I’d been Hospitalized- I thought it’s just an Injection

I was hospitalized last Tuesday because of severe abdominal and stomach pain, I even puked quite a number of times.  In my entire  adulthood life I’d been hospitalized only once before this incident occurred. At first, I just did some self-medication, I’m the kind of person that if I could still tolerate the pain and still deal with it, I’ll do it on my own however after a few hours I feel that I’m getting worst, I decided to call my assistant and  see a doctor.  You’ll never really know until you have it.

The findings quoting exactly what my Chinese Doctor who specializes in Internal Medicine said ” intestinal toxin” or should I say food poisoning.

He prescribed that I should have an injection to remove the toxins out of my system.  At that moment I thought okay I will just have an INJECTION, thinking that the syringe will just hurt a little like an ant’s bite, in Filipino Language  “parang kagat lang ng langgam“. Surprisingly,  it’s not just a simple injection it’s IV (“intravenous”) and four bags of medicines should flow thru my vein.

I am quite scared, it may sound funny or over-acting that a 30-year old adult like me was acting like a child when the nurse did put the syringe.

But I’m just being me. I thought it’s just an Injection, I’m afraid of IV.

So I felt like posting it here, what is “intravenous“. It  is quite properly an adjective. In this guise, it entered the English language around 1849. It means, according to Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, “situated, performed, or occurring within or entering by way of a vein.”

Some examples of the use of “intravenous” as an adjective:

• Intravenous antibiotics refer to the administration into the venous circulation of a solution containing antibiotics;
• Intravenous immunoglobulin is a sterile solution of concentrated antibodies extracted from healthy people given straight into a vein;
• An intravenous injection is just that: the giving of something such as drugs into a vein through a syringe.

The accompanying adverb is “intravenously”, as in: “The glucose was given intravenously.”

In more recent years, the word “intravenous” has taken on a second role: as a noun. Thus, “an intravenous” refers to an intravenous fluid drip, a solution (usually a balanced electrolyte solution) administered directly into the venous circulation. Also called a drip.

Above all, I thank God . I’m at home now and just taking some medications. I’m experiencing the effect of the medicine that’s been given to me ’cause every now and then I need to go to the restroom and you may already have the idea what will I do next. Restroom is now my sanctuary( laughing out loud).

Thanks to the doctor and nurses who helped me, my assistant Shanna who patiently stayed with me the whole time I’m at the hospital and assisted me with all my needs. Shawn, our college department director, who made sure that everything that concerns about me is being well taken care of. My family, friends and students who’d been so sweet on checking my condition. I am not trying to make  a big deal out of it, I’m just so thankful and grateful to all the people that God has blessed me especially in situations like this.

It gives me enormous joy that I have them in my life.  Thank you.

Interesting Facts – A snail can sleep for three years… How about a human being?

20 Interesting Facts

1. A zebra is white with black stripes.

2. All the planets in our solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

3. Hummingbirds are the only animal that can also fly backwards.

4. Insects do not make noises with their voices. The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapidly moving their wings.

5. The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs covering a meter a second.

6. The word “listen” contains the same letters as the word “silent”.

7. The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it’s head are the rabbit and the parrot.

8. A ‘jiffy’ is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

9. India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

10. The whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.

11. A hippopotamus can run faster than a man.

12. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

13. ‘Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia’ is the fear of long words.

14. Didaskaleinophobia is the fear of going to school.

15. A snail can sleep for 3 years.

16. The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start.

17. In 1883 the explosion of the volcano Krakatau put so much dust into the earth’s atmosphere that sunsets appeared green and the moon appeared blue around the world for almost two years.

18. “Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

19. Twenty-Four-Karat Gold is not pure gold since there is a small amount of copper in it. Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.

20. Electricity doesn’t move through a wire but through a field around the wire.

The World Of Touch Screens

Touchscreens That Changed the World

I just came back from our awesome trip at the World Expo and from that trip I’ve seen a lot of exhibitions  showcasing the culture, architecture and the latest in technology from different countries, it’s amazing how technology changes the lives of people, changes the nation, changes the world. A  lot of the international pavilions used touch screens to display and show what they’ve got. Main attractions are well worth seeing, new technologies for urban living.

Touchscreens are everywhere we look these days, but they’ve actually been around for a lot longer than you might think. Join us on a tour through nearly four decades of touchscreen devices that changed the world…

 

1972 PLATO IV

One of the first ways touchscreens were deployed was for the PLATO project, originally built by the University of Illinois as a computer-based education system. In 1972, the $12,000 PLATO IV system was put into operation. The system had an orange plasma display and a 16 x 16 infrared touchscreen. For the first time ever, students were able to answer questions by touching a screen.

