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Replenishing Couple..!!

New Year's Day:

The New Year's holiday is all about reflecting on the year that's ending and planning for the year ahead. We gather with new and old friends alike, and make resolutions that may or may not last through January. One great way mankind has found to commemorate New Year's Eve is by writing about the annual holiday, producing quotes like the ones listed below.

QUOTES ABOUT NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

The most popular tradition of New Year's in the United States is that of making resolutions for the year ahead, promising oneself to eat fewer desserts or exercise regularly, only to break that promise a few months later as famously expressed by Helen Fielding in "Bridget Jones's Diary":

"I do think New Year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on New Year's Day, don't you? Since, because it's an extension of New Year's Eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. Also dieting on New Year's Day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. I think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on January the second."

Some, like Andre Gide, also address the idea of resolutions with humor: "But can one still make resolutions when one is over forty? I live according to twenty-year-old habits." Others like Ellen Goodman approach it with a quiet optimism for real change:

"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential."

Mark Twain described these resolutions with an air of contempt multiple times throughout his writing and public speaking career. He once famously wrote, "New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions."

Another time, Twain wrote: "Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever."

Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, took the concept with a grain of salt and wrote about it with humor, "Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."

Facts About Childbirth:

The prototype of the chainsaw we are familiar with today in the timber industry was pioneered in the late 18th century by two Scottish doctors as a surgical tool to aid in the process of difficult childbirth. 

The Aztecs regarded childbirth as a form of battle. Women who died during childbirth were thought to rise to one of the highest heavens, the same one as for male warriors who died in battle.

There is a legend that Athens’ first female physician dressed as a man to help women during childbirth. Male physicians accused her of seducing the women, leading to her appearing in court, where she revealed herself as a female and Athenian law was changed to allow female physicians.

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis dropped the mortality rate for childbirth from 12% to 2% after he insisted doctors wash their hands in between handling cadavers and delivering babies.

Theodore Roosevelt watched his mother die of typhoid fever and then immediately had to go upstairs and see his wife die of complications from childbirth.

The ancient Greeks used the electrogenic properties of electric rays to numb the pain of childbirth and operations.

A woman became paralyzed after her spine was injected with a powerful antiseptic instead of epidural during childbirth.

After childbirth, you can literally kill your wife by going down on her.

For nearly 50 years the Catholic church of Spain stole nearly 300000 newborn babies from families and sold them to Catholic families for adoption. Telling their bio parents the kids died shortly after childbirth.

Some women have orgasms during childbirth.

Research has estimated that up to 95 percent of women can safely give birth without medical interventions.

In 1965, around 8% of childbirths in the black community occurred out-of-wedlock; in 2010 that figure was around 41%. Today around 72% of African-American childbirths are out of wedlock.

An Indian woman gave birth to her baby while using the toilet on a train that emptied directly onto the tracks. She passed out after giving birth, and after she reported what happened, rail workers found the baby alive and unharmed.

Women need to strengthen their pelvic floor after childbirth or they risk urine leaks, flatulence, and even prolapse when they a cough, sneeze, laugh or strain themselves. Even after strengthening urine leaks are common even years after childbirth.

In the US maternal death rate increased from 1990 to 2015. 

African elephants chew specific tree leaves “apparently to induce birth. Kenyan women brew a tea from this tree to induce childbirth.”

So Sweet..!!

DO YOU SEE 4 LINES ON YOUR WRIST?

Palmistry is the art of characterizing and fortune-telling through the reading of palm lines. Bracelet lines in palmistry are considered a part of the minor lines. They appear on the underside of our wrists. The most common number of bracelet lines for the majority of the people is two to three. Very few lucky people have the fourth bracelet line. These lines can have several meanings related to ones’ health, wealth, destiny, prosperity, and fame.

LINE # 1: HEALTH LINE

• The first wrist line is the most important one. It is located nearest to the palm. If this line is clear and deep, without any breaks, chains, or gaps, it means good overall health. If the line is weak, chained, or broken, it may indicate some health problem.
• In women, when the first line bends upwards toward the base of the palm or when it’s broken, it indicates gynecological problems such as difficulty conceiving, irregular or absent periods etc. In males, it signals urinary, hormonal, prostate, or reproductive problems.

