October 21, 2010
Cortisol, also called the ‘stress hormone,’ is an endogenous steroid that helps the body metabolize glucose, control blood pressure, suppress immunity, and respond to inflammation. The cortisol [kawr-tuh-sawl] awakening response (CAR) is an increase of about 50% in cortisol levels occurring 20–30 minutes after awakening in the morning in some people. This rise is superimposed upon the late-night rise in cortisol which occurs before awakening.
It is thought to be linked to the hippocampus’ preparation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) to face anticipated stress. The HPA is a complex set of interactions among three endocrine glands. It is a major part of the neuroendocrine system that controls reactions to stress and regulates many body processes, including digestion, the immune system, and mood. The hippocampus is responsible for long term memory. CAR is hypothesized to be the stress response that occurs when your memories systems ‘wake up,’ forcing you to consider the challenges of the day ahead.
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October 20, 2010
During World War II in the Philippines, the occupying Japanese government issued fiat currency in several denominations; this is known as the Japanese government-issued Philippine fiat peso, or simply the Japanese peso. The Japanese-sponsored Second Philippine Republic under Jose P. Laurel outlawed possession of guerilla currency, and declared a monopoly on the issuance of money, so that anyone found to possess guerrilla notes could be arrested.
The Filipinos called the fiat peso ‘Mickey Mouse money,’ because it was similar to play money and next to worthless. Many survivors of the war tell stories of going to the market laden with suitcases or ‘bayong’ (native bags made of woven coconut or buri leaf strips) overflowing with the Japanese-issued bills. In 1944, a box of matches cost more than 100 Mickey Mouse pesos.
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October 20, 2010
Pissaladiere or Pissaladina is a pizza-like dish made in southern France, around the Nice, Marseilles, Toulon and the Var District, and in the Italian region of Liguria, especially in the Imperia district. Believed to have been introduced to the area by Roman cooks during the time of the Avignon Papacy, it can be considered a type of white pizza, as no tomatoes are used. The dough is usually a bread dough thicker than that of the classic Italian pizza, although a pâte brisée (pastry) is sometimes used instead, and the traditional topping consist of sauteed (almost pureed) onions, olives, garlic and anchovies (either whole or in the form of pissalat, a type of anchovy paste).
No cheese is used in France; however in the nearby Italian town of San Remo, mozzarella is added. Now served as an appetizer, it was traditionally cooked and sold early each morning. The etymology of the word seems to be from Old French pescion from the Latin piscis, which in turn became the pissalat (‘salted fish’) anchovy paste mentioned above.
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October 19, 2010
Seed bombing or aerial reforestation is a technique of introducing vegetation to land by throwing or dropping compressed clods of soil containing live vegetation. Often, seed bombing projects are done with arid or off-limits (for example, privately-owned) land. The term ‘seed grenade’ was first used by NY artist, Liz Christy in 1973 when she started the ‘Green Guerrillas.’ The first seed grenades were made from condoms filled with local wildflower seeds, water and fertilizer. They were tossed over fences onto empty lots in New York City in order to make the neighborhoods look better. It was the start of the guerrilla gardening movement.
The earliest records of aerial reforestation date back from 1930. In this period, planes were used to distribute seeds over certain inaccessible mountains in Honolulu after forest fires. Seed bombing is also widely used in Africa in barren or simply grassy areas. Newer seed bombs use biodegradable shells which feed the sprout as it grows. Barren land can be turned into a garden in a little over a month. A variant of seed bombing, called tree bombing, involves dropping saplings from military aircraft, but has yet to be attempted.
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October 19, 2010
Pu-erh tea or Bolay tea is a type of tea made from a ‘large leaf’ variety of the tea plant Camellia sinensis and named after Pu’er county near Simao, Yunnan, China. Pu-erh tea can be purchased as either raw/green (sheng) or ripened/cooked (shu), depending on processing method or aging. Sheng pu-erh can be roughly classified on the tea oxidation scale as a green tea, and the shou or aged-green variants as post-fermented tea. The fact that pu-erh fits in more than one tea type poses some problems for classification. For this reason, the ‘green tea’ aspect of pu-erh is sometimes ignored, and the tea is regarded solely as a post-fermented product.
Unlike other teas that should ideally be consumed shortly after production, pu-erh can be drunk immediately or aged for many years; pu-erh teas are often now classified by year and region of production much like wine vintages. While there are many counterfeit pu-erhs on the market and real aged pu-erh is difficult to find and identify, it is still possible to find pu-erh that is 10 to 50 years old, as well as a few from the late Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Indeed, tea connoisseurs and speculators are willing to pay high prices for older pu-erh, upwards of thousands of dollars per cake.