 

1983 HP-150

Released in 1983, the HP-150 was the world’s earliest commercial touchscreen computer. Its 9-inch Sony CRT was surrounded by infrared transmitters and receivers that detected the position of any non-transparent object on the screen. The small holes that housed these parts collected dust and had to be vacuumed periodically to maintain touchscreen functionality.

 

1985 Home Manager

Perhaps influenced by HP, Unity Systems was formed the same year HP released the HP-150. The company sought to create the world’s first touchscreen-based home automation system. Unity Systems’ Home Manager was introduced in 1985 and was produced by the company until 1999. Service is still available to the nearly 6,000 systems that remain in operation today. Amazing!

 

1989 GRiDPAD

GRiD was a pioneer in mobile computing, and many of the technologies in today’s notebooks, tablets, and handhelds would not exist had it not been for them. In 1989, GRiD introduced the world’s first pen-based handheld, the GRiDPAD. It measured 9 x 12 x 1.4 inches and weighed 4.5 pounds. Text was entered directly on the screen with an electronic pen. The procedure was slow, taking one to two seconds for written characters to be redisplayed as computer-generated characters.

 

1992 Simon

The IBM Simon was the world’s first smartphone. Though launched in 1993, the Simon was first shown as a product concept in 1992. It included a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, and games. The Simon used a touchscreen and optional stylus to dial phone numbers, send faxes and write memos. Text could be entered with either an on-screen “predictive” keyboard or QWERTY keyboard.

 

1993 Newton

Manufactured by Sharp, the Apple Newton MessagePad was one of the first-ever Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) — a term coined by Apple’s then-CEO John Sculley. Its built-in handwriting recognition was the Newton’s most unique and interesting ability. The handwriting-recognition technology was ultimately ported to Mac OS X, where it’s known as “Inkwell.” It hasn’t really taken off there, either. Two ex-Newton developers founded Pixo, the company that created the operating system for the original iPod.

 

1996 Pilot

Pilot was the name of the first generation of PDAs manufactured by Palm Computing in 1996 (then a division of U.S. Robotics). A trademark infringement lawsuit by Pilot Pen Corporation forced them to change the name to Palm Connected Organizers, but not before “PalmPilot” had entered the vernacular as a synonym for PDA, regardless of the brand. Rather than recognizing handwriting, the Pilot used Graffiti, a single-stroke shorthand written by Palm that was efficient and easy to learn.

 

1999 Edge

Introduced to the market in 1999, the Sequoia Voting Systems’ AVC Edge touchscreen voting machine is a freestanding unit that allow voters to select their choices electronically. It was first used in the 2000 presidential election. It can be placed on a tabletop or assembled as a stand with its integrated legs. The AVC Edge eliminates hanging chads, thereby reducing the number of unintentionally spoiled ballots. After the polls close, the system prints polling place totals. These are stored as a permanent record –- further assuring the security and integrity of the election.

 

2004 DS

The Nintendo DS (which stands for dual-screen) released in 2004, is the first touchscreen handheld gaming system. The clamshell design has two LCD screens inside — with the bottom one sensitive to touch. The touchscreen allows users to interact with in-game elements more directly than by pressing buttons. For example, in the included chatting software, PictoChat, a stylus is used to write messages or draw.

 

2007 iPhone

Apple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007, nearly 15 years after the IBM Simon was first shown. I was the first smartphone to bring many, now standard, technologies to the industry — including multi-touch gestures, full Web browsing, and an accelerometer to flip the screen’s orientation or act as another form of input. And while the iPhone wasn’t the first to allow 3rd-party applications, Apple made purchasing and installing the apps so easy and consumer friendly that 1 billion of them were downloaded int he first nine months.

 

2007 Surface

In 2007, Microsoft announced Surface, a table computer that uses multi-touch technology to allow several users, using their fingers (up to 52), to simultaneously manipulate images and other data right on the screen. It can also sense and interact with objects like cameras, phones, water glasses, and even paintbrushes that are placed on top of it. A similar concept was used in the 2002 movie “Minority Report” In the commentary section of the DVD, director Steven Spielberg says that the idea came from a consultation with Microsoft during the making of the movie.

 

2010 iPad

Apple’s iPad promises to bridge the gap between laptops and smartphones. A machine designed to handle browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, and eBooks better than any laptop or smartphone on their own. And with an available keyboard dock and plenty of apps just a touch away, the iPad will also serve a market of non-technical and new computer users. The iPad may prove to do for touchscreen tablets what Apple did for smartphones with the release of the iPhone.

As Busy as a Bee … would you dare to try it?

