Good website http://www.ted.com/

http://www.ted.com/

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 100 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Please visit http://www.ted.com/ for more details.

Macrobiotic diet helped heal rare blood disorder

As part of the diet overhaul, Mr Michael Low gave up hawker food and stopped eating out altogether.

For breakfast, he ate brown rice porridge or whole wheat noodles.

Lunch was brown rice and different types of vegetables and dinner was more brown rice with miso soup and different vegetables.

He ate no snacks and drinks included water and green tea.

According to the “Mind Your Body” of the Straits Times of 20/6/2007, Mr Michael Low said the above macrobiotic diet from 2004 to mid 2005 had helped him recover from a rare blood disorder called Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) also known as pre-leukaemia he was diagnosed with about 4 years ago.

During the said period he was also under medical treatment.

He has changed his line of work and now runs an organic store in Hougang.

He also gives cooking demonstrations to people interested in learning about eating healthier.

'I'm convinced this diet helped me recover and I want to help others who may benefit from it,' he said.

As You Travel Through Life….

As you travel through life there are always those times
When decisions just have to be made
When the choices are hard, and solutions seem scarce
And the rain seems to soak your parade

There are some situations where all you can do
Is simply let go and move on
Gather your courage and choose a direction
That carries you toward a new dawn

So pack up your troubles and take a step forward
The process of change can be tough
But think about all the excitement ahead

There might be adventures you never imagined
Just waiting around the next bend
And wishes and dreams just about to come true
In ways you can't yet comprehend

Perhaps you'll find friendships that spring from new things
As you challenge your status quo
And learn there are so many options in life

Perhaps you'll go places you never expected
And see things that you've never seen
Or travel to fabulous, faraway worlds And wonderful spots in between

Perhaps you'll find warmth and affection and caring
And somebody special who's there
To help you stay cantered and listen with interest
To stories and feelings you share

Perhaps you'll find comfort in knowing your friends
Are supportive of all that you do
And believe that whatever decisions you make
They'll be the right choices for you

So keep putting one foot in front of the other
And taking your life day by day
There's a brighter tomorrow that's just down the road
Don't look back
You're not going that way!

---- By Author Unknown

Exercise increases good cholesterol

HDL or 'good cholesterol' can protect you from heart disease.

A new study shows that you can boost your HDL naturally by exercising for at least two hours each week.

In an analysis of 25 randomised controlled trials, researchers at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo found that people who exercise increased their HDL cholesterol by a modest but significant 2.53 mg/dL, which equates to roughly a 5 per cent drop in heart disease risk for men and a nearly 8 per cent reduction for women.

The researchers also found that it did not matter how intense the exercise was, or how frequently the people exercised.

It was more important to exercise consistently. However, the length of an exercise session did matter.

For every 10 minutes longer a workout session lasted, there was an additional 1.4 mg/dL rise in good cholesterol.

The researchers also found that exercise had the greatest effect in increasing HDL cholesterol in people with body mass indexes less than 28 and those who had total cholesterol levels of 220 mg/dL or greater.

While the effect of exercise identified in the study is likely smaller than that seen with HDL-boosting medications, including niacin and fibrates, the effect 'is potentially of substantial importance to public health,' the authors concluded.

Source: REUTERS/Straits Times Mindind your body dated 6/6/07

Universities = Country Clubs ?

In a commentary published in The Independent last year, Mr Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics (LSE), recounted how he had asked former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers for his view on remote campuses.

Professor Summers replied with a question: 'Why is it that, in the United States, health clubs are typically franchised operations, while country clubs are not?'

He then supplied the answer: 'Customers go to health clubs for the equipment, but to country clubs for the people they hope to meet.'

Universities, he concluded, are country clubs, not health clubs.

Reflecting on this, Mr Davies decided that it would not be easy to replicate LSE's London campus because 'a community of scholars cannot be uprooted and transplanted or replicated at will'.

I wonder how many university vice-chancellors and presidents still regard their institutions as, essentially, communities of scholars?

That was after all the original meaning of the term 'university', derived from the Latin phrase 'universitas magistrorum et scholarium', roughly meaning 'community of masters and scholars'.

Here, the word 'scholars' does not mean 'experts or scholarship holders' but simply 'those who learn, from the masters or teachers'.

So the earliest sense of a university was as a community of people who teach and learn. It was this community that made a university, not the soaring towers, ivory or otherwise, which adorned some campuses.

And those who went to universities went not for the equipment, but for the people they hoped to learn from and with.

----- The above is part of the article "When students are no longer a uni's top priority" by Lydia Lim in the Straits Times dated 1 June 2007.