Written by Sara Novak

Before I moved to South Carolina from Washington D.C., I used to enjoy a sizable Starbucks coffee each morning on my way to work. I started my day like the Tasmanian Devil, flying around my office like a child jacked up on sweet tarts. So after I moved south and my life began to slow down a bit, I gradually downgraded my caffeine intake. And just a few years later, I still enjoy a delicious cup o’ Joe, but today it’s the decaffeinated, organic, fair trade variety. It’s a pleasant morning ritual too painful to part with. But is coffee good for your health? Similar to alcohol, the studies seem to seesaw back and forth.

So when you’re considering your morning coffee, here are some health facts to keep in mind:

The Good:

1. Coffee Reduces Your Risk of Diabetes

Photo: Jeff Hamilton/Thinkstock

In a 2005 review of nine studies, researchers found that for those that drank four to six cups of coffee per day, versus only two or fewer, their risk for Type 2 diabetes decreased by almost 30 percent. The number decreased by 35 percent when people drank more than six cups per day. And if you’re picturing yourself running around the office with your eyes bugging out of your head, no worries because caffeinated and decaffeinated coffees provided much the same results.

2. Coffee Fights Free Radicals

Photo: Brand X Pictures

We often forget that coffee is actually a plant and like all plant foods, the coffee bean contains more than 1000 naturally occurring substances called phytochemicals, which may help prevent disease. Many of thesephytochemicals are antioxidants which protect the cells from damage from free radicals.

3. Coffee Improves Memory and Cognition

Photo: Siri Stafford

Researchers reported that volunteers who drank caffeinated coffee in the morning performed better than nondrinkers on tests that involved learning new information. Coffee can also improve cognitive function as we age. One study found that combining coffee with a sweet treat had an even bigger impact.

According to study researcher Josep M. Serra Grabulosa, from the Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology at Universidad de Barcelona:

Our main finding is that the combination of the two substances improves cognitive performance in terms of sustained attention and working memory by increasing the efficiency of the areas of the brain responsible for these two functions. This supports the idea of a synergistic effect between two substances, in which each one boosts the effect of the other.

The Bad

4. Coffee Can Increase Osteoporosis

Photo: Thinkstock

It’s true that coffee can cause the body to excrete calcium in urine. We don’t want the body to rid itself of calcium because this can lead to osteoporosis. According to The Diet Channel, about five milligrams of calcium is lost per every six ounces of coffee consumed. But these calcium losses can be counter balanced with two tablespoons of milk or yogurt per cup of coffee.

5. Coffee Causes Wrinkles

Photo: Pixland

Even though coffee has antioxidants, if you drink too much of it, it can cause wrinkling of the skin. This is a result of dehydration which is the worst thing for your skin. So when you’re drinking that morning cup or two, make sure that you’re pairing it with water. Even better, add 1 tablespoon of chia seeds to your water and let them sit for 30 minutes. The chia seeds keep you even more hydrated than regular water.

6. Coffee Can Actually Cause Weight Gain

Photo: Jupiterimages

The blood sugar fluctuations that a caffeine high produces can contribute enormously to cravings, according toiVillage. Coffee is also socially connected to food. For example, we pair coffee with dessert or that morning powdered doughnut. Additionally, when we crash from our caffeine high that’s when we reach for all sorts of fatty snacks to keep us going.

7. Conventional Coffee Is Laden with Pesticides

Photo: Stockbyte

The coffee plant is one of the most heavily sprayed crops. It’s coated with chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides, nothing you’d want to be ingesting. If you do drink coffee, make sure that it’s the organic variety, free from assorted chemicals that leech into our ground water and can make us sick down the road.

If you switch to decaffeinated coffee, make sure the caffeine is removed in a natural way without the use of chemicals to do it. Often times, conventional decaffeinated coffee has more chemicals that regular.

Bonus: I am so confused by this right now…

Written by James Daniels

Mythbusters! Nerd porn of the highest order! Mr. Wizard for grown-ups — with explosions! For over seven years we’ve watched Adam and Jamie’s Odd Couple act, watched Grant build the awesomest of machines, watched Tory hurt himself, and watched Kari… well, just watched Kari, really.

