#Sub saharan sandwich

[caprakinz]

Webkinz Hyena moodborad, based on appearance, PSI and PSF.

Webkinz Hyena, HM670. PSI = Fifteen minutes mic. PSF = Sub-Saharan sandwich.

[reasonsforhope]

"Namibia is the driest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and home to two of the world’s most ancient deserts, the Kalahari and the Namib. The capital, Windhoek, is sandwiched between them, 400 miles away from the nearest perennial river and more than 300 miles away from the coast. Water is in short supply.

It’s hard to imagine life thriving in Windhoek, yet 477,000 people call it home, and 99 per cent of them have access to drinking water thanks to technology pioneered 55 years ago on the outskirts of the city. Now, some of the world’s biggest cities are embracing this technology as they adapt to the harshest impacts of climate change. But Namibia leads the way.

How did this come about? In the 1950s, Windhoek’s natural resources struggled to cope with a rapidly growing population, and severe water shortages gripped the city. But disaster forced innovation, and in 1968 the Goreangab Water Reclamation Plant in Windhoek became the first place in the world to produce drinking water directly from sewage, a process known as direct potable reuse (DPR). 

That may sound revolting, but it’s completely safe. Dr Lucas van Vuuren, who was among those who pioneered Windhoek’s reclamation system, once said that “water should not be judged by its history, but by its quality”. And DPR ensures quality. 

This is done using a continuous multi-barrier treatment devised in Windhoek during eight years of pilot studies in the 1960s. This process – which has been upgraded four times since 1968 – eliminates pollutants and safeguards against pathogens by harnessing bacteria to digest the human waste and remove it from the water. This partly mimics what happens when water is recycled in nature, but Windhoek does it all in under 24 hours...

Pictured: These ultrafiltration membranes help to remove bacteria, viruses and pathogens. Image: Margaret Courtney-Clarke

“We know that we have antibiotics in the water, preservatives from cosmetics, anti-corrosion prevention chemicals from the dishwasher,” Honer explains. “We find them and we remove them.”

Honer adds that online instruments monitor the water continuously, and staff ensure that only drinking water that meets World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines is sent to homes. If any inconsistencies are detected, the plant goes into recycle mode and distribution is halted until correct values are restored. 

“The most important rule is, and was, and always will be ‘safety first’,” says Honer.  The facility has never been linked to an outbreak of waterborne disease, and now produces up to 5.5m gallons of drinking water every day – up to 35 per cent of the city’s consumption.

Namibians couldn’t survive without it, and as water shortages grip the planet, Windhoek’s insights and experience are more important than ever.

Interest from superpowers across the globe

In recent years, delegations from the US, France, Germany, India, Australia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates have visited Windhoek seeking solutions to water shortages in their own countries. 

Megadrought conditions have gripped the US since 2001, and the Colorado River – which provides 40 million people with drinking water – has been running at just 50 per cent of its traditional flow. As a result, several states including Texas, California, Arizona and Colorado are beginning to embrace DPR.

Troy Walker is a water reuse practice leader at Hazen and Sawyer, an environmental engineering firm helping Arizona to develop its DPR regulations. He visited Windhoek last year. “It was about being able to see the success of their system, and then looking at some of the technical details and how that might look in a US facility or an Australian facility,” he said. “[Windhoek] has helped drive a lot of discussion in industry. [Innovation] doesn’t all have to come out of California or Texas.”

Pictured: The internal pipes and workings of Namibia's DPR plant. As water becomes scarcer in some parts, countries are looking to DPR for solutions. Image: Margaret Courtney-Clarke

Namibia has also helped overcome the biggest obstacle to DPR – public acceptance. Disgust is a powerful emotion, and sensationalist ‘toilet to tap’ headlines have dismantled support for water reuse projects in the past. Unfortunately, DPR’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness, as the speed at which water can re-enter the system makes it especially vulnerable to prejudice, causing regulators to hesitate. “Technology has never been the reason why these projects don’t get built – it’s always public or political opposition,” says Patsy Tennyson, vice president of Katz and Associates, an American firm that specialises in public outreach and communications.

That’s why just a handful of facilities worldwide are currently doing DPR, with Windhoek standing alongside smaller schemes in the Philippines, South Africa and a hybrid facility in Big Spring, Texas. But that’s all changing. Drought and increased water scarcity worldwide are forcing us to change the way we think about water. 

Now, the US is ready to take the plunge, and in 2025, El Paso Water will begin operating the first ‘direct to distribution’ DPR facility in North America, turning up to 10m gallons of wasterwater per day into purified drinking water – twice as much as Windhoek. San Diego, Los Angeles, California, as well as Phoenix, Arizona are also exploring the technology."

Of course, DPR is not a silver bullet in the fight against climate change. It cannot create water out of thin air, and it will not facilitate endless growth. But it does help cities become more climate resilient by reducing their reliance on natural sources, such as the Colorado River. 

As other nations follow in Namibia’s footsteps, Windhoek may no longer take the lead after almost six decades in front.

“But Windhoek was the first,” Honer reminds me. “No one can take that away.”"

-via Positive.News, August 30, 2023

[youryurigoddess]

The summer that was never supposed to end

You’ve probably noticed how in Good Omens 2 Crowley’s eyes are brighter, more saturated, as if glistening with liquid gold. We’ve already covered his hair. And it’s not only the visual aspect of him — even in objectively stressful conditions, Crowley appears mature and put together, way cooler and more protective than before. Even his faults are heavily romanticized in the past and present scenes, reminding of the S1 body swap, when Aziraphale projected his love to him on the way he played the demon in Hell.

It’s not just the demon. The whole season is more vibrant, bolder, filled with sunshine. Just like a summer that was never supposed to end. Like a memory of a loved one seen through the eyes of someone who thinks of them every day until the end of the world.

S2 seems ridiculously saturated, whimsical, and full of red and gold, just like a certain demon. Aziraphale not only painted his bookshop in his image, but literally colored the whole world in Crowley’s colors. It was such lush and saturated and blooming with warmth and hazy light.