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October 19, 2010
Cortisol [kawr-tuh-sawl], also known as hydrocortisone, is a steroid hormone or glucocorticoid produced by the adrenal gland, and is one of the best known ‘stress hormones.’ Stress hormones act by mobilizing energy from storage to muscles, increasing heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate and shutting down metabolic processes such as digestion, reproduction, growth and immunity.
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October 19, 2010
Sangfroid [sahn-frwa] is a noun meaning self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain. The word derives from French, c. 1712 and translates literally as, ‘cool blood.’
‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ was a poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, to raise the morale of the British public in the case of invasion. It was little known and never used. The poster was rediscovered in 2000 and has been re-issued by a number of private sector companies, and used as the decorative theme for a range of other products.
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October 19, 2010
A saccade [suh-kahd] is a fast movement of an eye, head or other part of an animal’s body or device. It can also be a fast shift in frequency of an emitted signal or other quick change. Saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction. Saccades serve as a mechanism for fixation and rapid eye movement. The word appears to have been coined in the 1880s by French ophthalmologist Émile Javal, who used a mirror on one side of a page to observe eye movement in silent reading, and found that it involves a succession of discontinuous individual movements.
Humans and many other animals do not look at a scene in fixed steadiness (as opposed to e.g., most birds); instead, the eyes move around, locating interesting parts of the scene and building up a mental, three-dimensional ‘map’ corresponding to the scene (as opposed to the graphical map of avians, that often relies upon detection of angular movement on the retina). One reason for the saccadic movement of the human eye is that the central part of the retina—known as the fovea—plays a critical role in resolving objects. By moving the eye so that small parts of a scene can be sensed with greater resolution, body resources can be used more efficiently. Saccades are the fastest movements produced by the human body
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October 19, 2010
Cymande [sah-mahn-day] were an electric funk band who released several albums throughout the early 1970s. The group was formed in 1971 in London, England by musicians from Guyana and Jamaica. The name Cymande is derived from a Calypso word for Dove, which symbolizes peace and love. The group developed a subtle and complex, deep funk style influenced by calypso rhythms, jazz, African music, American soul and UK rock of the time. Cymande can now be seen as one of the most sophisticated of the funk acts that evolved in the early 1970s.
By the mid-70s the band members were going their separate ways and the group was disbanded in 1974. It wasn’t until 20 years later that they reaped any financial rewards, as their music became a popular source for samplers. Cymande’s original albums are still widely sought-after by DJs and funk aficionados. Perhaps the band’s best known recording is the soulful dancefloor filler called ‘Bra,’ which was later sampled by the American hip-hop group De La Soul and used as a breakbeat record by the godfathers of hip-hop Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash.
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October 19, 2010
Isabella ‘Issy’ Blow (1958 – 2007) was an English magazine editor and international style icon. The muse of hat designer Philip Treacy, she is credited with discovering the models Stella Tennant and Sophie Dahl as well as the fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Blow battled with depression and bipolar disorder most of her adult life.
In 2006, Blow attempted suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. Later that year, she again attempted suicide by jumping from the Hammersmith Flyover, which resulted in her breaking both ankles. In 2007, Blow made several more suicide attempts by driving her car into the rear of a truck, by attempting to obtain horse tranquilizers, by drowning in a lake and by overdosing while on a beach in India. She died in May of 2007 after ingesting a weedkiller, in what was later ruled a suicide.
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October 18, 2010
Vin Mariani (French: Mariani’s wine) was a tonic and patent medicine created circa 1863 by Angelo Mariani, a chemist who became intrigued with coca and its economic potential after reading Paolo Mantegazza’s paper on coca’s effects. Mariani started marketing a wine called Vin Tonique Mariani (à la Coca du Pérou) which was made from Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves.
The ethanol in the wine acted as a solvent and extracted the cocaine from the coca leaves, altering the drink’s effect. It originally contained 6 mg of cocaine per fluid ounce of wine, but Vin Mariani which was to be exported contained 7.2 mg per ounce in order to compete with the higher cocaine content of similar drinks in the United States. Ads for Vin Mariani claimed that it would restore health, strength, energy, and vitality.
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October 18, 2010
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Their goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party for the violent overthrow of the US government and the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat. With leadership whose revolutionary positions were characterized by Black separatist rhetoric, the group conducted a campaign of bombings through the mid-1970s, including aiding the jailbreak and escape of Timothy Leary.
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