But as much as we love the cast, there’s something much greater here that appeals directly to our nerd natures: Who among us hasn’t watched as the crew went to work on a myth so obviously absurd that we’d scoff and snicker? Filled with smug arrogance we’d sit back as what we already knew to be false is proven incontrovertibly so… and store the relevant information away for later use in cementing our superiority over lesser beings who believe such nonsense. Only it doesn’t always work that way.

Every now and then, Mythbusters will throw our snark right back in our nerdy faces, and the most outrageous of urban myths will be proven absolutely true — even a finding of “Plausible” can be an enormous shock to the system. So, not only does the show allow us to flaunt our “intellectual superiority,” it also provides the occasional dose of much needed humility. Here then are seven myths whose results blew our minds, and reminded us that maybe we’re not as incredibly brilliant as we thought we were.

7) Driving While Angry Uses More Gas
This sounds a lot like one of those bullshit things parents and teachers tell you that “seem” sensible, but later in life you learn are pure moonshine designed to discourage bad or unhealthy habits (like the one about sugar causing hyperactivity). Not in this case: The Mythbusters declared this one 100% confirmed when they compared fuel consumption between a calm driver and one put through various agitations and discomforts (this could be why oil companies seem to be so good at pissing people off). 

6) You Can Actually Slap Sense Into Someone 

Who hasn’t seen a groggy character in some movie get his faculties restored by a good, hard SMACK? But, since we’re all rational, intelligent people, it is our default position to disbelieve everything the world of cinema presents us, and to show disdain to anyone who falls for this crap… only it’s true! A sharp slap was shown to improve alertness and mental acuity, information we’re certain no one would think of using as an excuse to smack the bejeezus out of irritating individuals… right?

5) You Can Stick Your Hand Into Molten Lead Without Injury… Briefly 

This sounds more like an immensely cruel practical joke than a myth, nevertheless, it works exactly the way it says: It’s called the Leidenfrost Effect, and it’s real nifty! The lead has to be sufficiently hot, but if it is, the water will turn to vapor and temporarily protect your hand (it’s impossible to overstress the “temporarily” part here!). Volunteers?

4) Nervousness Can Cause Cold Feet

Apparently not everyone who came up with these expressions back in the old-timey days was zonked out on opium-laced cough syrup. This old saw proved to have some honest veracity to it: They had Tory, Grant and Kari face their worst fears and monitored the temperature of their feet — Grant and Kari showed a significant decrease, but Tory’s results were inconclusive, thus the determination of “Plausible.” Gotta love the video — we’re not even particularly arachnophobic, but that creeps us the hell out!

3) Elephants Are Really Afraid of Mice 

This was the very myth that inspired the creation of this list in the first place. We were nothing short of flabbergasted! To buy into an absurd cartoon stand-by like this would be akin to believing rabbits tend to cross-dress and hit on speech-impaired hunters. And yet, when presented with the meek little rodent, the formidable beasts not only took notice — but did their best to avoid the tiny creatures. True, they didn’t freak out, jump up on their hind legs and go “EEK!” But the very fact that they didn’t simply ignore the mice, as Adam and Jamie predicted, makes this quite a humbling entry.

2) An Ultrasonic Motion Sensor Can Be Thwarted by a Bedsheet 

This was one of those myths where upon hearing the “logic” behind how it’s supposed to work, the viewer suspects it’s the product of a poor understanding of the device in question, but nope, this one’s totally accurate: A simple sheet draped over the head was able absorb the sound waves emitted by an ultrasonic motion sensor. It seemed to kinda cut down on visibility — but we assume one could always cut eye holes, if they don’t mind sneaking through the lair of a supervillain looking like a Peanuts cartoon ghost.

1) Cursing Aloud Helps People Tolerate Pain More than Not Cursing

This is so fucking cool (hey, we’re just increasing our pain tolerance). Makes you wonder what it is about those words? Screaming “fiddlesticks!” at the top of your lungs won’t produce the same effect, so it can’t simply be the yelling… regardless, this myth isn’t just a convenient excuse for the use of “colorful metaphors,” it’s backed up by the experimental data. And you have to admire the clever apparatus they designed so the viewers wouldn’t be scandalized by watching Kari’s lovely mouth form “naughty words”. So, we’ve so far shown the values of physical violence AND obscene language — who says this website isn’t informative!

