Keeping The Focus On FUN!

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Which part of your body lets you read the back of a cereal box, check out a rainbow, and see a softball heading your way? If you guessed the eye, you’re right!  Even with the backup of our ears and our sense of touch, the world is just not the same without the eyes. Apart from the heart and the brain, the eyes are the next organ which bears much weight of the body’s work. Eyes are one of the most important channels we use to gather information and make sense of the world around us. We also use our eyes to express how we feel knowingly or unwittingly in a way that is often more powerful than spoken words. In truth, the eyes are responsible for 85% of a person’s accumulated knowledge in a lifetime. And so, our eyesight has a bearing on how we understand things, our preferences and even our way of thinking.

Despite of the importance of our eyes, they often receive little attention. But without proper care, our eyes can quickly deteriorate with age, developing eye diseases that can greatly affect our quality of life. It is only fitting then, that we value our eyes, the way we value our face or skin. Like the latter two, our eyes need rest from a hard day’s work and to be protected from the harmful elements that can lead to the eyes’ deterioration like blurry eyesight. Blurry eyesight comes from several different factors. Progressive blurring of the eyes may be an effect of bigger underlying health conditions such as diabetes, while some can be acquired and other conditions may run in the family.

Any ordinary person can tell you that the best way to care for the eyes is to prevent them from being damaged.  It’s never too late to start caring for your vision. Here are a few short tips on how to keep your eyes healthy.

# 1 – Eat Foods That Are Rich in Vitamin A

 

Nutrition is not only necessary for your body, it is also important for your overall eye health. Some recent studies suggest that enough vitamin and antioxidant intake may prevent or at least slow down macular degeneration and cataract progression. So, what is the eye’s “super-vitamin”? Vitamin A! Vitamin A is essential in promoting clear eyesight while acting as a shield for the eyes’ protection from damage. Retinol, a form of Vitamin A, can commonly be found in foods like liver while carotenoids are found in vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes. Carotenoids or beta-carotene in particular are converted into Vitamin A by the body.

#2 – Take Time To Rest Your Eyes & To Blink

 

Almost everyone feels their eyes become uncomfortable after sitting all day in front of a computer. This happens because the eyes blink less (about 25%) than usual. Working too long in front of the computer and staring too close at the TV can slowly damage your eyes over time. Take breaks by looking out a window or blinking to keep your eyes moist. One thing you can do to retain the moisture in your eyes is simply closing them for about 5 seconds. When working in eye straining conditions, remember the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take 20 seconds to gaze at something 20-feet away. This will give your eye’s the chance they need for a quick rest.

 

# 3 – Protect Your Eyes From The Sun & Other Intense Light

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UV light may cause serious damage to your eyes. We can easily avoid damaging our eyes by adding a hat and sunglasses to our daily wardrobe. Wearing a hat is an easy way to prevent your eyes from direct exposure to sunlight and using sunglasses can be a great way to achieve all-over protection from the sun’s harmful rays. Sunglasses are not just a style, they help to keep our eyes healthy!  On a sunny day, sunglasses are used to protect the eyes from harmful UV radiation. When you buy sunglasses make sure that the glasses can reflect at least 98% of UV radiation.

 

#4 – Get An Eye Exam Every 12-Months

 

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Problems with vision can become worse and more severe if they are not treated properly. If your vision starts blurring, see a doctor. Going in for an annual eye exam will help maintain your eyes- keeping them healthy by scanning for potential problems you could acquire with your eyes. If you wear glasses or contact lenses, you should have your prescription checked regularly. Wearing glasses or contact lenses that are no longer the proper strength for your eyes can cause further problems with your vision and lead to headaches, dizziness or more severe conditions.

 

This month has been dedicated by eye care professionals nationwide to the promotion of healthy vision. Even if you’re lucky enough to have perfect 20/20 vision, the best way to care for your eyes is to prevent them from being damaged. It’s never too late to start caring for your vision, so use these simple tips each day to help keep your eyes healthy!

Search For The God Particle

 

The Large Hadron Collider is a superstar in the physics world, if only because it’s one of the few physics tools that have crossed over into mainstream consciousness.  Basically everyone is aware of the LHC, thanks to the comic books and pop-up children’s books and

the whole “it’s going to destroy the world!” furor that surrounded the launch of the LHC.  Well, as it turns out, all those mini-big bangs may have yielded the ultimate discovery.  The CERN team at the LHC is bringing in reporters to its Geneva, Switzerland,  headquarters and are expected to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson, AKA the God Particle.

First postulated by Peter Higgs in 1964, the Higgs boson is the lynchpin to the unified theory of physics, which states that all matter is composed ultimately of the same subatomic materials organized in a different way.  The Higgs boson, according to scientists and the current theory, is the reason why we have elements and materials and all the things we take for granted (because we are composed of them).  The Higgs is the glue that holds together subatomic particles.

This may be the first real evidence of the Higgs boson, and it’s all thanks to the world-threatening LHC.

Wasps Can Memorize Faces!

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Wasps have amazing ability to memorize and later recall the figures of other wasps, from native cluster. Findings add to other remarkable capacity of these social insects, providing new information on the specializations from the animal world.

