Blog Marco

Today I'm writing about safe ab exercises: I usually don't write much about sports, exercise or fitness on this blog (other than tae kwon do, rockclimbing, cycling and running) so its about time I write about something... I was reading an article on the New York Times Blogs about exercising your abs. The question posed by the article was "Is Your Ab Workout Hurting Your Back?" I remember doing sit-ups in the past and it absolutely hurt my back. Rather than being peer pressured into doing them I chose to sit out of it. The traditional sit-up exercise may be good for the abdominal muscles but dangerous for the back. The article states the dilemma: "But there’s growing dissent among sports scientists about whether all of this attention to the deep abdominal muscles actually gives you a more powerful core and a stronger back and whether it’s evensafe."

Thankfully I've recovered quite quickly from my flu (even more thankful that it wasn't of the swine variety). What is phlegm? Thick, sticky, stringy mucus secreted by the mucous membrane of the respiratory tract, as during a cold or other respiratory infection. What does clear phlegm mean? What does cloudy white phlegm mean? What does yellow phlegm mean? What does green phlegm mean?

Phlegm Colour

Here are the meanings to certain phlegm colours:

• Clear or White Phlegm = healthy; inital stage of common flu has clear phlegm and can be most infectious
• Yellow Phlegm = A sign that your immune system is responding to the attack. It may be a sign of a bacterial infection - hence doctors may prescribe an antibiotic.
• Greenish Phlegm is a sign of infection. Rusty spots may indicate pnuemonia or internal bleedings.
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Submitted by Marco on Thu, 21/05/2009 - 11:05am.

As I succumb to and try to recover from another bout of the influenza virus (no not the swine type - I hope) I wonder: why does the flu tend to come in winter season?

People used to think that catching the flu had something to do with our chill-compromised immune systems. Or the extra germs circulating from so many people being indoors together. But this influenza myth is not true. Flu tends to come in the winter season because the cold and dry conditions help the virus to be stable and stay in the air longer - the droplet particles which contain the virus take longer to evaporate and remain airborne for more extended periods in winter. NPR has an interesting sound bite about where the flu comes from.

I was surfing around and I stumbled on a bunch of Tae Kwon Do (TKD) videos on YouTube. Some comments to some of the videos said that the moves in one step sparring are robotic, not fluid and therefore unrealistic. The commenter also said that "You would never survive in a real fight if you relied on those moves as your defense." And another: "Not good. The practioners are WAY too far apart to make this effective training. In sparring or, God forbid, a real fight, the person will try to attack from too far a distance or have no experience in defending a real attack." When I used to train in TKD - I had the same thoughts in my mind, and so did the other students. We used to joke around about how funny and unrealistic the movements are. But in reality, this exercise trains your overall technique and discipline. One step sparring is done repetitively - and eventually it becomes second nature. So if ever the moment arises that you need to execute a move, you wouldn't even think it - you'll just act out the best move for that circumstance.

With all the news about the swine flu virus ravaging over the world plastered everywhere, I wonder what the difference is between an endemic, epidemic and a pandemic. (By the way, the photo has a random influenza virus illustrated in brown and the cilia from your lungs in blue)

An endemic is an infectious communicable disease (such as colds, influenza, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, pneumonia, smallpox) that exists permanently in a particular region or population. An epidemic occurs when this disease attack "a lot of" people at about the same time and may spread through one or several communities. A pandemic occurs when an epidemic spreads across the world.

The World Health Organisation has raised the pandemic alert level from phase four to phase five, signalling that a pandemic is "imminent". Here are the six different "pandemic influenza phases" defined by the WHO:

Phase 1: A virus circulates among animals but with no cases reported of infections in humans.

Phase 2: An animal flu virus is known to have caused infection in humans, and therefore considered a potential pandemic threat.

After surveying 800 men, a UK Research team have found that if you were sexually active in your 20s and 30s - especially if you masturbate frequently - you were more likely to develop prostate cancer. However if you were older - in your 40s, then frequent or low levels of sexual activity seems to offer protection from prostate cancer. "Men with prostate cancer were also more likely to masturbate frequently than men in the control group, with the greatest difference in the twenties (34% versus 24%) and thirties (41% versus 31%). The differences were less pronounced in their forties (34% versus 28%) and by the fifties the cancer group was slightly lower (25% versus 26%)." From Science Daily

I've had an Aloe Vera plant indoors in my office for a while now. But over the last few months it has been developing some black spots. Normally the Aloe Vera plant is a healthy green plant so I thought it may be a disease or something. So I had a talk with my local gardening shop and found out that the black spots is a consequence of too much love. The spots are a result of the plant holding too much water - and the tissues of the plant have burst. I checked the soil and it was damp - especially near the bottom. So I dried out the soil and hopefully my aloe Vera is on the road to recovery. So I guess - less watering for the Aloe Vera from now on. Or only when the soil is super dry.

