IOPList.Org

Monday 11 April 2016

World Parkinson’s Disease Day





As it is essential to maintain a know-how of all lethal diseases, Parkinson's disease is one that can't be ignored. PD, as it is also known, can make a person seriously ill to an extent that he/she might have to experience excruciating pain everyday.

With World Parkinson's Disease Day today, it becomes essential to learn about this disease that is on the rise around the globe and has turned into a progressive and incurable illness.

Parkinson's disease is a progressively degenerative disorder of the central nervous system which affects the control of body movements. The cause of this disease is unknown and although there is presently no cure, there are treatment options like medication and surgery that can come to the rescue and to an extent, keep a check on it and manage its symptoms.

There are a number of symptoms like rigidity, loss of balance, tremor and sluggishness in movement that come along with this disease. It can sometimes include other symptoms such as constipation, pain, sleep disorders, mood changes, etc.

There are a number of genetic and/or environmental factors which doctors believe could possibly trigger the illness. PD has no boundaries and can attack a person irrespective of the age, religion, race and geographical borders.

So, this World Parkinson's Disease Day, it is important that all of us come together and raise and spread awareness about the condition to almost every nook and corner of the world.



And

National Pet Day



Today is National Pet Day! This holiday is all about appreciating and celebrating the wonderful pets in your life.

Did you know that there are approximately 86.4 million pet cats and 78.2 million pet dogs living in the United States today? Gerbils, birds, turtles, and fish are also very common. If you consider your pet a member of the family, you are by no means alone. Six out of ten pet owners feel the same way!

Celebrity pet lifestyle expert and animal welfare advocate Colleen Paige founded National Pet Day to raise awareness about the importance of pet adoption.

The motto of the holiday is “Don’t shop! Adopt!” and it is sponsored by the Animal Miracle Foundation, whose mission is to help animals in shelters find forever homes. To celebrate National Pet Day, take your dog on a long walk or give your cat a little extra catnip to show your love and appreciation.

Not a pet owner?

Consider making a donation or volunteering at your local pet shelter.

Happy National Pet Day!

I have to agree Fire... It is a terrible problem and one I hate to even see... To watch one suffer as they do and continue to go downhill... Makes me want to just ball my eyes out...

With all our technilogical(sp) advances we are making in this old world, we should be able to wipe out some of these deblitating problems of ours completely out of existance...

But no... We're to concerned on getting to pluto for Gods sake... By curing all this, we'd put a damper on health costs... Then what would all those high dollar docs do...

Just sayin...

Ice

(04-11-2016, 02:18 PM)IceWizard Wrote: [ -> ]I have to agree Fire... It is a terrible problem and one I hate to even see... To watch one suffer as they do and continue to go downhill... Makes me want to just ball my eyes out...

With all our technilogical(sp) advances we are making in this old world, we should be able to wipe out some of these deblitating problems of ours completely out of existance...

But no... We're to concerned on getting to pluto for Gods sake... By curing all this, we'd put a damper on health costs... Then what would all those high dollar docs do...

Just sayin...

Ice

Agree totally Ice.  NASA and explorations to distant "planets" in our little teeny system . . . I didn't even know money was being spent there by the government.  All that's based on what now is an archaic idea we were "going somewhere".  Well know SciFi writer and respected "futurist" Arthur C. Clarke--"Childhood's End"--was a strong proponent for the idea of suspending money on space exploration.  The idea was a political football for a time as we raced the Russians to the moon.  That has, thankfully, abated.  Generational travel, cryonic suspension, following black holes as shortcuts, "rabbit holes" to far places in the curve of the universe; all are still fantasy.  Spending money in that direction as opposed to spending it on research on "real" planetary problems and diseases should be a clear choice at this point.  We ain't going anywhere.  It's a nice dream that dominated the SciFi of the 50s and 60s.  We know better now. 

As Clarke made clear in "Childhoo's End", going anywhere would amount to a profound change in human makeup, and help from friends from "out there" who would defy our understanding.  Not a buck on space travel, spend it on Parkinson's and pets.  Spend it on something real.  They don't call it "space" for nothing.  Good posts both.