It’s either that all the newest events are just another memory seen through a certain angel’s eyes, or said angel actively made it appear this way — as in, his feelings grew so strong that they’ve started to warp the reality around him. And it’s a well-known fact that Aziraphale has a tendency to affect his surroundings, either unconsciously, when his presence in the bookshop literally lightens up the sky seen through its windows, or very much consciously, when he takes over the position of a master puppeteer and manipulates people with or without the help of his miracles.

S1 was more dramatic and apocalyptic, but not particularly gray — at least not as much as the color grading typically used in portrayal of similar apocalyptic narratives. S2, at least as seen through Aziraphale’s own La Vie En Rose lens, is vibrant and saturated. And those colors drastically fade in the heavenly light of the elevator during the credits, suggesting that they won’t be as visible in the course of S3.

But I don’t want to ramble about the apocalypse sandwich and the three-act structure here, so let’s circle back to S2.

Good Omens 2 was really set in a summer that was never supposed to end. But it did, autumn crept in, and there was no chance of hearing the nightingales sing. They all had left by the time an angel and a demon finally kissed.

In the most literal sense: the very last nightingales usually migrate from the UK to their wintering grounds in Sub-Saharan Africa in the first days of September.

Aziraphale was right that nothing lasts forever — and the passage of time on Earth is marked by subtle details invisible to the immortal eyes.

The main thing about autumn migration is how sudden and hard to predict it is. The birds start disappearing gradually, often without notice, until at some point they are no longer here. Much like the angel leaves the bookshop — their shared nest — to spread his wings and fight.

And it was basically announced on the poster.

Can you see the migratory formation of birds up in the sky? It looks like Aziraphale is the last one to get off the ground and fly.

[greyvvardenfell]

Hallan looks awesome! Have u mixed some cultures or have you created them?

thank you! pretty much everything is a mix of cultures at this point, with some ideas that i think i came up with?

under a cut because i’m wordy. thank you for asking!

yaraduberra: australian aboriginal, polynesian, and sentinalese. they’re purposefully isolated from the rest of hallan because [reasons as yet unknown] but the most technologically advanced culture

naigenkyst: swedish, swiss, and because i’m a wwi fanatic, elements of the austro-hungarian empire. they used to rule over most of southern hallan but the empire has been in decline for a long time, so naigenkyst keeps shrinking and shrinking as other countries either declare independence, like vivosk did, or just slowly encroach, like kaikasai

hoktan bolnar: there’s a small region on the coast of the black sea called abkhazia, which declared itself an autonomous republic from georgia in the 90s. it fascinates me because there’s a small population of people of african descent that live in essentially one river valley. hoktan bolnar pulls a lot from this afro-abkhazian culture, with blends of sub-saharan african and russian. and also some laplander thrown in because they herd deer

alakrib: north african, mainly berber and bedouin, with some pueblo tribe thrown in for cliff-dwelling because it’s a very rocky desert region

kaikasai: etruscan and minoan, with some broader italian/greek/miscellaneous mediterranean influences. they’re the upstart new empire and keep starting wars for new territory. both astrival and alakrib have declared independence from them.

astrival: a city-state that bargained for independence with a promise to remain neutral and open to trade with everybody, thanks to its strategic position between most of the bigger countries and guarding the sea entrance to the lakes of zarigat, which is a hugely important trade route. because it’s sandwiched between kaikasai and zarigatia, it takes influences from both. mainly kaikasi architecture and zarigat cultural/religious viewpoints

zarigatia: another old empire, based on mayan and indian culture. matrilineal to the extreme and much more focused on trade than war. it’s the richest country in hallan thanks to its trade treaties with qalqinoran and djedvasis.

qalqinoran: mongolian and tibetan. the whole country is essentially one big plain, with mountains and cliffs where it meets the ancient sea and at both eastern and western borders. the people are mostly nomadic and herd sheep and yaks, and also produce the best cloth in the world from their wool

djedvasis: ancient egyptian and persian. lots of monumental architecture and intricate sculpture work. the oldest country, with the oldest settlements, in hallan. mostly sandy desert that gets colder and colder as it nears the ocean. the island across the djedvasi strait has been in flux between it and kaikasai for as long as kaikasai has existed, because both lay claim to it (so some cypriot as well)

vivosk: a former colony of naigenkyst and the first to break away from its empire. relatively isolated as an island, with volcanic features throughout, especially geysers and hot springs. russian and viking influence, with overtones of everything naigenkyst is made of too

[cook-the-beans]

Namibia is on my top 10 destinations of all time. Its a country that has it all in terms of nature, wildlife, culture and tradition. But because nothing can be that perfect, Namibia doesn’t really stand out for its abundant vegan food options.

But this is not a good enough reason not to visit this stunning country. There is always a way around, and being true that is difficult to travel Through Namibias as a vegan, it’s also true that is possible.

The only thing is that you will not remember this country for its outstanding food and flavours, but you will, I assure you, for other reasons.

With time I hope that Namibia will become a more vegan-friendly country, if not for anything else, to conserve their ecosystems, environment, and wildlife.

For a piece of more comprehensive information about being vegan while travelling independently in Namibia, you will find this article interesting.

Windhoek

Have lived in another Sub-Saharan country,  some people would say that Namibia is Africa for beginners. I’m not sure they are right but the capital city of Namibia, Windhoek is quite modern and in a way kind of ‘Western’ when compared with other African countries.

Windhoek is far from being the highlight of a trip to Namibia but can be a great place to begin and end your journey. In contrast with other parts of the country, Windhoek has more accommodation choices, cultural sights, an urban buzz and food variety. So let’s discover where you can find vegan food in Windhoek.

Where to eat Vegan in Windhoek

Plant’d

Is the first vegan restaurant opening in Namibia and as far as I know its the only one. They serve delicious buddha and granola bowls, pizza, pasta, scrambled tofu and refreshing freshly squeezed juices. The food is super tasty and they use quality ingredients.

Restaurants with some vegan options:

Olivia’s Kitchen

They serve a divine mushroom pasta with vegan cream, lots of vegan smoothies, sandwich with vegan cheese, salads with vegan feta and plant-based milk for coffees. Their food is locally sourced and freshly prepared.