LINE # 2: WEALTH LINE

• The 2nd wrist line is used to measure the individual's expectations of wealth. This line tells about your wealth, comfortable prosperity and happiness.
• Ideally, this line should be unbroken without any gaps or chain links. If it’s highly defined or prominent without any gaps or chain links, chances are good that luxury and wealth are in your future. Cracks and breaks are telling of financial hardship.
• If your first line is broken or faint, but the others are distinct, you may overcome problems in your youth for a more successful future.

LINE # 3: SUCCESS LINE

• While most people have at least two lines, not everyone has a third. It relates to the career, success, and fame.
• If your third line is strong and continuous, it says great things about your longevity and it indicates that you will likely have a tremendous influence on the people in your life, both at home and in the workplace. You are a person people will remember.

LINE #4: THE STRENGTH LINE

• The 4th line is the rarest one of all, not many people have this one on their wrist. If you’re one of the lucky few with a fourth line, you can look forward to a long, long life.
• The rare 4th line runs parallel to the 3rd line and is viewed as complementary to it. It also means that the fame and influence aspects associated with the third line are strengthened and fortified even further.
• A visible fourth line indicates a strong social presence and might mean that you’ll have lots and lots of descendants.

I have all the four lines clear and visible. :)

Sleepless Elite:

I am not one among them..!!

Key Vitamins For Health:

We are always scared of vitamin deficiency. How to determine for yourself whether we really do not have enough vitamins. As experts say, our body very seldom lacks only one specific vitamin. As a rule, we need a group of these nutrients.

If a person refuses animal products, usually he has a lack of vitamins A, D, E, and biotin. If there are not enough plants in the diet, there is a deficit of vitamins of C and B groups. An insufficient amount of vitamins leads to the dry and flaky skin.

Sometimes it turns into rough epidermal scales. If you have never had problems with cracked lips, and now they have cracked for no particular reason, then you have beriberi. Acne rashes, sores in the corners of the mouth, inflammations on the skin, unusually large bruises are also signs of a lack of vitamins.

#1. Dandruff can show that you have a lack of fatty acids. Try to eat more fish, at least two-three times a week.

#2. If your hair becomes weak and dull, this is a lack of vitamin B. Eat spinach and asparagus.

#3. Early grey hair can show a lack of copper in your body. Eat mushrooms and oysters.

#4. Cracks on the sides of your mouth show a lack of vitamin B12. Try to eat more red meat and poultry.

#5. If your skin is not smooth anymore, this can be a lack of Zinc and vitamin A. Eat more poultry and cantaloupe.

#6. Your body can absorb vitamins and minerals not well, if there is a lack of stomach acid. You can take some apple cider vinegar.

#7. Chronic fatigue indicates that the level of vitamin D is too low. Add more diary and fish to your diet.

#8. If you get bruises easier than before, this is a lack of vitamin C. Add more citrus fruit to your diet

#9. To avoid muscle pain, add more magnesium and calcium to your diet. Eat more bananas and avocados.

#10. Having problems with your intestines means that you need more magnesium and fiber. Eat more broccoli and apples.

Interesting Facts About Millionaires:

Swedish millionaire Johan Eliasch purchased 400,000 acres of the Amazon Rainforest from a logging company for $14,000,000 for the sole purpose of its preservation.

70% of millionaires do not consider themselves “wealthy”.

 A millionaire announced he would bury his Bentley for his afterlife. After lots of negative reaction, he revealed the publicity stunt about organ donations. “People bury things that are much more valuable than cars and nobody seems to care”.

Millionaire Michael O’Leary, CEO of airline Ryanair, has his own taxicab company with just one cab so he can legally use the bus lanes and avoid traffic jams.

In Finland, speeding tickets are calculated on a percentage of a person’s income. This causes some Finnish millionaires to face fines of over $100,000.

