Blog Marco

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.

This is freaky. Imagine sneezing and your eyeball falls out.

Not all popped eyeballs come from head trauma. A few people can luxate their globes on purpose, and certain others get "spontaneous globe luxation" when their eyelids are pushed in the right way. Someone with shallow eye sockets or floppy eyelid syndrome, for example, might pop his eyeballs during a regular eye exam. You can also trigger luxation while putting in your contact lenses, or with a particularly violent sneeze. You might even pop your eyeballs by trying to exhale while keeping your nose and mouth closed.

Find out more...

A new Australian study by researchers at the Ear Science Institute of Australia have found that clubbers are damaging their hearing as if they were spending five hours in a room with a lawnmower. The average sound level was found to be the same as the noise from a lawn mower or a circular saw - 95 decibels. Marcus Atlas, the institute director said that interviews with more than 300 clubbers found that the average person spent more than five hours listening at that volume. The director also noted that the findings showed a lack of awareness among young people and reinforced a new and concerning trend. "This research supports what we are seeing - younger people in Australia and overseas are now requiring hearing aids much earlier in life as a result of hearing loss caused through listening to loud music." iPods can also blare out music up to 100 decibels. "We can only give them hearing aids and help prevent further loss."

So you've done City2Surf what other health and fitness events are run in Sydney? Well there's that Half marathon and that annual 7km bridge run... but here's another one: the Spring Cycle run by Bicycle NSW. I was actually doing it to raise money for my mission trip to build houses for the poor and unfortunate in the Philippines next year. (BTW: thanks to all my supporters, all my friends, family and godparents.) I know that the Spring Cycle is not a race... but I managed to complete the bicycle ride in 2 hours 47 minutes (the cycle computer stops counting trip duration if the bike is stationery for sometime - so my brief rest periods were not counted)... and according to my odometer the ride was actually 50.8km's (!) It's either the race is 800 metres longer than it claims ot be or I didn't calibrate the computer and the measurement has an error of 1.6% (That's statistically acceptable isn't it?!) I was really exhausted after the ride although surprised that I wasn't as cramped and sore as I expected to be the next day. I guess, cycling is such a low impact activity, it doesn't really damage your joints and muscles as much as running. The Sydney Spring Cycle was a fun bike ride and I wouldn't mind doing it again next year... [inset photo: Sydney Spring Cycle 2006; cycling across the Sydney Harbour Bridge]

As you would or would not know - I am going to participate in the GKYGAT in early 2007. What is the GKYGAT? Well all can be answered in my previous post... I'm going to be participating in the Sydney Spring Cycle this Sunday. The Spring Cycle is a 50km bike ride (its not a race) from North Sydney to Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush. That's my Giant 840 Mountain Bike (MTB) in the photo above which would hopefully make the 50km to Homebush. You can find the map of the event from here. I'm looking for sponsors to support me in raising funds for my mission trip. Here is what my sponsorship form says:

"Participants of the Gawad Kalinga Youth Great Adventure Tour (GKYGAT) would like your support in raising funds for their mission trip in January 2007. GKYGAT is a program run by GK Youth that allows young people to build houses for the homeless and poverty-stricken people in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea."

"Our goal is to raise $2000 in 25 days by gaining YOUR monetary support as we participate in the Sydney Spring Cycle on October 22 2006."

I can't help but be inspired by the Aaron McMillan story. I just watched my recording of the story that aired on "Australian Story" on ABC last week. Aaron McMillan is just a year older than myself - 24 and an accomplished pianist - already having played in the Sydney Opera House and some 300-400 concerts. Aaron was found to have a a brain tumour the size of a cricket ball - "one of the biggest tumours that's ever been found in a living person, at least in the head - that's what I've been told". I was especially moved by what he said at the beginning of the program:

Just as a game, tell yourself that you could be six weeks from the end of your life right now. You could be. Suddenly, a lot of complicated things become very simple. You can forget about all the things that revolve around you and start focusing on the reason you were given this life in the first place. Find what it is that binds you to this life, because we're given the opportunity to work on that every single day, and then one day, suddenly, it can all be taken away.

When you put life in to perspective that way; it really does simplify a lot of things in your life. Then follows all those over used clichés: Life is short. Live life to the fullest. Tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of your life. etc.... etc... Suddenly all those minor worries you have aren't important any more. Reflecting on your life with that frame brings out the real questions like What is the purpose of life? What is your passion?

For some reason a friend of mine raised the interesting fact that Prostitutes were psychologically no better off than war veterans. So I went on a search on the WWW for the source and here it is.

Prostitutes find their work so difficult and dangerous that two-thirds suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers have claimed.

Post traumatic stress disorder is a psychological reaction to extremely stressful events more commonly associated with war veterans, or people who have been involved in serious accidents. The severity of the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by the prostitutes was comparable to that of Vietnam veterans, the researchers said."

So next time you see a prostitute, give them some respect.

Julie Bindel, of the Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK:

"Prostitution is an extremely dangerous thing to do. It involves violence and abuse, and fundamentally effects the woman or child who is prostituted.

"With the hazards that prostitutes have to face daily, I would be extremely shocked if anybody who was involved for any period of time did not show signs of stress disorder."

Ms Bindel said the research was valuable because it demythologised prostitution, and revealed the idea of the "happy hooker" to be nonsense.

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Submitted by Marco on Sat, 07/10/2006 - 7:59pm.

My Grandmother passed away a few years ago and we've decided to sell off some of the medical equipment my family used to take care of her at home. So if you are a home carer or know of some family that needs of equipment like these, please give my Dad a call at (Ramon) 0433 461 379. Of course, if you decide to purchase the goods you'll have to be in Sydney and be able to transport it yourself. So what's for sale?

1 x Wheelchair Commode @ $400
Perfect for use for those who are unable to assist themselves to the toilet. Used and In good condition.

1 x Hospital Medical Bed @ $1,200
Used, and in perfect condition. This hospital medical bed is tiltable for comfort and has roller wheels.