Bonsai Bistro

This Bistro serves vegan sandwiches, baked goods, juices, smoothies and have daily vegan/vegetarian specials. I can’t recommend enough the Morrocan bowl, vegan omelette, vegan cakes and tarts.

Garnish Indian Restaurant

For some authentic Indian flavours, this is the right place to go. They serve delicious spiced food and cater for vegans and vegetarians.

The vegan options are well marked on the menu. The food is really tasty and filling.

Do you know any other good places in Windhoek serving vegan food?

Eating Vegan in Windhoek Namibia is on my top 10 destinations of all time. Its a country that has it all in terms of nature, wildlife, culture and tradition.

[dallasfortworthmetropolitanarea]

Best Museums in Dallas-Fort Worth

There are many museums in Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area. If you are in Dallas Texas, you must visit the museums to learn about the history of the place. The most important museums to visit in Dallas-Fort Worth are given here:

Dallas Museum of Art The museum was founded in 1903. It is one of the biggest and the most reputable places to see the art. the museum has a beautiful collection of a varied and international range of permanent art exhibits. The African art collection consists of artwork from the Sub-Saharan region and contemporary art exhibits an impressive collection of paintings and sculptures from contemporary artists. The museum also has other collections both permanent and temporary that demonstrate an impressive grasp of international and American art.

Perot Museum of Nature and Science The Perot Museum of Nature and science was designed by Thom Mayne, a winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. In the museum, there are 11 permanent exhibit halls at the museum that offers hands-on science experience for children. the exhibits include activities that focus on geology, minerals, energy, fossils, and technology. Children can also enjoy architecture tours. The museum also offers family experiments to engage visitors.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza It is another beautiful museum in Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area. John F. Kennedy the 35th president was assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Now, Dealey Plaza has been converted into a memorial for the late president. The museum helps you to learn everything about the day and the life and death of the president. You can watch short films, see photographs, discover artifacts, and many more. The museum also has a library and a reading room where you can read literature and other books related to Dallas history. Many educational, youth and teaching programs are also available.

Kimbell Art Museum If you are a fan of art, you will love the exhibits at the Kimbell Art Museum. You can see the artworks from ancient art to 20th-century pieces. It consists of Michelangelo’s first painting and the works from Rembrandt, Picasso, and Monet. It is one of the country’s best museums. It is known for modern architecture, and the building has an open floor plan which is filled with natural light. You can enjoy lunch at the museum’s well-prepared buffet which includes salads, sandwiches, and quiches. You can sit in the manicured courtyard at the museum.

Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area has the best professionals in each area like if you are looking for a Glass Shower Door Company then contact Wise Glass LLC.

Wise Glass LLC. 600 Tumbleweed Dr, Hurst, TX 76054, United States https://www.wiseglassllc.net

[travelonlinetips-blog]

New Post has been published on https://travelonlinetips.com/the-seychelles-portugal-mauritius-and-honduras-lonely-planets-travel-blog/

the Seychelles, Portugal, Mauritius and Honduras – Lonely Planet's travel blog

Anse Marron beach is the definition of paradise © Matt Phillips

At Lonely Planet we’re simply obsessed with travel; rarely a week goes by when someone hasn’t just got back from an epic trip. This month Lonely Planet staff share some of their recent adventures, from fulfilling lifelong dreams in Mauritius to munching a mega sandwich in Porto.

Scoping out secluded beaches in the Seychelles

Having spent a few weeks hopping between the islands of Mahé, Praslin, Desroches, North, Félicité, Silhouette, Fregate and La Digue, I’d thought it wouldn’t be possible to find another beach that would leave me speechless. Yet, after a challenging 1¼-hour journey – part hiking, part crawling, part bouldering, part wading (chest deep with backpack above head) – along La Digue’s stunning southeastern coastline (complete with nesting turtles), I found myself lost for words at Anse Marron.

An absolute gem of pure solitude (thanks to the effort required to get here), its white sands slid gently into a natural pool of calm, crystal-clear water. Huge granite boulders – looking more like they were spawned from the mind of Antoni Gaudí than from the forces of nature – stood guard over the scene, protecting it from the crashing waves beyond.

I was soon swimming, sharing the surreal setting with some seemingly translucent fish. With so much to marvel at, both below and above the surface, I was struggling to know where to look. It was simply that beautiful. The hike back out from Anse Marron took me along the southwest shore of La Digue, past Anse Source d’Argent. Despite this being the nation’s most famous beach, I couldn’t help but think that I preferred the perfectly remote sands of petite Anse Marron.

Matt Phillips, Destination Editor for Sub Saharan Africa. Follow his tweets @Go2MattPhillips.

‘Do I really have to?’ – Orla taking one for the team in the name of travel! © Adrienne Pitts / Lonely Planet

Tackling one of the world’s toughest sandwiches in Porto, Portugal

I’ve never been scared by a sandwich before, but then I’d never encountered the francesinha. Porto’s signature dish, the francesinha is a four-inch stack stuffed with ham, sausage and steak, served smothered with cheese, topped with an egg and generous lashings of a tomato and beer sauce. Having been raised vegetarian, I’m still a little squeamish about very meaty things so didn’t relish the thought of sampling one, but decided in the spirit of culinary adventure that I must.

Arriving at Café Santiago – regarded as one of the best francesinha joints in the city – I was reassured by the tables full of locals, cheerfully tucking in on their lunch hour. Every chef has their own take on the dish, and clearly this particular sandwich – served, with laughable excess, alongside a portion of fries – had been lovingly prepared. Nevertheless, sawing through five dense layers of protein really took the edge off my appetite. Each meaty forkful only dented it further, until – having made it through a mere quarter – I downed tools. I’d starred in my own personal episode of Man v. Food, but was woman enough to admit that on this occasion, food had won.

Orla Thomas, Features Editor at Lonely Planet Traveller magazine. Follow her tweets @OrlaThomas.

Orla Thomas travelled to Porto with support from Visit Portugal. Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.