Bonus: As a six-year-old, this was the best book ever

Written by sarthanapalos

The past few days I have heard so many stupid things from friends, blogs, pundits, correspondents, politicians, experts, writers that I want to pull my hair.  So, I will not beat around the bush, I will be really blunt and give you a handy list to keep you from offending Egyptians, Arabs and the world when you discuss, blog or talk about Egypt.  Honestly, I would think most Progressives would know these things, but let’s get to it.

• “I am so impressed at how articulate Egyptians are.”  Does this sound familiar?  Imagine saying this about a Latino or African American?  You don’t say it.  So don’t say it about Egyptians.   Gee, thank you oh great person who is of limited experience and human contact for recognizing that out of 80 million people some could be articulate, educated and speak many languages.  Not cool.  Don’t say it.  You may think it, but it makes you sound like a dumb ass.

• “This is so sad”:  No, sad were the thirty years of oppression, repression and torture.

• ” I loved Sadat”:  Mubarak was made of the same cloth of Sadat.  Same repression, same ill-treatment of their people, yet you were all in love with Sadat.  Hmm, where and when do you think the repression started?  The State Of Emergency?  Sadat was not loved by the Egyptian people.   Why do you love Sadat?

• “What they did to the Mummies is horrible”:  Yes, but who did it?  Think, Mubarak, for years has been playing the “I am the stabilizing force”.  The one thing you know about Egypt, the stuff that was underground and from the past, you will be distraught and find the protestors to be disgusting.  Yet it was not the protesters who did it.  In Alexandria, the young people protected the library.  Did anyone carry that story?  Statement from the Director of the Alexandria Library:

The library is safe thanks to Egypt’s youth, whether they be the staff of the Library or the representatives of the demonstrators, who are joining us in guarding the building from potential vandals and looters.  I am there daily within the bounds of the curfew hours.   However, the Library will be closed to the public for the next few days until the curfew is lifted and events unfold towards an end to the lawlessness and a move towards the resolution of the political issues that triggered the demonstrations.

• “The Muslim Brothers are Terrorists”  Maybe you should look at their English Website, or try something easy like this link Check this out:

The Muslim Brotherhood is not on the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations list. It renounced violence in the 1970s and has no active militia (although a provocative martial arts demonstration in December 2006 raised some alarm that they may be regrouping a militia.)

Nevertheless, the Muslim Brotherhood or Ikhwan Al Muslimun in Arabic, is frequently mentioned in relation to groups such as Hamas and Al Qaeda.

• “The Twitter Revolution”. No, this is the Revolution of the Egyptian people.  Egyptians resisted for decades.  They were tortured, jailed and repressed by the Mubarak and Sadat regimes.  Twitter and Facebook are tools.  They did not stand in front of the water canons, or go to jail for all these years to get the credit.  There were demonstrations all summer long and for a several years through out Egypt but they are rarely covered, because we are worried about what Sarah Palin said, or some moronic Imam saying something stupid.  Does it sound a bit arrogant to take credit for a people’s struggle?

• “The women are so brave”:  Egyptian women have always been brave.  If you want to know about Sadat’s Egypt, read Nawal El Saadawi’s memoir while in jail.  Memoirs from the Women’s Prison

• “Al Jazeera has come to it’s own”: Al Jazeera has been on it’s own, you just only noticed. .  Do you think you believed the Bush administration spin about Al Jazeera?  Just maybe you believed the bullshit?  They must be doing something right if all the factions on the ground want to shut them down.  The tyrants, the US and the Israelis.  Hmm, maybe they are speaking truth to power?

• “Mubarak kept the peace treaty”: So, what do you think, if the Egyptian people choose another government, they will go to war with Israel?  Maybe they will demand a few more things from Israel in how they negotiate with the Palestinians.  Maybe Gazans will get better treatment?  Maybe the balance of power will not be tipped over to Israel?  Egypt protests: Israel fears unrest may threaten peace treaty.   Hmm, so we should support the oppression of 80 million Egyptians for a false stabilization?

