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Fighting malaria with one hand tied back

February 3, 2012

Mosquitos on a net 007 Fighting malaria with one hand tied back

It’s more often than not that mortality figures are under-estimated or lower than reported…are you really surprise? Malaria is a serious disease…  No matter how strong you may think you are…your immunity to malaria may not be enough to succumb to the disease. How long will the insecticides to effective in keeping the populations of mosquitoes at bay?….well until they develop a resistance to the chemicals we are using…..there’s got to be a more natural approach in curbing the over-population of these blood sucking critters..! Any ideas out there…share it with us…

http://www.yepod.com/?p=31177

Pass it on,

Dr Anthony

Yepod.com  


poweredbyguardianREV Fighting malaria with one hand tied backThis article titled “Fighting malaria with one hand tied back” was written by Sarah Boseley, health editor, for The Guardian on Friday 3rd February 2012 06.29 UTC

Decades of assumptions about the lethality of malaria have been overturned by the publication of a paper in the Lancet from an academic institute in Seattle which says the disease kills twice as many as everybody thought. Even more extraordinary – it would seem that conventional wisdom about the disease has been wrong all this time.

It does not just kill babies and children under five — it kills adults too, in nearly as large proportions.

The Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation has astounded the global health community by claiming it has been fighting malaria apparently with one hand behind its back. The death toll has come down since 2004, thanks to huge efforts to get insecticide-impregnated bednets to households and treat those who are sick with better drugs, but all the while an older age group has been neglected.

“These are certainly results which surprised us when we first did the analysis,” said Steve Lim, one of the authors of the Lancet paper. “It is new to what is taught in public health and medical school, which is that when kids are exposed to malaria at a very young age, it conveys immunity.”

Only last year the World Malaria Report gave mortality figures which are half those the institute has found – 655,000 deaths compared to 1.2 million. It is an extraordinary gulf and there will be lots of debate about the statistical methods used by the Seattle team.

But the institute has form. This is part of a five-year project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to obtain the best possible data for the toll of death and disease from vario

Diary of a window box garden: The urban grower as activist

February 3, 2012

The restored Grow Heathro 007 Diary of a window box garden: The urban grower as activist

If  you are looking for a nice hobby…why not try gardening…it’s fun to start out with a window box garden of herbs …great to have fresh herbs on hand for cooking…perhaps you think your thumb is not green enough, like anything…through practice and help from others…you can achieve good results…nurseries like Roots and Shoots operated and owned by Janet Baiardi in the state of Maine, are always available for consultation. 

http://www.yepod.com/?p=31013

Pass it on,

Dr Anthony

Yepod.com


poweredbyguardianREV Diary of a window box garden: The urban grower as activistThis article titled “Diary of a window box garden: The urban grower as activist” was written by Helen Babbs, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 2nd February 2012 11.18 UTC

All is still quiet in the world of the window boxes and, in a 90cm x 12cm place where nothing much happens, it’s tempting to start thinking big. Peering at my plants through the bathroom window, I’ve started wondering what it’s all about. Is a decision to grow things on the ledge of a building I will never call my own, in the chaos that is Holloway, about more than decoration? Is urban growing a kind of activism?

Let’s focus on food. An edible window box isn’t going to change the world but it could be part of a wider movement that just might. The minute you start growing your own, no matter how small the scale, you become aware of others who are doing the same. Some urban growers are protesting with their produce – a positive kind of protest that explores alternative ways of living and working.

Grow Heathrow has returned a derelict market garden back to its former productive glory, while challenging stereotypes about squatting and highlighting environmental issues. I ask William Ronan from the project if he sees urban growing as activism. “The way in which we meet our basic need to feed ourselves is deeply political, and political movements have a rich history in making food a focus of their organising.”

“Instead of lobbying power-holders through methods like petitions, marching and media stunts, urban food growing puts political power in the hands of the community. We remove our reliance on food systems that destroy eco-systems, manipulate workers and enrich the bank balances of corporation shareholders. We don’t have to eat vegetables tainted with chemicals, air miles and poverty wages.”

In Hackney, Growing Communities actively challenges agribusiness and supermarket dominance by growing tonnes of inner city salad and promoting community led trade. Kerry Rankine from the social enterprise says urban growing “concentrates people’s minds on how much effort goes into producing the food we all take for granted. For many, it’s a way to start thinking about alternatives”.

While Kerry thinks small-scale growing can be a form of activism, she believes as a means of creating change it’s not a great lever by itself. Urban growing is part of wider changes that need to be made, including supporting small farmers around cities and mentoring new growers.