Dolphins at Black River in Mauritius © shamsheed / Shutterstock

Swimming with wild dolphins in Mauritius

When I was a kid, I had dreams of being a dolphin trainer. I wanted to go to Florida so badly to see them in the marine parks, but (luckily) my parents didn’t give in. At the time I felt duped, but looking back I realised I would have hated seeing such beautiful creatures cramped in a pool, forced to perform tricks. On a recent holiday to Mauritius I was still keen to swim with dolphins, but in the wild and on their terms. We found a great company run by knowledgeable (and most importantly, responsible) locals at the mouth of the Black River.

Every morning, pods of dolphins swim out to the reef to feed and play. Our captain was careful not to hound the pod (this is where it pays off to pick a responsible company); we moved away from the other boats and waited until the pod came to us. Dolphins are incredibly fast and never stop moving so we donned snorkels and paddled as fast as we could, whilst still giving them plenty of space. The experience was incredible. The dolphins were so curious and it was such an honour that they came so close. I got to achieve my dream with zero Blackfish guilt.

Lottie Bell, Key Account Manager. Follow her on Instagram @mrslottiebell.

A view across Lake Yojoa © Alicia Johnson

Taking a beautiful boat trip on Honduras’ Lago de Yojoa

With a belly full of chicken, rice and fried banana, hopping on a speedy boat didn’t seem like the wisest decision. But there I was, front seat, swift breeze in my face and in utter awe of Honduras’ beautiful mountainous landscape. Lago de Yojoa, nestled between forested mountains and lush rainforests, is Honduras’ largest lake. It lies in a depression formed by volcanoes, and on this particular December day the blue waters glistened under the early afternoon sun.

My quick boat tour took me to the centre of the lake where I saw a pair of tilapia fins (Honduras’ famed freshwater fish). Truth be told I didn’t see any of the other fish my guide pointed out, but the opportunistic birds hovering above sure did. Between the full stomach and stunning landscape, my first trip to Honduras began in grand fashion.

Alicia Johnson, Destination Editor for Central America and the Caribbean. Follow her tweets @Ajgoin places

Alicia Johnson travelled to Honduras with support from Honduras Tourism Board. Lonely Planet contributors do not accept freebies in exchange for positive coverage.

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[nanonaturalist]

This... is actually great advice. I hate using bug spray because I touch lots of bugs (and uh... it’s kinda rude? to do that? with death juice on your hands?). The reason I’m wearing nitrile gloves in so many of my hiking photos is to protect bugs from my DEET-covered hands (you have to spray your hands to wipe it on your face and neck), OR if I’ve decided to go DEET-free, to protect my hands from the millions of mosquitos (I’m sometimes wearing my net-hat when I do this).

I’ll have to look up the ingredients in the perfume and try it out if I don’t see anything too suspicious in there! It will be great, all my other naturalist friends will be applying DEET and hitting their ankles with sulphur socks (if you have chiggers in your area, they work great!), and I’ll look like I’m prepping for a hot date. Literally nobody will be surprised.

Wet bandana is AWESOME! If you sweat enough, you don’t need to re-wet it (eewww), but it’s easy enough to take off, pour water on, and put back on if it dries out. I had a wet bandana on when I was in Malawi (sub-Saharan Africa, NO ELECTRICITY, NO AIR CONDITIONING) for two weeks, and it was 👌.

OTHER TIPS FOR STAYING COOL, courtesy of your friendly neighborhood chemical engineer (*waves*):

• I have a camelback (backback with a water bladder built into it). All the material of my backpack keeps my water temperature relatively steady (yay, insulation!). When I pour in ICE COLD WATER, it stays ICE COLD for hours. Also, I don’t have to carry around a bottle of water. The bladder holds 64 oz. I have NEVER managed to drink the whole thing in one outing.

• Bring a cooler to keep at camp or in your car. Inside your cooler, have HALF THE VOLUME filled with a water jug that is FROZEN SOLID. The night before a hike, I put a gallon jug in the freezer. It starts to thaw a little on the drive, but for the most part, it has a huge chunk of ice in it. All your other food in the cooler stays cold. And guess what? You have more ICE COLD WATER to come back to. The larger the jug, the slower the ice melts. It’s science. Trust me, I’m an engineer.

• An item I always bring in my cooler: chocolate covered almonds. They are ice cold. Another item: Gel icepacks. They feel SO GOOD after a long hike, even if it’s not hot out. Make sure to pack salty snacks and foods to replace the salt you lost from sweating! I like pita and hummus with kalamata olives and doritos (classy!). Maybe you like peanut butter with crackers? Or a triple-decker salami sandwich?

Hello! do you have any recommendations for field-work appropriate clothing? NC is very spicy right now and the only thing I can get out of my mentors is 'wear shoes and sunscreen', which is good advice but not especially helpful. Thank you!

Oooh boy spicy is right. I have been digging and digging for photos other people have taken of me at bioblitzes, and the best I could find were these:

Photo credits to my BFFs Sam (left photo, from 2017! outside of Palestine, TX)[link], Chris (Center photo, this April in Del Rio, TX)[link], and James (Right photo, also Del Rio)[link]

They’re not… uh… too helpful. But notice there’s one thing you can see in all of them? LONG SLEEVES. Sam’s photo was taken in 91°F/32.8°C (in a swamp—very humid!). James’ photo was taken in 84°F/28.9°C. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I am adamant about long sleeves All The Time (and actually, in James’ photo, I am legitimately wearing a jacket). Several reasons: (1) I hate the way sunscreen feels but I’m paler than a blind cave newt’s belly (2) I hate wearing bug spray (3) when it’s hotter than balls out, you’re not going to feel any cooler in short sleeves (4) long sleeves actually help you cool down better by maximizing convective cooling aka the reason you sweat in the first place. Also, related to (2) I hate wearing bug spray: you can spray your clothes with permethrin, an insecticide which chemically binds to the fabric of your clothing and lasts for weeks and through several washes. If North Carolina is anything like Texas, you know that insecticide is not exactly optional. One thing to note: permethrin, when it’s wet, is extremely toxic to cats, so if you have pets, spray outside or in a garage where they can’t get exposed.