• “If they get Democracy they will elect extremists”.  Imagine if the world said that about America.  The Tea Party threatens world stability, as did the Bush administration.  How would you like if others used that as a threat to support an autocrat who made all opposing parties illegal?  In truth, US politics threaten world stability more than Egypt does.  Second, the implication is that democracy is not to be trusted in the hands of “certain” nations, people and religions is offensive, racist and ignorant.  You do not claim to value human rights, democracy and freedom and then you make exclusions based on race, nationality and religion.  Don’t say this shit.

• “The people are so nice”:  Yes they are, it’s your ignorant self that assumed they are all terrorists and fanatics.  What did you think?  Glad you went to Egypt and found the Egyptians nice.  After all, they do have a cosmopolitan civilization of over 5,000 years, yet you reduced them to “rag heads” , “jihadists”, “ali babas”, “terrorists”, the list is endless.  Imagine saying this about African Americans?  Asians?  Nope.  Just don’t fucking say it.  It’s patronizing.

It’s time Egyptians were heard.  It’s time the pundits and “Egypt hands” (old recycled western diplomats) were retired. These people were as good at predicting the current events as our economists were in predicting the economic calamity.  I am glad you all got to see things from Egypt outside your comfort zone.  Maybe now, you can give Egyptians and Arabs some respect.  The people in Egypt are struggling for human rights, dignity and freedom.  Like the rest of us, they want the economic means to care for their families.  Break down those closed ideas that dehumanize the Arab and Egyptian people in general.  That is all I ask.

Bonus:My response whenever a theist asks me: “What if you’re wrong?”

You can read this article from here

Bonus: When men take the day off.

Via: Online Schools

Written by Sara Novak

You’ve heard it a thousand times: if you want to fall asleep you have to give up caffeine. So you’ve done that and you still can’t seem to sleep through the night. Well, your diet has a huge bearing on the way you feel especially if a sleep deficiency has become a part of your life. Choose foods that promote sleep rather than keeping you up all night.

5 Foods To Prevent Insomnia:

1. Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds are a great source of magnesium which serves to calm the body down. Magnesium helps to relieve the stress that can keep us up all night. Just 1 oz. of pumpkin seeds has 151 mg of magnesium, making it one of the most magnesium-rich foods out there.

2. Cottage Cheese

Photo: Thinkstock

Cottage cheese contains tryptophan, a sleep inducing amino acid that relaxes the entire body and mind. If you don’t do dairy you can also find tryptophan in soy milk, tofu, hummus, and lentils.

3. Sesame Seeds

Sesame seeds are rich in trytophan but they’re also high in carbohydrates with a medium protein content, perfect for before bedtime.

4. Brown Rice

Photo: Eising

Whole unrefined grains like brown rice have a calming effect on the mind. They soothe the nervous system so that the mind stops moving a mile a minute and you can fall asleep. Also consider oats for a similar effect.

5. Spinach

Chlorophyll-rich foods like spinach help you get to sleep. Spinach, like pumpkin seeds, is also loaded with magnesium, which calms and de-stresses the entire body.

5 Foods that Promote Insomnia

1. Refined Carbohydrates

Photo: Thinkstock

These drain the body of vitamin B, which the body needs to release serotonin. When the body can’t get enough serotonin, tension, fear, and depression can keep you up all night.

2. MSG

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), often found in Chinese food, causes a stimulant reaction in some people. MSG is almost always found in processed, prepared, and packaged foods. Here’s a list of surprising places that MSG hides.

3. Bacon

Photo: Jupiterimages

Bacon contains tyramine, which increases the release of norepinephrine, a brain stimulant that keeps you up. Others foods that contain tyramine include chocolate, eggplant, ham, potatoes, sauerkraut, sugar, sausage, tomatoes, and wine.

4. Alcohol

While many of us drink to relax the body and mind, the fact of the matter is that wine, beer, and spirits can keep you up at night. This is especially true if you drink more than one. While alcohol can make you tired in the short run, you’re likely to awaken in the middle of the night.