The Spankster

Tuesday 12 April 2016

Equal Pay Day



As if you hadn't heard — and surely, you have heard — women earn less money than men.

The oft-cited statistic that women earn 79 cents for every dollar men earn, based on median annual income, gets extra attention on Tuesday, Equal Pay Day, which marks how far into the year women on average have to work to catch up to men's earnings from the previous year.

The perennial topic has come to the forefront thanks to Hillary Clinton's attention to the issue and big tech companies publicly striving to close pay discrepancies.

In addition, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has proposed a new rule requiring employers to disclose pay by gender and race, and the Paycheck Fairness Act is proposing to amend the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to prohibit retaliation for wage disclosure and strengthen penalties for equal pay violations.

•A woman's median annual salary for full- time work is $10,800 less per year than a man's — a disparity that can add up to nearly $500,000 over the course of a career, according to a report from the Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff.

That hurts retirement income, with women aged 65 and older receiving 44 percent less annually than men.

And

Walk On Your Wild Side Day



Be Unpredictable! Walk On Your Wild Side Day is a chance to do something no one would ever expect you to.

Today is a day to embrace your inner wild streak – to wearing nothing but neon pink, dying your hair green for a day, or showing everybody who ever said you couldn’t that you could.

Two great parts to a day:  Equal Pay and Walking on the wild side.  (I said Hey babe, Take a walk on the wild side...)

What am i gonna do that is wild today?  Hmmmm.

ok.

awesome. u did it, fire!! woo hoo!!!

now, take a walk on the wild side, fire. (just don't flick ur hair, please. it will hurt!!)

great version, btw.

Wednesday 13 April 2016

Thomas Jefferson Day



National Thomas Jefferson Day is observed annually on April 13.

This day honors the birth of the third President of The United States, Thomas Jefferson, who was born April 13, 1743.

Most known as the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a stalwart of democracy. While not much an orator, his pen cut quite a swath of ink through correspondence, documents, journals and manuscripts. Those who write, tend to read. Jefferson was no different.

He had a vast library of 6,500 volumes. Jefferson was not only a lawyer but a scientist of agriculture, paleontology, and astronomy. Immensely curious, he kept detailed records of the weather and eventually established weather observers across his home state of Virginia.

Jefferson served as minister to France, Secretary of State in President Washinton’s Cabinet and ran for President for the first time in 1796 only to be elected Vice President to his opponent, John Adams due to a flaw in the Constitution.

Four years later the same fault in the document caused a tie within the same party between Aaron Burr and Jefferson with Jefferson assuming the Presidency.

And

National Scrabble Day



Scrabble Day 2016:
23 things anyone who has ever played Scrabble knows to be true


People say that Monopoly can tear families and friends apart, but what about Scrabble? Because it’s all fun and games until someone pulls a 60 point word out of the bag…

01. There’s always one player who’s vocabulary far exceeds everyone else and they become the one everyone tries to compete with.

02. And there’s also always one player who consistently puts down words under 10 points, so everyone just lets them do their thing.

03. They’re usually the same player who has to get help towards the end of the game.

04. AND they’re usually the same player that sets things up for someone to hit the triple word score. AMATEUR MISTAKE. Well, unless you go after them, then it’s like the crack of the Scrabble world.

05. Everything is all fun and games until someone puts down a word and scores themselves 60+ points, and then suddenly it all turns sinister and competitive in a way you didn’t know possible.

06. Especially when it’s a word you aren’t familiar with, so you’re left torn and confused about what to do.

07. So you have to decide if you want to risk challenging them OR risk letting them have the points and probably winning the game.

08. When you get a Q, X or Z towards the beginning of the game and you’re totally pumped for trying to set it up on a double word/letter score.

09. However, if you get one of these towards the end of a game you’re crying inside because it’s probably going to be taken off of your end score.

10. The feeling of dread when you pull your letters out at the beginning of the game and you get all vowels. FML.

11. Or even worse, having all consonants and being the first person to put a word down. “Well this is off to a fab start, isn’t it?!”

12. We all know the struggle of trying to figure out which two letter words are acceptable and which aren’t.

13. And there’s always one person playing who refuses to let anyone look it up. “Is it QI or IQ?!” “IF YOU DON’T KNOW THEN YOU CAN’T PLAY IT.” Dick.