Anyway, I took the liberty of staging some photos so y’all can see what I look like in My Natural Habitat. Temperature was 95°F/35°C in these photos. I also included supplies/accessories because they have been very helpful for me and y’all not may know about them!

Headlamp: You don’t realize you need a flashlight in the middle of the day until you don’t have one. Or maybe it’s not the middle of the day! A headlamp lets you see in the dark and use both hands (amazing!)

Wide-brim hat: Protects your face/neck from the sun, and makes it a lot easier to take photos and use binoculars.

Wet bandana: Take a normal bandana, get it wet, and tie it around your neck. Offers extra sun protection AND keeps you cool. If it’s really hot out, wrap it around your forehead.

Hand sanitizer: Hopefully self-explanatory. Look out, if it’s hot out it will be HOT and RUNNY. Shake the bottle before opening!

Camera support clips: I have a superzoom camera which is pretty heavy. These clips let me take all that weight off my neck, since my backpack is supported by the waist strap.

WATER WATER WATER: WATER WATER WATER WATER. My backpack holds a 64 oz water bladder. In the morning, I will fill it all the way up with ice water and it will stay cold all day. Drink A TON OF WATER.

Long sleeves/quick dry shirt: This may or may not be one layer. My neon green/yellow shirt is one thing (also thin and breathable!) but I frequently layer a button-down shirt over a shorter sleeve shirt to avoid using sunscreen.

Sweep net: If you’re doing field work already, you know if this is useful for you or not. If you aren’t familiar with sweep nets, these are great for finding bugs that are hiding in tall grasses. The net is a sturdy canvas (lightweight mesh nets will easily tear). Usually you’ll catch a ton of grasshoppers and spiders.

Nitrile gloves: I only wear these when mosquitos are really bad. Because most of my body is covered, all they have to go for are my hands and face. And oh boy, mosquito bites on your hands are the worst. Also helpful if you have a tendency to manhandle plants while chasing bugs before realizing … wait… is this poison ivy…? Also useful if you wanna touch something real gross without touching something real gross!

Man-pouch: It’s not actually called a man-pouch, but that’s what I call it. These are molle pouches or something like that, and they’re like a tactical military thing I guess? It’s basically a fanny pack with belt loops and a carabiner instead of straps. They are pocket paradise. More on this next photo.

Quick-dry underwear: Nothing is worse than wet sweaty underwear chafing you all day. I wear synthetic undies, typically marketed as activewear, but any synthetic material will work to be honest.

Long pants: If you stay on trail all day, shorts are probably fine. But… who does field work from a trail? I wear quick-drying hiking pants, preferably a lightweight fabric but when I do manage to overheat, it’s not my legs, so I’ll also wear pants designed for cooler weather. Benefits of long pants: tucking them into your socks and/or boots to avoid ticks and chiggers; nobody noticing the mis-matching socks you threw on because you were running late.

Waterproof boots: I don’t know about you, but if I see something in the water, I’m gonna go in the water to see it better. In this photo I’m wearing my rubber boots, but I also have waterproof hiking boots that are more comfortable for longer distances. For my swamp trip in 2017, I also bought super expensive/super fancy waterproof socks, which were a lifesaver because we crawled through the swamp first thing that morning, and I definitely went in way deeper in the water than the tops of my boots, but my feet were dry all day.

pStyle: If you don’t have the anatomy that lets you pee in the woods without getting half-naked, I highly recommend this particular product. I did a TON of research on pee funnels, and this one got the best reviews and I can see why. It’s more of a spout than a funnel (so it won’t overflow), it eliminates the need for toilet paper, and it’s easy to use one-handed. If you’re out in the field for a long time AND/OR it’s super hot out, you will need to go eventually. Before I got this thing, I would just… not drink water to avoid dealing with this issue. That’s bad when the heat index is 120°F! Drink tons of water—NO EXCUSES!

Snacks: Ya gotta eat! I like clif bars and skittles! :D

Man-pouch II: The Pocketing: This thing has so many pockets. I keep lots of stuff in my backpack, but it’s a hassle to take it off every time I need something. So I keep things I might need in an emergency in it: extra snacks, ruler, first aid supplies, and extra batteries/memory cards. You may want to hold a notepad, collection supplies, magnifying glasses, etc. If your pants are deficient in the pocket department, this is a great solution.

The other side, for good measure. My backpack has lots of pockets for extra layers (either to put on or take off, depending how the weather changes). If rain is a possibility, I’ll shove my rain-proof shell in there. I also have my backpack loaded up with my knee/wrist braces and my cane.

More fashion accessories!

Gold Bond Rapid Relief anti-itch cream: This is the only anti-itch cream that works for me.

Emergency eyewash: I typically only need this at night, when eye gnats kill themselves in my eyes. I thought they were attracted to my headlamp, until I read up on it. No, there are flies which specifically fly into mammals’ eyes and I hate them. They’re horrible. If you need this, get the kit with the cup, and keep the cup in a mini-travel pill zipper bag as shown to keep it clean.

Moist towelettes: I don’t keep these in my backpack. I keep these in my car in the cooler with ice. Do this, trust me.

DEET wipes: I hate bugspray, but sometimes ya gotta. When I went to Malawi (you know, where the mosquitos carry the lethal strain of malaria?), I didn’t want to mess with a dinky travel size bottle of bug spray. These wipes fit in a pocket and you can take as many on an airplane as you want and nobody can stop you. Also, you can have them in a hot car and they won’t explode! Fun!

Sunscreen on a Stick: I hate sunscreen, but oh man I keep getting sunburns on my hands and it’s silly. This stuff doesn’t feel like sunscreen, so maybe I’ll experiment with short sleeves someday? (ha ha ha ha ha)

Emergency backup camera: Ya never know! Mine is a waterproof camera I bought 12 years ago, still takes great photos (and it’s WATERPROOF!)