5. Chocolate

Photo: Jupiterimages

Chocolate can elevate your energy levels with bioactive compounds like tyramine and phenylethylamine. Chocolate also contains sugar which wakes you up as well as the other obvious culprit, caffeine.

Beyond your diet, yoga is another great way to help you sleep. Here are some yoga and meditation practices to keep you calm and collected.

Bonus:

Written by Aaron Matteson

Pac-Man: a little yellow poltergeist magnet.

?Pac-Man is one of the founding fathers of gaming.  He is to the arcade experience what Benjamin Franklin is to the American experiment, except Pac-Man ate more cherries in his day and Ben Franklin loved hookers more.  At the time when it was released, most games were about either low-res paddle sport simulation or killing aliens —Pac-Man invented an entirely new genre, one based around pellet consumption in a haunted maze.

That’s all well and good, but what did it teach us?  We learned a lot of stuff from Ben Franklin, like the fact that if you’re going to fly a kite, it’s cooler to attach something metallic to the string and do it in a thunderstorm.  Did Pac-Man teach us anything remotely as important?

1.) Waste not, want not.

Pac-Man doesn’t waste perfectly good pellets just because they’re in a labyrinth full of hell-spawn.

?You would think that Pac-Man might be inclined to maybe go to his house and order a pizza.  He’s obviously hungry.  He’s aware of the fact that several ghosts are trying to disintegrate him.  Why not sprinkle holy water around the edges of your living room, call Domino’s and watch some Dexter, Pac-Man?

But the thing about Pac-Man is, he hates waste.  Even with four malicious apparitions hot on his trail, Pac-Man can’t stand the thought of all those delicious pellets going to waste, even if they are scattered around a maze.  So he won’t leave each level, no matter how nauseatingly packed his little yellow stomach is with pellets, until he eats every last god damn one.

While it puts him in perpetual danger, it’s a noble instinct.  Don’t let resources go to waste; if you do, then the ghosts win.

2.) Be wary of the supernatural.

When you die, if you have sinned venially but not mortally, you become one of these.

?Our little round protagonist has done something awful to upset the next world.  Perhaps Pac-Man bought a copy of the Necronomicon and accidentally recalled the colorful ghosts of four serial murderers to earth.  Or maybe, in a shocking act of disrespect, Pac-Man built his patented maze / pellet shop on top of Indian burial grounds.  Whatever the reason, the beings that inhabit the next world seem pretty pissed.

So even if you’re not superstitious, why tempt fate?  Better safe than sorry.

3.) Don’t do too much hard work without taking a breather.

This cutscene furthers the plot by depicting a comically large Pac-Man.

?According to our sources, Pac-Man was the first game to feature cutscenes — in the form of the brief, unplayable moments between levels where Pac-Man and the ghosts have awkward interactions.  It pioneered the use of small breaks between sections of intense, stressful gameplay that would later grow into epic, cinematic lumps of exposition.  While the cutscene is sometimes criticized as a convention for taking players out of the experience of gaming, one has to admit that sometimes they can be quite relieving, especially if you’ve been frantically running from ghosts for the past twenty minutes.

4.) You can face your fears.

?Say what you will about Pac-Man.  Sure, he’s kind of a weird little guy.  His complexion indicates that perhaps he has an untreated jaundice infection.  And he clearly has some type of eating disorder.

But we have to give it to him, the little yellow ball has balls.

How many people can say that with a little nutritional supplement, they overcame their biggest fear and faced the menace that was haunting them?  And won?  Not many.  But Pac-Man, after a little encouragement from a bigger-than-usual pellet, does that exactly — he confronts the demons who are harassing him and sends them back to the little box from whence they came.  It’s a cathartic, proud moment, that gives us all hope that if we eat right and stay focused, we can all reclaim the maze of our lives from the ghosts of unhappiness.

Of course, the ghosts are only banished back to the center box momentarily, and so Pac-Man is ostensibly locked in an eternal, Sisyphus-like struggle with his demons.  But why focus on that?

5.) When you see true love, recognize it.

