the game’s biggest trophies.
The top three seeds at Melbourne Park raffled all four of the majors between them last year, with Federer winning his sixth Australian Open, Nadal claiming his 11th French Open and world number one Djokovic sweeping Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
The Swiss master is bidding for his 21st Grand Slam crown and a hat-trick of Melbourne titles this year, and he sailed into the third round on Wednesday with a straight sets win over British qualifier Dan Evans.
Before the tournament, top seed Djokovic declared the three should be favorites to win the Slams, and Federer agreed when asked after his Evans match.
“Yes, I guess so,” the third seed told reporters.
“I mean, look, I think we know how to win Slams, Novak, Rafa, myself. I mean, Rafa has to be the number one favorite, I don’t care how he feels, before the French.
“Novak is always a favorite on the hard courts, basically any court if he’s feeling 100 percent, if he plays like last year.
The last time a player not named Federer, Djokovic or Nadal won a Grand Slam was at the 2016 U.S. Open where Swiss Stan Wawrinka claimed his third Grand Slam trophy.
Pundits have decried the younger generation’s failure to break into the Grand Slam cartel enjoyed by the old guard but have some tipped change at the top this year.
The 21-year-old Alexander Zverev, who claimed the ATP Tour Finals and is seeded fourth in Melbourne, is often touted as the player most likely to upset the apple cart but has only a solitary Grand Slam quarter-final to his name, at Roland Garros last year.
“There are other guys, no doubt about it,” said 37-year-old Federer, who will play American Taylor Fritz in the third round.
“I think also with Sascha (Zverev) holding the World Tour Finals, I think it’s fair to say that even though he has not ripped through those Slams yet, he will go deep this year definitely at one of them.
For almost 100 years, the name Walt Disney has been so synonymous with animated films, television channels, and child-friendly theme parks that it’s easy to forget that, at one time, the moniker referred to an actual person. Born in 1901, Walter Elias “Walt” Disney grew to be one of America’s most preeminent business tycoons by the time he died in 1966. Within this short time, he also became a beloved animator, producer, director, screenwriter, and voice actor (who just happens to have more Academy Awards and nominations than anyone else in history). Not too bad for a cartoonist from Chicago. Although Walt Disney died almost 40 years ago, the mass media stronghold of his eponymous company remains as strong as ever. The voluminous canon of Walt Disney Studios, not to mention the work of all of its subsidiaries, often overshadows the life of its founder.
Soon, however, the voice of Walt Disney himself will be pumped into movie theaters throughout the country. On November 27th, the Walt Disney Animation Studios will release Get a Horse!, a 7-minute animated film featuring the studio’s quintessential stars, Mickey Mouse and his favorite lady friend Minnie Mouse, who embark on a jubilant musical wagon ride (that is, until Peg-Leg Pete arrives and tries to ruin all the fun). Get a Horse! will accompany the studio’s new feature film, Frozen, and will include archival recordings of Walt Disney as the voice of Mickey Mouse. In honor of the short film’s release and the resurgent voice of the company’s creator, here are seven facts you may not have known about both the man and the studio named Walt Disney.
1. Mickey was almost Mortimer. On a train ride following a less than fruitful business meeting in 1928, Walt Disney, then only 27 years old, sketched a mouse. This mouse would eventually become the official mascot of a multinational corporation worth tens of billions of dollars, but Walt, of course, didn’t know this at the time. He called the sketch “Mortimer Mouse” and showed it to his wife, Lily. After deeming the name Mortimer much too pompous, Lily suggested giving the mouse a cuter name, such as Mickey. Thankfully, Walt agreed with her, and a star was born.
2. Walt was anti facial hair…with one exception. It took almost 60 years, but, as of this year, employees at Walt Disney’s two U.S. theme parks can finally show up at work with a stylish beard or goatee (but only if they are “neat, polished, and professional,” according to the official memo). However, at Disneyland in the 50s and 60s, even guests with facial hair, not to mention longhaired hippies, were turned away, as they were told they unfortunately failed to meet the standards of Disneyland’s dress code. Even Jim McGuinn, the future frontman of The Byrds, was once denied admittance for sporting a provocative Beatle cut. The company eventually relented on this policy, though, and allowed all hirsute patrons to enjoy “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Now, the peculiar double standard: Think of any picture of Walt Disney that you have ever seen. What exists in almost all of them? A mustache.
3. The final words ever written by Walt Disney were “Kurt Russell.” Really, no joke. In 1966, as Disney was suffering from lung cancer and nearing the end of his life, he scrawled the name “Kurt Russell” on a piece of paper and died soon after. At the time, Kurt Russell was a child actor for the studio and had just signed a lengthy contract. To this day, no one knows what Disney meant or intended, including Russell himself.
4. Walt still has a home at Disneyland. During the construction of Disneyland in the 1950s, Walt moved into a one-bedroom apartment above the theme park’s Fire Station on Main Street in order to work and watch his dream come to life. The apartment still exists and has been left largely untouched. During his stay there, Walt lit a lamp in the window to alert the staff of his presence. This lamp is now permanently ablaze in his honor.
5. Don’t be surprised if you experience Disney déjà vu. When you first watched Disney’s Robin Hood, did you wonder if you had seen it all before? If so, there’s no need to worry. In 1915, an animation technique called rotoscoping was invented. This technique involves drawing over film footage of live actors, which allows animators to capture realistic human movement. It also lets animators recycle animated movements for use on characters in different films. So, the next time you watch Disney’s Robin Hood, just remember that large parts of it were, thanks to the studio’s use of rotoscoping, gathered from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats.