Keep in mind: this is what I wear, and not necessarily what I recommend for everybody. You’ll need to try a few things out before you discover what works best for you. Plenty of people I go on bioblitzes with wear t-shirts and shorts, but plenty of people I go on bioblitzes with aren’t crawling through poison ivy and trampling through fire ant nests. Also, it’s possibly worth noting I have chronic health conditions which mean I’m (1) extremely sensitive to cold and (2) in pain all the time. This translates to (1) when normal humans are sweaty messes, I’m still wearing a jacket because I’m cold (2) when it *does* get a bit warm for me, I don’t notice because my shitty body lost attention privileges ten years ago.

Hope this helps!

June 10, 2018

[vicentedolan298-blog]

Maternity

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[jakehglover]

GMOs Revealed

By Dr. Mercola

“GMOs Revealed” is a nine-part documentary series featuring more than 20 top experts in the field, including yours truly. In Episode 1, above, you’ll hear from Dr. Zach Bush, whose triple-board certification includes expertise in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism, Vani Hari, blogger and founder of FoodBabe.com, and Gunnar Lovelace, CEO of Thrive Market, an online non-GMO food store.

While genetically modified organisms (GMOS), and the pesticides that go along with them, are touted as the solution to feed the world, the reality is a far cry from this industry-spread ideal. In reality, 86 percent of the value of U.S. agricultural exports in 2015 went to 20 destinations with low numbers of hungry people and high rates of human development scores.1 The top recipient? Canada.

In 2013 as well, U.S. farms contributed only 2.3 percent of the food supply to the countries with the most starving people.2 Such countries, unbeknownst to many Americans, actually produce most of their own food already. What they need is not for the U.S. to step up its production of genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy, but to be given resources to distribute and increase access to food while helping local farmers to earn a good living.

Further, as Bush stated, “If we took GMOs off the market today, we would still be feeding the world with the same inefficacy that we are today. We have starvation. We have the biggest famine in human history happening over in sub-Saharan Africa right now.” However, the problem with GMOs is one much larger than failed promises or misguided expectations.

Instead, it’s a form of technology that threatens human health, the environment and the very food supply we depend on. At the foundation, “GMOs Revealed” seeks to answer a question that’s relevant to all of us:

“What if the desire to use technology to enhance our world and save lives has evolved into a lust that, when paired with corporate greed and politics, becomes a catastrophic mass experiment that harms you and your family? Genetically modified foods, also known as GMOs, represent one of the most controversial issues in the world today. What is more vital to humanity, to each of us, than our food supply?”

The Not-so-Green Revolution

As Bush explains, many of the problems with industrialized agriculture began with the Green Revolution, which is not at all “green” as its name suggests. It's easy to forget that at one point, not so long ago, all food was organically grown in a way that supported the ecosystem and environment as a whole. This all changed in the 1940s when the Green Revolution took hold and industrial, chemical-dependent farming techniques quickly spread to become the norm.

When WWII ended, there was a glut of petroleum, and in petroleum are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — three nutrients needed for crops to grow. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the Green Revolution that led to the introduction of petroleum-based agricultural chemicals, which quickly transformed agriculture, both in the U.S. and abroad.

President Lyndon Johnson's Food for Peace program actually mandated the use of petroleum-dependent technologies and chemicals by aid recipients, and countries that could not afford it were granted loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

However, as happens in humans, when you isolate only a few nutrients and remove many others, you end up with a weakened immune system. “And so our plants started to fail,” Bush said, “and started to be prone to insects and fungi and viruses.” Again, instead of looking to the root of the problem of why the plants were failing, chemical companies introduced pesticides and herbicides to kill weeds and bugs.

Meanwhile, companies like Monsanto got into the business of killing plants via Agent Orange, which was used to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War. After the war ended, it was time to repurpose their efforts to developing chemicals like organophosphates and glyphosate, which is now the active ingredient in Roundup.

Glyphosate Impacts on Human Health and the Environment

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, is an herbicide like no other, as more tons of it have been sprayed worldwide than any other herbicide before it. Writing in Environmental Sciences Europe, scientists noted that in the U.S. and likely globally, “no pesticide has come remotely close to such intensive and widespread use.”3

“Glyphosate will likely remain the most widely applied pesticide worldwide for years to come,” they continued, which is alarming as its environmental and public health risks become increasingly apparent. Glyphosate is used in large quantities on GE glyphosate-tolerant crops (i.e., Roundup Ready varieties).

Its use actually increased nearly fifteenfold since such GE crops were introduced in 1996.4 Glyphosate is also a popular tool for desiccating (or accelerating the drying out) of crops like wheat and oats, a use that began before the introduction of GE crops.

Monsanto has steadfastly claimed that Roundup is harmless to animals and humans because the mechanism of action it uses (which allows it to kill weeds), called the shikimate pathway, is absent in all animals. However, the shikimate pathway is present in human gut bacteria as well as soil bacteria and plants. In an interview I conducted with Bush in 2017, he explained:

"Glyphosate blocks an enzyme pathway … called the shikimate pathway. These enzymes are responsible for making some of the most important compounds in food [including] ringed carbon structures, such as tryptophan, that are the backbone of hormones. If you take away tryptophan from the plant chain or the plant kingdom by killing this pathway in bacteria and plants, the plant cannot make these essential signaling molecules …

It wipes out about four to six of the essential amino acids, which are the building blocks for all proteins in your body … There are only 26 amino acids. You take away four to six of those [and] you just lost a huge percentage of biology. There's a family of compounds called alkaloids … [When you] remove the alkaloids from food, what you see is the disease burst we have going on across so many organ systems in our bodies.

There's a family of [alkaloids] that are anti-parasitic … [others] are antidiabetic … anticancer … antihypertensive … anti-mood disorder … antiasthma, anti-eczema type of compounds.

You go through the list of alkaloids and [realize that if you add a] chemical to our food chain that wipes out the production of [alkaloids] … we [lose] the medicinal quality of food that has existed for thousands of years … [By using glyphosate] we robbed the soil and the plant from the ability to make these essential medicinal [compounds]."