If you are a heterosexual male small yellow sphere who eats pellets and hates fucking ghosts, and you meet a female (see the bow?) small yellow sphere who eats pellets and also has a major problem with ghosts, ask her out for the love of god.  Most potential girlfriends are going to be turned off by your Humpty-Dumpty physique and the fact that all you ever talk about are how shitty ghosts are and how awesome it is to eat pellets.

Bonus:She made this in 1996 but refuses to wear it in public because it’s “too nerdy”… Let’s set her straight!

Written by Polly Turner

Picture this: You’re walking through the woods behind your house and are bitten by a rattlesnake. What would you do?

John Wayne probably would have pulled out his penknife, sliced the bite wound, sucked out the venom, and tied on a tourniquet. But that’s the wrong approach for anyone except a silver-screen cowboy.

1. Myth: Cut a snakebite

“The safest thing to do for snakebite is just splint the limb and go to the hospital,” says Christopher P. Holstege, M.D., an emergency medicine doctor and toxicology expert. “Cutting the bite wound could sever tendons, nerves or arteries or increase the risk of infection, and tourniquets are risky,” Dr. Holstege explains.

Dr. Holstege recommends the right approaches for the following first-aid myths.

2. Myth: Put butter on a burn.

Reality: If you apply butter or another substance to a serious burn, you could make it difficult for a doctor to treat the burn later and increase risk of infection.

The right approach: “It’s usually OK to cool the burn with cool water, but burns with significant blistering need to be seen at a health-care facility,” says Dr. Holstege. Keep the burn clean and loosely covered. Don’t pop the blisters.

3. Myth: Keep syrup of ipecac on hand in case of an accidental poisoning.

Reality: The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other experts no longer recommend using syrup of ipecac. The AAP says there’s no evidence that vomiting helps children who have swallowed something poisonous. Most emergency medical facilities have switched to activated charcoal, which binds with the poison in the stomach and prevents it from entering the bloodstream.

The right approach: Throw out any syrup of ipecac that you have at home. If an accidental poisoning occurs, immediately call your doctor or a poison-control center for advice.

4. Myth: Apply a tourniquet to a bleeding extremity.

Reality: When severe bleeding occurs, some people mistakenly tie a belt or shoestring around the limb above the wound to slow the flow of blood. But doing so can cause permanent tissue damage.

The right approach: Pad the wound with layers of sterile gauze or cloth, apply direct pressure, and wrap the wound securely. Seek medical help if the bleeding doesn’t stop or if the wound is gaping, dirty, or caused by an animal bite.

5. Myth: Apply heat to a sprain, strain, or fracture.

Reality: Heat gives the opposite of the desired effect—it promotes swelling and can keep the injury from healing as quickly as it could.

The right approach: Apply ice wrapped in a cloth or something else to keep it from having direct contact with the skin, alternating 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off for the first 24 to 48 hours.

6. Myth: You should move someone injured in a car accident.

Reality: A person with a spinal-cord injury won’t necessarily appear badly injured, but pulling him or her out of a vehicle—even removing the helmet from an injured motorcyclist—could lead to paralysis or death.

The right approach: If the vehicle isn’t threatened by fire or another serious hazard, it’s best to leave the person in place until paramedics arrive.

7. Myth: Rub your eye when you get a foreign substance in it.

Reality: Doing so could cause a serious tear or abrasion.

The right approach: Rinse the eye with tap water.

8. Myth: Use hot water to thaw a cold extremity. Hands and feet go numb when they get too cold, in which case many people try to warm them up by putting them under hot water.

Reality: Hot water can cause further damage.

The right approach: Use lukewarm water only, or use dry heat.

9. Myth: Sponge on rubbing alcohol to reduce a fever.

Reality: In children, the alcohol vapor is absorbed from the lungs. Children are sensitive to very small amounts of alcohol.

The right approach: “Take acetaminophen or ibuprofen,” says Dr. Holstege. “If a fever is very high, have it checked by a physician or treated in a hospital emergency room.”

10. Myth: It’s OK to treat at home an allergic response to a bee sting.

Reality: Delaying professional treatment could be fatal.

The right approach: For symptoms such as breathing problems, tight throat, or swollen tongue, call for an ambulance immediately.