Despite being a millionaire, Steve Jobs only paid $500 a month in child support to his daughter, Lisa. A girl he named a computer after but attempted to deny paternity for.

A banker in a small Florida town encouraged people to buy shares of Coke during the Depression and now the town has “secret Coke millionaires”.

America’s first female self-made millionaire was a black woman.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was already a self-made millionaire at 22 years old before appearing in his first movie. He used what he learned in school to invest his bodybuilding contest winnings in real estate and to market gym equipment and exercise supplements.

George Lucas wants to build affordable housing on his land because ‘we’ve got enough millionaires’.

Microsoft has created an estimated 12,000 millionaires. 

The TV series ‘Frasier’ was very influential on Seattle. Newly wealthy software millionaires asked real-estate agents for apartments with a view of the Space Needle like what Frasier Crane has. The show helped the city’s culture to change from manufacturing and grunge to what it is today.

In 1959, the guy who wrote “Louie, Louie” sold the song’s rights for $750 to pay for his wedding. In the mid-80s, he was living on welfare with his mom in South Central LA, when a lawyer convinced him to take action to get the rights back. He settled out of court and became a millionaire. 

Sarah Rector, a young black girl, became a millionaire at the age of 11 in 1913 when the land she had been deeded under the Dawes Allotment Act produced a ‘gusher’ that brought in 2500 barrels of oil a day.

After a millionaire gave everyone in a Florida neighborhood free college scholarships and free daycare, the crime rate was cut in half and high school graduation rate increased from 25% to 100%.

Singapore has the world’s highest percentage of millionaires, with one out of every six households having at least $1,000,000 US dollars in disposable wealth.

At the time of death, Cornelius Vanderbilt was the world richest man and left an estate larger than the US treasury. When 120 of his descendants gathered in 1973, there was not a millionaire among them.

Donald Trump tried to sue an author for $5,000,000,000 (yes, billion) because the author called him a millionaire instead of a billionaire. 

Around 47% of Chinese millionaires plan to emigrate away from China, an additional 20% are not sure yet. 

Lady Bird Johnson was the first president’s wife to have become a millionaire in her own right before her husband was elected to office. 

If you started with $0.01 and doubled your money every day, it would take 27 days to become a millionaire.

Switzerland has more millionaires than recipients of social assistance.

The Majority of Congressmen are Millionaires.

A Florida millionaire was being sued for a wrongful death resulting from DUI, so he adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend because the court had ruled that the trust set up for his children could not be considered as part of his financial worth.

A kid made a bet with his parents that if he turned 18 and was a millionaire, they wouldn’t force him to go to college. He first invested in Bitcoin at the age of 12 and now holds investments worth over $1 million. He says he won’t be attending college. 

Interesting Facts..!!

Interesting Facts About Fingerprints:

Our fingerprints are developed while we’re still in the womb and are unique based on our movement, location in the womb and composition of our mother’s amniotic fluid.

A death row inmate in Tennessee discovered there were untested fingerprints that had been found at the original crime scene. In a last-ditch effort to prove his innocence, he successfully petitioned a judge to have the tests run. They were found to be his own fingerprints.

A hacker was able to recreate the fingerprint of the German Defense Minister from a photograph. This is the same hacker who defeated Apple’s thumbprint verification within 24 hours of the release of the iPhone 5S.

The Church of Scientology ran several smear campaigns against author Paulette Cooper, one of their critics, including Operation Freakout, the goal of which was to have her admitted to a mental institution. Another, Operation Dynamite, used Cooper’s fingerprints to send bomb threats to the Church. 

A 73-year-old woman bought a painting from a thrift store for $5 only to later discover that thanks to a fingerprint on the canvas, it was actually an unsigned Jackson Pollock worth millions of dollars.

William Herschel 2nd was the first person to use fingerprints on contracts. Also, he was the son of astronomer John Herschel who invented photography, who was also the son of William Herschel discoverer of Uranus among other things. 

Rolls-Royce offers a course called “White Glove Experience” to teach chauffeur’s how to, among other things, minimize fingerprints on door handles and brake the car without kickback. 