A horse is Australia's deadliest animal. Next comes a cow then dogs. Followed by sharks, crocodiles, spiders, emus, cats and fish. These are according to statistics compiled by the National Coroners Information System whereby it shows horses are morst likely to cause a human death. Probably a great reason to discourage your daughter about dreaming to get a horse.

According to the coroner the deadliest animal in Australia is the horse: 128 deaths were recorded to be caused from an animal between 2000 and 2006 and of that 40 human deaths were due to horses. Although, this statistic is slightly flawed because the cause of the deaths were mostly due to the riders falling off and not a direct result of the animal attacking the human. 20 deaths were linked to cows and bulls which was usually caused by a car running into one or swerving to avoiding hitting one.

I remember this being reported some time ago: about scanning machines which can "see" underneath clothing. And now, they've been installed at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York (JFK). "For now, the scans will also be voluntary. Flyers selected for a secondary screening after passing through the metal detectors will have the option of stepping into the wave scanner, rather than undergoing a physical pat-down." I would rather get the pat down instead of having to step into this machine. Who knows what the long term effects are of having been exposed to these waves? Also what about people's privacy? Personally I've been used to pat-downs. While traveling in the Philippines, for years they have already been patting down everyone at the airport (I remember being searched at least four times before I stepped into the aircraft) and they also pat down people when you enter in any of their shopping centres or their public trains (Yep, you get patted down and your belongings looked at before you enter a train station.

I'm a bit of a bicycle enthusiast. I enjoy riding my bike for exercise and leisure. I did the Spring Cycle in Sydney in 2006 and again last year. The Spring Cycle is a 50km public cycling event in Sydney held annually in October riding from North Sydney to Sydney Olympic Park. It's been a while since I gave the bike a clean: especially the most important part of the bicycle: the gears and the chain. So now I have to learn how to lubricate my bicycle chain. And from my research and asking around (thanks to the helpful guys at the bicycle shop Cheeky Transport.)

So what grease do you use to lube a bike chain?

I've got a silversish problem. I need to get rid of the silverfish! They're simply eating up my paper: my notes and my books. It's annoying. So I'm doing a bit research as to how to get rid of these household pests! Of course the first stop is the Wikipedia page for silverfish. Geez, these guys have been around for 300 million years?!

Did you know that between 3 to 13 minutes is the best length of time for sex? How could there be an optimal time for sex? Hang on... there's a "Journal of Sexual Medicine"? "Dr Irwin Goldstein, editor of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, cited a four-week study of 1,500 couples in 2005 that found the median time for sexual intercourse was 7.3 minutes." I wonder if there were any correlations with their ages or eating so called "aphrodisiacs" before having sex...

A survey of sex therapists has concluded the optimal amount of time for sexual intercourse was 3 to 13 minutes.

The findings, to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, strike at the notion that endurance is the key to a great sex life.

Life is about pleasures. Without them, life will be a bore. We all want to live long, but dying is inevitable. There is a new scientific report which says that eating a sausage each day will increase your risk of cancer by 20 percent. That will certainly keep your doctor at bay!

One sausage a day can significantly raise the risk of bowel cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease, experts have warned. Eating 1.8oz (50g) of processed meat a day - the equivalent of one sausage or three rashers of bacon - raises the likelihood of the cancer by a fifth, research shows.

The sobering statistic adds to growing evidence that too much meat in the diet can be deadly. Bowel cancer claims 16,000 lives a year in Britain, with lung cancer the only form of the disease which kills more.

As the web expands with ever more content and information everyday, more and more people are getting addicted to the internet. The majority of US adults feel that they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the web. A survey asked 1,011 American adults how long they would feel OK without going on the web, to which 15 per cent said a just a day or less, 21 per cent said a couple of days and another 19 per cent said a few days. Only a fifth of those who took part in an online survey conducted by advertising agency JWT between September 7 and 11 said they could go for a week. "People told us how anxious, isolated and bored they felt when they are forced off line," said Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, which conducted the survey to see how technology was changing people's behaviour. They felt disconnected from the world, from their friends and family." The found the use of mobile phones and the internet were becoming more and more an essential part of life with 48 per cent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without internet access. More than a quarter of respondents - or 28 per cent - admitted spending less time socialising face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online. It also found that 20 per cent said they spend less time having sex because they are online. We're turning into a world of Internet Addicts.

Women can lose their hair. Of course, you say - that's natural. But what if women are actually speeding up the process and actually contributing to the cause? When girls and young women use ceramic hair curlers especially when they overuse these devices they are actually burning their scalps and maybe causing irreparable and permanent hair damage. The newest trend in current fashion is this "ironed" hair look. There has been medical research showing that hospital emergency departments have had an increase in women coming in with severe burns from the hair irons, which can reach up to 200 degrees. Ceramic hair straighteners have become increasingly popular in recent years, with top-end brands, such as GHD, costing up to $300. in the Emergency Medicine Journal.