Further, research by Bush and colleagues has found that glyphosate actually hits the cell membranes of the intestine, which upregulates the receptor for gliadin, the gluten breakdown product that causes gluten sensitivity. He believes that the surge in celiac disease and gluten sensitivity can be tied to the use of glyphosate as a desiccant, which, together with drying out the wheat early (leading to an abnormally high gluten-to-fiber ratio), created a perfect storm for biologic damage.

How to Live in This Overprocessed World

Food activist blogger Vani Hari, better known as "Food Babe," takes a more personal approach to spreading awareness on the dangers of GMOs. While working to climb the corporate ladder in her early 20s, Hari was overworked and eating a highly processed Western diet. When she was struck with appendicitis that required emergency surgery, it was a wake-up call that triggered her mission to reveal what’s really in the food we’re eating.

“My whole life I had been suffering from eczema, asthma … I was on three or four medications for asthma … one of the things I found out almost immediately was the way I’d been eating had been affecting these other things that I’d been living with my entire life, not even knowing,” she said, adding:

“ … The scariest thing about GMOs that really got me was knowing that there is corn being planted here in the United States that is injected with Bt toxin, which is an insecticide that’s inside the corn kernel, inside the seed, so when an insect tries to eat it, their stomach explodes. I was terrified … what happens to our own bodies when we … eat it. That is something that hasn’t been tested long-term on humans … [but] in laboratory studies of animals it produces horrendous results.”

One of her messages is the importance of teaching children how and why to choose foods that are grown organically and raised humanely, as there are poisons on food that they can’t see.

“Imagine a world where a child goes to lunch and talks about their lunch in a really positive way, and how their choices, them eating a non-GMO meal or an organic meal is changing the world,” she says, “and then telling other friends about it and talking about what’s really happening in our food supply and what brands are doing the right things and what brands are doing the wrong things … that’s how this information catches wildfire.”

Hari has been instrumental in prompting real changes in the food industry, inspiring Chipotle to take a closer look at its ingredients, for instance, and launching a petition that eventually led to Subway removing the chemical azodicarbonamide from their sandwich bread.

She wants to let people know that they don’t have to buy into the cycle of eating industrialized food, getting sick and spending money on pharmaceuticals as a result. Instead, she stresses, spend a fraction of that money on organic, non-GMO food so you can live your best life. “You don’t have to be part of the system,” she says. “You can opt out.”

Gaining Access to Healthy, Non-GMO Food

Affordability and availability are two common hurdles to choosing organic, non-GE food. The third expert in GMOs Revealed��s first episode is Gunnar Lovelace, CEO of Thrive Market, which cut out the middleman to provide online access to organic and non-GMO foods at affordable prices. Yet, another issue is the lack of labeling on GE foods in the U.S., which is why Thrive only carries products that are non-GMO. Lovelace said:

“The idea that we’re going to engineer food crops like corn, wheat, soy and cotton to withstand systemic poisoning and the destruction of topsoil, the infiltration into water systems and 90 plus percent of Americans now testing positive for glyphosate through these Roundup Ready crops that are now in all … the packaged goods … that to me is the definition of insanity …

There are all sorts of studies that we’re destroying topsoil at an alarming rate and there are only 60 harvests left on the planet. And so the way that we are producing, distributing and marketing and consuming food is going to leave this planet completely unsustainable for us and for our children.”

Thrive was also instrumental in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) decision to allow participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — formerly known as the food stamp program — to shop online for food. This will allow people living in “food deserts” without access to healthy foods an option to secure healthier choices.

The company launched a petition for the cause in June 2016 and had gained more than 310,000 signatures just a few months later. “People are voting with their dollars and they’re voting with their values,” Lovelace said.

If you’re new to healthy eating and are wondering what step to take first to get yourself and your family on the right track, Lovelace echoed one of my key tenets of healthy living: eat whole foods. “We need to eat food with way fewer ingredients, so the fewer ingredients listed the better … buy truly nutrient-dense food from a local farmer at a farmers market … eat as many veggies as possible.”

Keep in mind, too, that it’s important to choose organic, non-GMO animal products as well. The use of genetic engineering is prohibited in organic products — a significant benefit. Importantly, not only are GE seeds prohibited but animals raised on organic farms may not be fed GE alfalfa or GE corn. Over the past two decades, the majority of the anti-GMO movement was focused on GMOs found in processed foods and a small number of whole GE foods. Yet that's only 20 percent of the GMOs in the human food chain.

Twice as much (40 percent) goes into the making of animal feed for CAFOs. The only way to change that trend is by not buying CAFO animal products, be it poultry (including eggs), pork or beef. While fruits and vegetables are the top selling category of organically grown food,5 it’s important to choose organic and grass fed meat and dairy products as well.

from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/03/17/gmos-revealed.aspx

[technicaldr]

The Future of Vision and Eye Care

More than 80 percent of perception comes through vision

Researchers estimate that 80-85 percent of our perception, learning, cognition, and activities are mediated through vision. Compared to that, our hearing only processes 11 percent of information, while smell 3.5 percent, touch 1.5 percent and taste 1 percent. Don’t you think that’s possible? Renowned scholars, L.D. Rosenblum, Harold Stolovitch and Erica Keeps explained these numbers with the following, rather convincing story.

Imagine you are in an open field, the sun shines on you, with the bees humming softly in the air. How far can you see and hear? When it comes to vision, it’s around 50 miles, talking about hearing, it’s only 1-2 miles at best! What about the smell of the flowers? Without the wind blowing, only 10-20 meters. How about touching or tasting? Well, it depends on your arm’s length, but obviously not further than that. And the same goes for your tongue and tasting.

It is almost a cliché to emphasize the importance of the eyes and vision, but it’s a luminous example to illustrate how the eyes are our most important sensory organ. Hence, if you catch an eye disease or have to face a serious eye condition, you feel very motivated to get better immediately.

 Eye conditions affect way too many people worldwide

The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness estimated in 2015 that 36 million of people are blind, and 217 million people suffer from moderate or severe distance vision impairment. It is a hopeful tendency that the prevalence of blindness and vision impairment combined has dropped from 4.58% in 1990 to 3.37% in 2015. The decrease can be attributed to progress in technology, for example in surgical techniques and concerning treating eye infections.