In crime-infested Ciudad Juarez Mexico, a city bordering Texas, a forensic expert Alejandro Hernandez uses a secret technique that he created, to rehydrate murdered mummified bodies making it easier to identify fingerprints and facial features from victims left to rot in the desert. 

Cops “mark” your driver’s side tail light or trunk with their fingerprints when they pull you over, just in case something goes bad for them. 

If a dead body goes undiscovered long enough for skin-slip to start and there’s no one to identify the body, forensics can cut the skin around your wrist, slip the skin off, and wear it like a glove in order to get the fingerprints.

There are “marijuana vending machines” in the United States which allow prescribed users to scan their fingerprints to acquire a medicinal dosage of marijuana.

Adermatoglyphia is a disease where people are born without fingerprints. It is exceedingly rare, affecting only four known extended families worldwide.

The world’s oldest fingerprint was discovered in Kuwait on a piece of broken clay pot dating from the Stone Age. The print is 7,300 years old.

In 2007 CBS released a CSI toy which included a fingerprint dusting powder that contained up to 5% asbestos. Finally, 20 months after an asbestos victims’ organization made this fact public a recall was carried out.

Whilst hiding out at Leatherslade Farm the robbers involved in executing The Great Train Robbery, played Monopoly with the real money they had just stolen; leaving incriminating fingerprints on the board game which led to the arrest and imprisonment of most of the gang. 

Apple’s iPhone Touch ID can tell a difference between the fingerprint of a living and deceased person, so if you are dead no one would be able to access your iPhone using your touch ID. 

Crime Scene fingerprint dust causes several health problems, even leading to Cancer. 

Fingerprints can now be evidence of drug use. A handheld device uses a gold nanoparticle solution which sticks to the breakdown products of drugs as they sweat out through the pores in the fingertips. The particles are stained with a fluorescent dye which leaves a fittingly trippy pattern.

Identical twins are indistinguishable via DNA testing, but fingerprints can still tell them apart.

Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker of Southern California in the 1980’s, was one of the first criminals apprehended by the use of the DOJ’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

Facts About Organ Donations:

Organ transplant networks have started using a pairing algorithm to find kidney donation pairs and chains for willing but incompatible matches to swap donors resulting in a 50% increase incompatible matches.

Steve Jobs’ doctors correctly predicted that the St. Patrick’s Day/March Madness weekend would cause fatalities that would yield the organ donation he needed.

A millionaire announced he would bury his Bentley for his afterlife. After lots of negative reaction, he revealed the publicity stunt about organ donations. “People bury things that are much more valuable than cars and nobody seems to care”.

China is allegedly engaged in mass organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, with 41,500 unexplained organ donations.

In the Judge Dredd universe, corpses are taken to “Resyk Centers” where they are recycled for food, manufacturing and organ donation. Funeral services are frequently held at Resyk so the bereaved can say goodbye to their loved ones, and purchase reasonably priced souvenirs at the gift shop.

To increase awareness about a lack of organ donors, a Dutch reality TV show had contestants in need of a kidney compete for a donation. It was revealed as a hoax, but within a month, 7,300 new people were registered as organ donors and 50,000 had requested paperwork to become a donor.

Hospitals often fly the “Donate Life” flag (just beneath the US Flag) to honor a recent organ donation. Families are also offered a flag to keep to honor their lost loved one.

While 69 to 75% of US adults say they would be willing to become organ donors, half of the families that are asked to consider donating the organs of a deceased family member refuse to consent. Families are able to refuse donation even when it is the expressed wishes of the deceased to donate.

Beating Heart Cadavers is dead humans kept “alive” by mechanical ventilators to preserve organs for donation.

Almost every major religion accepts and even encourages organ donation.

Virtually all brain-dead patients are potential candidates for organ donation, even those with specific infections or metastatic cancer. Donors with hepatitis can give organs to recipients who also have hepatitis; those with metastatic cancer can donate corneas.