So what would an activist’s window box look like, if William and Kerry were pushed to indulge me? It would be sown with rare varieties not sold by mainstream companies, and with locally sourced seed. An activist grower would reject the often sterile F1 Hybrid seed that’s wiping out old varieties of veg.

Kerry and I even think about window box potatoes, specifically the rare 1918 ‘Arran Victory’. It’s an ambitious plan requiring a deep container and a very sturdy ledge, but one that emphasises that experimenting with heritage edibles is a key way to transform a passive box into an active one. Sounds like an excuse for a Seedy Sunday.

Read more of Helen Babbs’ Diary of a window box garden here. Helen is the author of the book My Garden, the City and Me: Rooftop Adventures in the Wilds of London.

 Diary of a window box garden: The urban grower as activist

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

Is the iPad the new cookbook?

February 1, 2012

Following the Epicurious  007 Is the iPad the new cookbook?

Perhaps the iPad will find it’s way into the kitchen…for those looking for an alternative to bringing a traditional cookbook to the kitchen….still it can be a little sticky touching the iPad and working with ingredients for fudge…

http://www.yepod.com/?p=30851

Pass it on,

Dr Anthony

Yepod.com 


poweredbyguardianREV Is the iPad the new cookbook?This article titled “Is the iPad the new cookbook?” was written by Laura Barnett, for The Guardian on Wednesday 1st February 2012 20.00 UTC

My favourite cookbooks show the scars of countless mealtimes: the singed flyleaf from the time I panicked with a hot roasting tray; the dubious gravy stains; the dried fingerprints of flour from that ill-fated Victoria sponge.

So how practical is it to use recipes on cookery apps? Can a phone or iPad cope with the splatters of the kitchen? And how do you scroll to the next stage of a recipe when your hands are covered in flour or lemon juice or potato peelings?

First, I try out Epicurious, the app attached to the popular American foodie website. With more then 30,000 recipes, it’s much more comprehensive than the average book, and it’s free (though it costs £1.49 to sync the app with recipes you may have stored on the site). It’s easy to navigate: there’s an index featuring everything from “weekend brunch” to “bubbly cocktails”, and useful graded sections labelled “I can barely cook” and “I cook like a pro”. There’s also a nifty “shopping list” function: select a recipe, and the app imports the ingredients into a list, which you can then tick off as you go round a shop.

Many of the recipes sound exotically American (savoury pumpkin pie soup with cinnamon marshmallows, pepita streusel and whipped crème fraiche) or Hispanic (salmorejo; tacos al pastor). The measures, too, are all US-style – cups, 15-ounce cans – so when I do finally select a recipe (butternut squash and cannellini soup with bacon) and get cooking, I waste a good while frantically Googling the conversions.

I’ll blame this – as well as the fact that my phone keeps going to sleep, meaning I’m forever jabbing at the screen with squash-covered fingers – for the fact that I put in double the correct quantity of chicken stock, and the soup bubbles out all over the hob.

I fare better the next day with a British-designed app, Dishy (priced at £2.99). It has only 95 recipes, but you can search by course, ingredient, time or dietary requirements; there’s a shopping list tool; and the step-by-step guides are easy to follow. I make a rustic sausage casserole for dinner; not only is it delicious, but a built-in countdown timer ensures that I fry the sausages for exactly the right time. Best of all, the app somehow manages to override my phone’s sleep function, so I don’t keep having to rinse my hands to avoid slathering the screen with gunk.

Day three is the turn of Great British Chefs (also £2.49), a much-praised app featuring around 180 recipes devised by Michelin-starred chefs such as Marcus Wareing, Nuno Mendes and Tom Aikens. It looks fabulous – lots of sumptuous photography – but most of the recipes are pitched far above my basic skill level and budget (since when were cheese beignets and a burrata, pea, grapefruit, caviar and leek salad classed as “easy”?).

But Daniel Clifford’s cheese scones sound good, so I have a go; the method is easy enough, and there’s a handy voice-activation tool, so you can shout at your phone rather than cover it with sticky dough. The scones turn out almost perfect.

Last I try another British chef known for keeping things simple. Jamie Oliver has a number of apps out. I go for Jamie’s 20 Minute Meals. At £4.99, it’s pricey, but it’s well-designed and simple, and the videos are definitely pitched more at my level. The pea and prawn risotto recipe makes an easy and delicious weekday lunch (though it takes me a lot longer than 20 minutes). But there’s no voice activation, so I’m back to having to wash my hands every few minutes to scroll to the next stage.

 Is the iPad the new cookbook?

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

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