14. The feeling of total outrage when someone puts a word down where you were going to go. Of course, you have to let them know about it immediately and call them a name (of course, the level of insult depends on relation to you, because you can’t call your Grandma a cock).

15. The feeling of panic when you need to pee but you’re not sure if you trust the other players not to look at your letters.

16. So then you decide to take your letters to the bathroom with you, it’s safer that way.

17. There’s always one player (probably you) who feels the need to neaten up the tiles on the board after every go.

18. The agonisingly long time it takes to get round to your go once the game gets serious and people start with serious tactics. “Dad, it’s literally been like 20 minutes. Just put a word down.”

19. The horrifying moment when you’re winning and someone drops a 40+ points word and takes over your spot.

20. The added responsibility of ensuring the board is open enough for people to put words down, whilst still trying to nab all the double/triple word scores for yourself.

21. And the anger you feel when you set up a new section of the board only to have people steal all the double/triples in the new section. You’ve been fooled.

22. The injustice you feel when you have to swap all of your letters because you can’t go anywhere.

23. And finally, the disappointment that sets in when all the letters are gone from the bag and you’ve got no chance of pulling things back into your favour.

Sigh.

Thursday 14 April 2016

National Dolphin Day



So, today is National Dolphin Day. Of course dolphins seem happy every day – but here are ten special things you might not know about the ocean’s biggest grinners:

Killer whales are dolphins

Yes, the big mean orcas are just big misunderstood dolphins. They are top dog in every ocean ecosystem, despite being dressed in silly panda suits.

Dolphins are born tail first

Being a mammal and giving birth at sea is no mean feat, and every baby dolphin comes into the world in reverse. If you’re lucky enough to see a very young dolphin you might also notice that they look ‘creased’ from where they were folded up inside their mothers. A healthy diet of fatty dolphin milk soon irons out those creases though.

Dolphins have built in sonar

Dolphins navigate and find their food using echolocation. This bounces noise off objects and their surroundings to ‘see’ in surround sound. Bats also use echolocation in this way, but sadly dolphins have never been immortalised as a caped comic crusader.

Dolphins rescued Dick Van Dyke!

No, this is not a deleted scene from Mary Poppins! In 2010 cinema legend Dick Van Dyke claimed that his life was saved by ‘porpoises’. Though he probably meant dolphins. Or he may have been talking supercalifragilisticexpialinonsense.

Scottish dolphins are the best

Okay, maybe not the best, but Scottish bottlenose dolphins are the biggest in the world. Probably because Scottish seas are a bit chilly as every child who has been to St Andrews beach in ‘summer’ knows to their cost, and being bigger means you lose less heat. Scottish dolphins are also pretty easy to see from shore, or on a boat trip, and support a thriving ecotourism industry in the Moray Firth.

Some dolphins live in the trees

Not all dolphins live in the sea, with a handful of species preferring freshwater and living in tropical rivers. That means that in the flooded waters of the amazon, river dolphins swim amongst the trees.

Dolphins have central heating and cooling systems

Because they are covered in a blubbery coating to stay warm, dolphins have to take special measures to regulate their temperature. They use clever circulation to cool down blood in their fins and send it where staying cool matters most.

Dolphins call each other names

No, not mean names like ‘Fishbreath’ or ‘Beaky’! Scientists have discovered that complex dolphin communication includes referring to each other by a given ‘name’

Not all dolphins look the same

There are about 40 species of dolphins: some have no beak, some have no fin on their back, some are black and white, some are pink, some have go-faster stripes, and some are covered in scars. The one thing they do have in common is conical shaped teeth that are perfect for catching fish and squid on the move.

Source; Greenpeace

And

Look Up at the Sky Day



Origin of this Holiday

Our research did not find the creator, or the origin of this day. We did however find that this holiday has been celebrated for years. There is plenty of documentation to support that National look up at the Sky Day" does indeed exist.

This holiday is referred to as a "National" day. However, we did not find any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day.

Even though we didn't, this is still a holiday that is publicized to celebrate. So have fun with it and celebrate it! Look up into the sky and see what you can see.