Nicholas Green was the young boy whose tragic death in a car accident in Italy sparked a dramatic increase in European organ donations. There is a memorial bell tower dedicated to him in his hometown.

Organ donation rates are significantly lower in Japan due to cultural views on death.

Rh blood group system, the most important after ABO, only becomes relevant if a negative blood type is exposed to a positive. This is relevant primarily in childbirth and organ donation.

More widespread seat belt use in the 90s caused a shift towards using ‘less-than-pristine’ organs for donation (from 1960s-80s, the majority of donors were young, head trauma victims without health issues losing this pool meant finding alternatives).

Interesting Facts About Airports:

To help airline passengers deal with travel anxiety, San Francisco International Airport has hired the nation’s first airport therapy pig. LiLou wears costumes and performs tricks to help travelers calm down before boarding their flights.

In Rwanda, plastic bags are illegal and carry with them a 100-$150 fine. In fact, at airport customs all plastic bags are confiscated which has resulted in Rwanda is one of the most litter-free countries in Africa.

Genoa Airport in Italy makes one exception to the 3 ounces of liquid rule for pesto, which goes through a special pesto scanner.

An airline pilot ordered 30 pizzas for his passengers, after finding out they would be delayed 2 hours for weather. The pizzas were delivered within 30 minutes by Domino’s and were cleared by security and sent directly to the plane in an official airport vehicle. 

O’Hare airport is named after an American fighter pilot who was the lone defender during an attack on his career, then was killed leading the first night defense against a Kamikaze attack. Two years earlier, his own father was murdered for being the only man willing to testify against Al Capone. 

Airport runway numbers actually indicate direction on a compass. 

When three-letter airport codes became standard, airports that had been using two letters simply added an X.

Houston Airport received many complaints about baggage wait times. In response, they moved baggage claim further away so the walk was longer than the wait. The number of complaints dropped.

Denver International Airport (at 53 sq miles) is larger than Manhattan, San Francisco, and Miami and is the 2nd largest airport in the world.

During the peak of Ebola news in 2014 people started to avoid Liberia Airport in Costa Rica thinking that it was the country in Africa. 

Yugoslavia spent $6 billion constructing an underground airport that can withstand a direct strike from a 20 kiloton nuclear warhead.

There is a store in Alabama where you can buy items found in unclaimed airport items of baggage.

A Boeing 727 aircraft was stolen out of an airport in 2003. Neither the plane nor the two men aboard were ever found.

The toilets at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport pass the white-glove test. A realistic looking housefly is painted inside the men urinals so that men will aim at the fly and try to wash it down the drain. The fly-in-urinal research found that the etching reduced spillage by 80 percent.

San Francisco International Airport is essentially built on top of 267 ball bearings whose support columns are capable of moving 20 inches any direction during an earthquake.

Students use the Conakry International Airport parking lot lights to study as it is one of the few illuminated public places in a country that only 5% has access to electricity.

In 4 out of 10 of the UK’s largest airports, it is cheaper to park a light aircraft for 24 hours than to park your car.

There is a library in Estonian Airport, where you can borrow books for your trip and the whole thing operates off an honor system. 

Some Colorado airports have marijuana amnesty boxes for passengers who want to dispose their medicine before a flight. 

Using facial recognition software, an airport’s vending machine dispensed free coffee for anyone who yawned.

The Tijuana International Airport in Mexico lies along the US border and even includes a terminal on the US side, making it the only airport to have terminals in two countries. 

Schiphol Airport sends Heathrow a cake when a delay in its expansion occurs as a thank you for helping their own airport increase numbers.

Only 8 pilots are certified to land at Paro Airport, Himalaya. It’s considered the most challenging airport to land at in the world.

Less than 30% of Chinese airspace is available for commercial use, compared to over 80% in the US. This is one of the main reasons why Chinese airports see so many delays and cancellations each day. 

Carrying Arabic flashcards is considered a valid reason for arrest in a US airport.

Not a Wonder..!!

And then they were told to stop asking questions because the person they look up to for answers failed as a human being.