Museum promotes knowledge of bees

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-10-04 16:03

Tourists wearing masks pose for photos with a man covered with bees at the Huaxia Bee Museum in Xiangfan, Central China’s Hubei province, Oct 3, 2010. [Photo/CFP]

A worker (R) entices bees to hang on to men sitting still at the Huaxia Bee Museum in Xiangfan, Central China’s Hubei province, Oct 3, 2010. The museum organized the activity to promote knowledge of bees, honey-making and the health benefits of honey for visiting tourists during the National Day holiday. [Photo/CFP]

A man covers himself with bees at the Huaxia Bee Museum in Xiangfan, Central China’s Hubei province, Oct 3, 2010. [Photo/CFP]

Are We Alone?

I’ve been reading the Yahoo News – Science and this definitely got my attention, interesting.

The question is “Are we alone?”.

Could ‘Goldilocks’ planet be just right for life?

AP Photo/Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation

An artist rendering by Lynette Cook, National Science Foundation, shows the new planet on the right. More photos »

by SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Wed Sep 29, 7:19 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right.

Not too far from its star, not too close. So it could contain liquid water. The planet itself is neither too big nor too small for the proper surface, gravity and atmosphere.

It’s just right. Just like Earth.

“This really is the first Goldilocks planet,” said co-discoverer R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

The new planet sits smack in the middle of what astronomers refer to as the habitable zone, unlike any of the nearly 500 other planets astronomers have found outside our solar system. And it is in our galactic neighborhood, suggesting that plenty of Earth-like planets circle other stars.

Finding a planet that could potentially support life is a major step toward answering the timeless question: Are we alone?

Scientists have jumped the gun before on proclaiming that planets outside our solar system were habitable only to have them turn out to be not quite so conducive to life. But this one is so clearly in the right zone that five outside astronomers told The Associated Press it seems to be the real thing.

“This is the first one I’m truly excited about,” said Penn State University’s Jim Kasting. He said this planet is a “pretty prime candidate” for harboring life.

Life on other planets doesn’t mean E.T. Even a simple single-cell bacteria or the equivalent of shower mold would shake perceptions about the uniqueness of life on Earth.

But there are still many unanswered questions about this strange planet. It is about three times the mass of Earth, slightly larger in width and much closer to its star — 14 million miles away versus 93 million. It’s so close to its version of the sun that it orbits every 37 days. And it doesn’t rotate much, so one side is almost always bright, the other dark.

Temperatures can be as hot as 160 degrees or as frigid as 25 degrees below zero, but in between — in the land of constant sunrise — it would be “shirt-sleeve weather,” said co-discoverer Steven Vogt of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

It’s unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, Vogt believes “that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent.”

The astronomers’ findings are being published in Astrophysical Journal and were announced by the National Science Foundation on Wednesday.

The planet circles a star called Gliese 581. It’s about 120 trillion miles away, so it would take several generations for a spaceship to get there. It may seem like a long distance, but in the scheme of the vast universe, this planet is “like right in our face, right next door to us,” Vogt said in an interview.

That close proximity and the way it was found so early in astronomers’ search for habitable planets hints to scientists that planets like Earth are probably not that rare.

Vogt and Butler ran some calculations, with giant fudge factors built in, and figured that as much as one out of five to 10 stars in the universe have planets that are Earth-sized and in the habitable zone.

With an estimated 200 billion stars in the universe, that means maybe 40 billion planets that have the potential for life, Vogt said. However, Ohio State University’s Scott Gaudi cautioned that is too speculative about how common these planets are.

Vogt and Butler used ground-based telescopes to track the star’s precise movements over 11 years and watch for wobbles that indicate planets are circling it. The newly discovered planet is actually the sixth found circling Gliese 581. Two looked promising for habitability for a while, another turned out to be too hot and the fifth is likely too cold. This sixth one bracketed right in the sweet spot in between, Vogt said.

With the star designated “a,” its sixth planet is called Gliese 581g.

“It’s not a very interesting name and it’s a beautiful planet,” Vogt said. Unofficially, he’s named it after his wife: “I call it Zarmina’s World.”

The star Gliese 581 is a dwarf, about one-third the strength of our sun. Because of that, it can’t be seen without a telescope from Earth, although it is in the Libra constellation, Vogt said.

But if you were standing on this new planet, you could easily see our sun, Butler said.

The low-energy dwarf star will live on for billions of years, much longer than our sun, he said. And that just increases the likelihood of life developing on the planet, the discoverers said.

“It’s pretty hard to stop life once you give it the right conditions,” Vogt said.

___

Online:

The National Science Foundation: http://www.nsf.gov

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/gliese_581_feature.html