 

Wasps are downright phenomenal when it comes to intelligence. They manage to learn, and recognize the figures of other wasps, very quickly. And not only the ability to recognize different physiognomies, but also make the difference between wasps and other insects only after facial analysis.
Studies have shown that wasps recognize different physiognomies, but are also able to remember for a
time of about one week. As these insects live in communities with multiple queens and must follow a strict hierarchy, entomology theories claim that wasps have evolved in this direction to avoid intra-specific conflicts.

Memorizing faces has a very important role in establishing and maintaining social interactions, thus serving survival of social animal species.

Read more about this study on National Geographic 

Watch The Polar Bear Migration LIVE!

 

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In the harsh, remote wilds of the Canadian tundra, a wolverine scampers up to a polar bear snoozing near the shore of the Hudson Bay. The bear rises and makes a half-hearted charge, driving away the fierce, badger-like animal.

The brief encounter Thursday was streamed live to computers around the world through a new program that aims to document in real time the annual migration of hundreds of polar bears outside Churchill, Manitoba.

The bears travel through the small town each October and November and then wait for the Hudson Bay freeze-up, when they can get out on the ice and hunt for seals. In the past, their trek was witnessed mainly by scientists and intrepid tourists.

Now, thanks to an initial $50,000 grant from the Annenberg Foundation to set up four cameras on a makeshift lodge and a roaming Tundra Buggy, plus ongoing payments for bandwidth and technical infrastructure, the bears’ antics and actions at this way station can be viewed from anybody’s living room through the foundation’s website, www.explore.org.

“It brings the Arctic to the people,” said Krista Wright, executive vice-president of Polar Bears International, an advocacy group based in Bozeman, Mont. “The polar bear is the North’s iconic species. This is that exotic animal that people travel from all over the world to see.”

There are 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears worldwide. The Western Hudson Bay polar bears, one of 19 subpopulations, are estimated to number between 600 and 800. Their gathering point near the former military town of Churchill makes them among the most accessible and studied group of bears in existence.

Their numbers are expected to grow over the next few weeks as the weather turns colder, culminating with the bay expected to freeze around the third week of November.

It’s unseasonably warm in Manitoba, as evidenced on the webcam by the tundra bare of snow. That raises concerns that ice will be late in forming again this year — last year, freeze-up didn’t happen until mid-December, nearly a month later than usual. That’s a problem for the bears, Wright said.

“It’s breaking up earlier and freezing later, so the time they’re spending on land is longer. The time they’re on land, they’re basically fasting,” she said.

Charles Annenberg Weingarten, the foundation’s vice-president and a trustee, said the polar bear webcam is an experiment he hopes to expand into a program called Pearls of the Planet that would place streaming cameras in various wild places.

Weingarten said a new feature will be added to the polar bear webcam soon that will allow viewers to document their observations of the polar bears on the website. The idea, he said is to encourage scientific learning, something like a Sesame Street for adults.

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Get the full streaming schedule and more info online by visiting:

http://explore.org

http://www.polarbearsinternational.com

Parents Magazine Lists 5 Ways To Have FUN with Science!

 

 

How many times a day do you think kids ask “why”? Probably too many to actually keep count even if we tried!  Kids are naturally equipped with a curiosity of how things work. I guess you could say that they are researchers in their own rite. Wired like little sponges, children will absorb any information they come across. You don’t have to take your kids to a research facility or science lab for them to learn how cool science is, a few simple household items is all that’s needed to make science fun!  When it comes to science, its quite simple to entertain and fascinate the kids of all ages. For the September issue, Parents Magazine has listed 5 simple science experiments that are sure to impress by illustrating a few basic scientific principals.

Find out what made the Top 5 Experiments on Parents.com HERE


Rare Video Captured By NASA: Huge Solar Flare Explosion!

 

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Though the energy released is not heading directly at the Earth, it may cause some atmospheric disturbance on Wednesday or Thursday night, enough to cause some spectacular auroras and possibly disrupt some satellites, NASA reports.

See the explosion:


Celebrate Earth Week! April 16 – April 22

Earth Day is April 22nd, but many people extend the celebration to make it Earth Week. Depending on how you choose to celebrate, Earth Week runs from April 16th to Earth Day, April 22nd, or it is the week that includes Earth Day, which is April 17-23, 2011. Make a difference this week! Try making a small change that will benefit the environment. Keep at it all week so that by the time Earth Day arrives it might become a lifelong habit. Turn down your water heater or only water your lawn in the early morning or install energy efficient light bulbs or recycle. Be conscious of chemical wastes you produce and how you return them to the environment. Happy Earth Week!

Check out our latest E-News for ways you can contribute this year for Earth Day PLUS download a cool at home experiment – Compost in a Cup!

April E-News – Celebrate Planet Earth

Learn More about Earth Day here…

Earth Day Network

After school enrichment

High Touch High Tech is providing a wonderful after school enrichment program at Carolina Day School. Students participate in many different activities and continue to grow and learn for an hour after their regular school day once a week. Every student has their very own cool science name and also something neat to take home to show what they learned that day!