Are Toward and Towards Different?

Is that car hurtling toward you or towards you? Are you looking toward or towards a fulfilling retirement? While the meaning of “toward” and “towards” are contextually the same, much like “gray” and “grey,” where and how they are used can make a difference.

As typically used to mean “in the direction of,” toward and towards are equally acceptable spellings. According to the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Stylebook, toward is preferred when writing for American and Canadian English speakers, while towards — with the ending “s” — is preferred by English speaking persons outside of North America.

However, both manuals note that these are merely recommendations, not hard-and-fast rules, and exceptions are common.

While the Oxford English Dictionary suggests that towards is a more colloquial or informal usage in British English, most grammarians say there is little evidence that this is true in modern British writing.

However, it should be noted that the rules of formal English writing do not always apply in informal settings. For example, American writers and speakers, when intentionally attempting to write or speak in a more colloquial or “down-home” style sometimes use towards rather than toward. In such cases, the use of towards in North American English is completely acceptable.

USAGE OF TOWARD AND TOWARDS

As a preposition, toward and towards are commonly used interchangeably in these cases:

• In the direction of something or somebody — “The train was headed toward the French border.” — “Her back was toward me.”

• Getting closer to achieving something — “The research is a major step toward a cure.”
• Getting closer to a point in time — “Storm clouds usually gather toward sundown.”
• In relation to somebody — “She held warm feelings toward her old school.” — “The poem expressed his attitude toward war.”
• Obtaining things of material value — “Your donation will go toward a new library.”

HISTORY OF TOWARD AND TOWARDS

Coming from the Old English word tóweard, also generally meaning “in the direction of,” toward is the older spelling, originating during the 5th century. Towards rose in popularity, eventually becoming the dominant spelling during the 17th century. However, there have been some exceptions to this history. For example, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his classic "The Canterbury Tales" in Middle English between 1387 and 1400 in a time before English language spelling had become standardized. Despite writing a purely British text, Chaucer uses toward — the modern accepted North American English spelling — throughout "The Canterbury Tales."

Towards remained the most common spelling among all English speakers until American English speakers turned to toward during the 19th century.

A study of American books, magazines, and newspapers published from 1800 to 2000 shows that the transition from the once British-favored towards to the now North American-favored toward began around 1900.

Similar studies of British books and periodicals published during the same period show that while towards remains heavily favored today, the use of toward seems to be on the rise.

THE ‘WARD’ AND ‘WARDS’ SUFFIXES

Toward and towards are far from the only similarly-spelled “directional” words.

Over the centuries, the suffixes “ward” and “wards” have given rise to several similar words. Today, the same general rule of interchangeability that applies to toward and towards applies to word pairs such as forward and forwards; backward and backwards; upward and upwards; downward and downwards; and afterward and afterwards.

EXAMPLES OF TOWARD AND TOWARDS IN PUBLICATIONS

By a ratio of about 10 to 1, newspapers and magazines in the United Kingdom and Australia favor the use towards rather than toward. For example, quotations from these news sources demonstrate their predominant usage of towards:

The Daily Mail: “Libyan rebels advanced west towards Tripoli today after seeing off yet more airstrikes on captured cities by an increasingly desperate Colonel Gaddafi.”

The Guardian: “A few months later, towards December, they circle back completing a round trip of several hundred kilometers.”

Australian Associated Press: “Scientists are moving towards the conclusion that the eastern cougar was erroneously classified as a separate subspecies in the first place.”

Edinburgh Evening News: “Police began a surveillance operation and on December 23 last year saw David Smith leave his home and head towards a car.”

American and Canadian publications, on the other hand, show a similar ratio of preference for toward:

The New York Times: “Scientists are moving toward the conclusion that the eastern cougar was erroneously classified as a separate subspecies in the first place.”

The Globe and Mail (Canada): “To be sure, China is already seeing a shift away from exports toward domestic purchases as its sales to places like Europe falter.”

USA Today: “One inning Tuesday went a long way toward erasing any questions the Minnesota Twins might have about their closer.”