6. Mickey and Minnie Mouse actually got married. Wayne Allwine and Russi Taylor are not well-known names, even among Disney aficionados, but their animated personas are seared into most people’s minds. In 1991, Allwine, who was the voice of Mickey Mouse for 32 years, married Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse, and the couple remained happily married until Allwine’s death in 2009.
7. Nobody, including Walt Disney, is perfect. While Walt Disney was an innovative and successful man, he was also the subject of many controversies, most of which involved rumors that he was anti-Semitic and racist. These rumors were, and still are, hard to dispel. In the 1930s, Disney attended meetings of a pro-Nazi organization, the German American Bund. He also hosted a known Nazi propagandist and filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, and gave her a tour of Disney Studios. To make matters worse, Disney was also accused of perpetuating black stereotypes in his films. But, for all of his critics, Disney also had scores of supporters who claimed he was far from being either anti-Semitic or racist. The debate on Disney’s alleged discrimination and racism continues to this day.
Before 'Walt Before Mickey' opens in theaters all across America this fall, here are 13 facts you'll want to know before seeing the movie. The theme? Try, try again.
Florida had been planning to adopt the PARCC exams in 2015. The assessments are being developed to test the Common Core Standards, a new national curriculum set to replace Florida’s state curriculum beginning in 2014.
Until now, most Florida leaders had been supportive of the national standards and accompanying tests.
“The goal of this new testing system is to eliminate ‘teaching to the test’ and instead … accurately measure whether our students are learning the skills they need to succeed in college and their careers,” Gov. Rick Scott wrote in an August 2012 statement.
But on Wednesday, seemingly out of the blue, Gaetz and Weatherford outlined “serious” concerns with the exams.
• The PARCC assessments require 20 days of testing for elementary, middle and high school students. That’s more time than it takes for students to complete the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests (FCAT).
• The PARCC assessments are performed on computers, and require schools to have at least one device for every two students. No school district in the state meets that requirement. There are also concerns about the minimum bandwidth requirements.
• The final cost of adopting the new tests has not yet been determined.
• The consortium has not yet released its final test security policies, leaving concerns about the safety of student data.
“It would be unacceptable to participate in national efforts that may take us backward and erode confidence in our accountability system and our trajectory of continued success,” Gaetz and Weatherford wrote in the letter.
Instead, they proposed the creation of a “Florida Plan” for assessments that could include the existing end-of-course exams or tests that have been established in other states.
The letter didn’t provide many additional details but asked Bennett to take a position as soon as possible.
“Taking control over creation of Florida’s assessment tests ensures that Floridians, who know what is best for Florida’s kids, will guide the curriculum taught in our schools,” Americans for Prosperity’s Florida director Slade O’Brien wrote in a statement Wednesday.
Any mention of the national standards was conspicuously missing from the Gaetz-Weatherford letter. Neither has spoken out against the Common Core, and the education department has said it is holding firm on that point.
Florida could still make the move to the national standards without the PARCC exams. State education officials were already planning to use the existing FCAT 2.0 exams during the transition.
In a statement, Scott spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said: "The governor appreciates the Legislature's concerns and Commissioner Bennett will continue to make sure we implement standards that best prepare our students for college and careers."The praised lavished on the letter from Gaetz and Weatherford wasn’t limited to Republicans. Democrats were also supportive of the idea, albeit for different reasons.
“This gives us a good opportunity to look at all of the testing that’s going and really determine if it makes sense, or if it is too much,” said Sen. Dwight Bullard, a Miami Democrat.
Mark Pudlow, a spokesman for the state teachers union, the Florida Education Association, said he would reserve judgment until he saw more details. “But this provides leaders an opportunity to do what they haven’t done before, and that is to have teachers involved in figuring out what this new Florida Plan will look like,” he said.
Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said hitting “the pause button” was a step in the right direction.
“There’s so much that’s not ready that folks are really coalescing around this idea that … maybe the state is not ready to bring in a new assessment for Common Core,” he said.
Miami Herald staff writer David Smiley contributed to this report. Kathleen McGrory can be reached at kmcgrory@MiamiHerald.com.
Democrats fell short of regaining the majority in the State Senate, following Tuesday’s recall elections against six Republican Senators. Two Democrats ousted incumbents, but three victories were need for the minority party to flip control in the chamber.
Nusbaum says she’s disappointed that she didn’t win, but her team did all that it could.
Luther Olsen of Ripon retained his seat but faced his toughest opposition yet getting 52 percent of the vote to State Rep. Fred Clark. Olsen says both campaigns used a lot of constituent contact, but he believes his volunteers made the difference.
“We lived and died with our volunteers, who did a great, great job to bring this victory home,” says Olsen.
Sheila Harsdorf of Western Wisconsin survived her recall challenge by a wide margin. Harsdorf says “the silent majority” had spoken.
First-time candidate Shelly Moore says she feels great for their effort but could not overcome Harsdorf’s name recognition and backing from national conservative groups.
Democrats who emerged victorious were Jennifer Shilling and Jessica King who beat incumbents Dan Kapanke of La Crosse and Randy Hopper of Fond du Lac.
The Hopper/King election was a rematch as the two squared off in the 2008 Senate race.
The closest race, and the last one to be called, involved Milwaukee area Republican Alberta Darling and challenger Sandra Pasch. Darling declared victory after midnight, with a few precincts still uncounted. She ended up with about 54 percent of the vote.