Tea Drinkers Listen Up – Drink the Real Thing!

If you love tea, you’ll want to hear about this research.  Researchers at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society revealed that bottled tea contains low levels of antioxidants and polyphenols compared to brewed tea.  Shiming Li, PhD. Reported on the research carried out by Professor Chi-Tang Ho when he explained, “There is a huge gap between the perception that tea consumption is healthy and the actual amount of the healthful nutrients found in bottled tea beverages.”

They pointed out, as well, that bottled teas don’t only lack the healthy ingredients that tea drinkers are looking for, but that they are often full of sugar as well. The researchers found that, while a regular tea bag may contain up to 175 milligrams of polyphenols, most highly-rated bottled teas contain less than half that amount.

The Puzzling Past of Sudoku

Do you enjoy doing puzzles? How about number puzzles? A recently invented number puzzle, based on logical deduction, has taken the world by storm, and that is Sudoku. In case you are one of the last hold-outs on earth not in the know about what a Sudoku puzzle is, just imagine a square composed of nine boxes, and within each of those nine boxes were nine smaller boxes, or cells. So what you have is a nine-cell by nine-cell square, in which you must place the digits 1 through 9, never repeating a digit with a line across, a column down, or one of the nine larger squares. They range in difficulty from strikingly simple to devastatingly difficult, requiring deductive reasoning to solve, rather than any kind of math skills. No adding or subtracting required.

The earliest number puzzles made their appearance in newspapers towards the end of the 19th century. One such puzzle was constructed from taking magic squares and removing some of the numbers from them. Solvers were required to discover the correct numbers which had been removed. This is different than Sudoku because it required adding to find the solution and frequently double digit numbers were involved. On November 19, 1892 a Paris newspaper published a partly finished 9×9 magic square containing 3×3 sub-squares.  Although it was not a true Sudoku, it still had the same key characteristic that each row and column added up to the same number.


Three years later a competing newspaper in Paris refined this puzzle’s design until it became indistinguishable from today’s modern Sudoku. Only the number 1-9 were used, and each sub-square had the same constraints of containing each digit only once. This puzzle continued to appear in this newspaper for about ten years, until its disappearance around the beginning of the outbreak of World War One.

Sleeping Well

Insomnia is a common problem among students.  This is even more so, at the beginning of your college career since you have no doubt undergone a huge change of pace and environment.  Still, there is no need to panic since there are many ways of dealing with this.  More importantly, there are many very healthy ways of dealing with this that should sort out the problem in no time at all.  First of all, never resort to drugs.  That is always a bad idea.  Sleeping pills are only meant to be used in very specific short-term temporary emergency situations such as when one is grieving and even then one need to consult a medical expert.  So what else can be done with regular insomnia?  Here are some basic tips:
a)    Get into a relaxing pre-bedtime routine
b)    Stop drinking caffeine at least 5 hours before you want to fall asleep
c)    If you are likely to be buzzing all night with worries, make sure you take a pen and paper and write a list of all the things you want to deal with TOMORROW and then put it away
d)    Take a bath
e)    Have a warm milky drink

f)    Turn off the phone
g)    Turn off the TV
h)    Make peace with loved ones.
All of these small tips are very easy to implement and can really make a difference to your entire sleep pattern.  It might seem like a hassle at first, but within no time at all you will come to look forward to your bedtime routine as you see how much it benefits the quality of your overall sleep.

Citations for SeaWorld After Trainer Dies

SeaWorld has recently been fined $75,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health administration for three specific violations after an animal trainer was killed in February of 2010.  SeaWorld denies what it called “unfounded” allegations by the U.S. Department of Labor agency and they plan to contest the citations.

This past February, a 12,000 pound killer whale at the Orlando, Florida SeaWorld pulled trainer Dawn Brancheau, 20, underwater and killed her as park visitors were watching.  AS the OSHA statement said, “SeaWorld trainers had an extensive history of unexpected and potentially dangerous incidents involving killer whales at its various facilities, including its location in Orlando. Despite this record, management failed to make meaningful changes to improve the safety of the work environment for its employees.”

Have You Ever Wondered “What Global Warming Is?”

We hear a lot about global warming these days. But really, what is it? Put simply, since the middle of the 20th century scientists and researchers noticed a definite increase in the average temperature near the surface of the earth, namely in the oceans and in the air near the surface of the planet.  This temperature increase is believed to be caused by burning of large amounts of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil. Upon burning fossil fuels release gasses into the atmosphere. These gasses are called ‘greenhouse gasses’ because they have a similar effect on earth as a greenhouse has, namely the gasses trap the radiant heat from the sun close to the surface of the earth, making it difficult for the extra heat to escape.

Deforestation, the cutting down of trees, contributes to the effects of global warming. Living trees and other vegetation remove carbon from the atmosphere, (carbon dioxide) and release oxygen through the process of photosynthesis, a crucial part of the earth’s healthy functioning. The fewer trees the more carbon remains in the atmosphere, a major component of greenhouse gasses.

It is feared that as a result of continued global warming the sea level will rise and weather patterns will change, creating more extreme weather conditions, and perhaps contributing to the extinction of more vulnerable species, and unknown changes in agricultural yields.

Many of the effects of global warming are still uncertain, but international efforts are being made to try and stop and even reverse the global warming trend as a prudent measure of caution.

Picking a Watermelon Can Be Like Picking a Friend

Like relationships, watermelons do not come with guarantees. Nevertheless just as we jump into new friendships or romances despite previous disappointments, so too do we continue to bring home watermelons in the hope that this one will be the one. And just like with friendships and romances there are ways of increasing the chance of picking one that will bring us a positive experience, there are also several simple things you can do to help increase your chances of this watermelon being the perfect taste experience that you know a watermelon can be.

We’ve all heard the one about tapping on the outside of the watermelon and listening for something or other to help us choose. Thumping the watermelon is controversial; not everyone believes it works, while many swear by it. So all I can say is give it a try. Hold the watermelon a bit away from your body and give it few good raps with your knuckles. Try and detect a not-too-deep sound, perhaps more of a tenor voice than a bass. A too deep sound can either mean that the watermelon has too much water and is not completely ripe yet, or that the center has separated and formed into chunks. This condition, called ‘hollow heart,’ can be caused by improper fertilization or by the farmer trying to speed up the ripening process with too much fertilizer and water.

Check out the outer look of the watermelon. Dull is better than shiny, and the shape should be symmetrical and uniform. Strange curves and bumps could mean an uneven watering schedule or not a consistent exposure to the sun’s rays.


Watermelons should have a creamy patch on their surface, which is the place where the watermelon was touching the ground as it grew. The deeper the color means the longer the fruit stayed on the vine, slowly developing its characteristically sweet taste.  A yellow patch is better than a white patch, and a white patch is better than no patch at all.

You can also tell if a watermelon will be good by its weight-to-size ratio. The heavier the melon feels as compared to its size, the better. Check out a few watermelons of the same dimensions, and pick the heaviest among them. Hopefully with all these tips you will be able to bring home the perfect friend, I mean watermelon, which with a little luck and a bit of effort, won’t have a ‘hollow heart.’