Yet, digital health still has a lot to do for lessening plenty of suffering which comes from not being able to see the world clearly. In the last couple of years, it actually started to undertake the task to transform the field of ophthalmology, offering its innovative solutions for the broadest spectrum of eye conditions. Treating less serious ailments gets faster, more targeted and more efficient, while the means for curing more serious and life-altering illnesses improve. Here, I outlined the way technology delineates for the future of eye care and vision.

 With “bionic eyes” for reversing blindness

Disruptive technologies gave a huge boost to the creative minds of ophthalmology. Types of conditions causing blindness, such as AMD or retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited eye condition causing loss of sight gradually and causing blindness for an estimated 1.5 million people worldwide, have been treated successfully with mind-blowing innovations.

The California-based firm, Second Sight, the German company, Retina Implant AG, and French venture, Pixium Vision, develops implantable visual prosthetics to restore vision to patients who are blind as a result of the rare condition of retinitis pigmentosa. In 2016, The Guardian reported that a blind woman suffering from it was fitted with the implant labeled “bionic eye” in the UK as part of a trial at the Oxford Eye Hospital. She has spoken of her joy after she was able to tell the time for the first time in more than six years. That must have been truly amazing!

In 2015, surgeons in Manchester, UK have performed the first bionic eye implant for an AMD patient using Second Sight’s innovation. The 80-year-old Ray Flynn lost entirely his central vision, but with the help of the retinal implant, he could make out shapes on the computer screen. Researchers say that the implant cannot provide any highly detailed vision – but it can help patients detect distinct patterns such as door frames and shapes.

 Brain implants and artificial retina instead of bionic eyes?

As Second Sight’s current Argus II device for helping people with retinitis pigmentosa only restore minimal vision and cost $150,000, they only sold 250 of them so far. A while ago, the company started to develop a modified version of its innovation, which completely leaves the eye out of the procedure and instead mobilizes the part of the brain responsible for processing visual information, the visual cortex. Delivering electrical pulses here should tell the brain to perceive patterns of light. The company hopes that this new innovation could help about 6 million people in the future who are blind due to other causes, like cancer, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, or trauma. The company hopes to begin enrolling patients for trials in October and do its first implant by the end of the year. We can’t wait to know more about it!

Instead of “bionic eyes” that stimulate brain cells with lights coming from a tiny video camera or stimulate the visual cortex directly through electrodes, the Italian Institute of Technology has developed a new approach for treating retinal degeneration, with a prosthesis implanted into the eye that serves as a working replacement for a damaged retina – basically an artificial retina. Their research showed promising results for lab rats, and they plan to carry out the first human trials in the second half of 2017 and gather preliminary results during 2018.

 The miraculous CRISPR and other gene therapies for regaining vision

CRISPR-Cas9 or as used in plain language, CRISPR, the breakthrough gene editing method, has already shown its potential future use in eye care. Experts even say the eye is an ideal place to start for the first clinical use of CRISPR. Compared to other parts of the body, the eye is easy to access for surgery, readily accepts new tissue and can be noninvasively monitored.

Scientists at Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Iowa used CRISPR to repair a genetic mutation responsible for retinitis pigmentosa in induced pluripotent stem cells derived from a patient with the disease. The team reported a 13 percent success rate at converting the mutated gene variant into the normal one which is way better than previous studies. In February 2017, experts at the Center for Genome Engineering, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) reported the use of CRISPR in performing “gene surgery” in the layer of tissue that supports the retina of living mice. After the intervention, the mice showed signs of improvement from AMD. It is a ground-breaking experiment suggesting that CRISPR can not only be used to correct mutations causing hereditary diseases but also in the case of non-hereditary degenerative diseases.

Beyond CRISPR, other gene therapies also have a great chance to become a common treatment method for specific eye conditions in the future. Early October 2017, the FDA’s advisory panel approved a gene therapy called Luxturna, which targets a rare condition called Leber congenital amaurosis. Thus, the treatment method got one step closer to full FDA approval. The agency will make its final decision by next January. If the verdict is positive, the gene therapy will be the first approved treatment in the US to correct an inherited genetic trait – but it might be followed very soon by much more.

 Eye care patients will also become the point of care

With the advancement of smartphones and other smart gadgets at lightning speed, it is only a matter of time before portable devices will appear on a large scale in ophthalmology as well. The tiny, well-designed and connected instruments and the accompanying apps make it possible to undertake eye examinations anywhere in the world – making patients the point of care.

For example, Peek Retina is the flagship product of Peek Vision, a UK-based company and foundation, a portable ophthalmoscope that enables you to view and capture retinal images on your smartphone wherever you are. The venture also offers smartphone-based vision eye tests, e.g. for measuring visual acuity. It greatly helps physicians in remote areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa diagnose and treat patients.

The MIT-spinout company, EyeNetra developed a diagnostic device for signaling refractive errors fast and accurately. The device, called Netra, is a plastic, binocular-like headset to be used with an app which calculates the difference between what the user indicates as “aligned” and the actual alignment of various patterns. This signals any refractive errors, such as near-sightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. The app then displays the refractive powers, the axis of astigmatism, and the pupillary distance required for eyeglasses prescriptions. EyeNetra will make school or workplace eye examinations in the future a lot easier than today.

 Are 3D printed and digital contact lenses the future?

Digital contact lenses sound as science fiction: the translucid layer on your eye transmitting special information about your body to an outside device. Yet, it might be a reality soon. For example, Google teamed up with Novartis, to produce digital, multi-sensor contact lenses which are designed to be able to measure blood sugar levels.

Google and Novartis said the lens would contain a tiny and ultra slim microchip that would be embedded in one of its thin concave sides. Through its equally tiny antenna, it would send data about the glucose measurements from the user’s tears to his or her paired smartphone via installed software. Originally, the companies promised to put the digital contact lens around 2020 on the market. However, in March 2017 Novartis Chairman Joerg Reinhardt talked down the chances of the project bringing visible results in the next couple of years. I truly hope this is just a temporary setback.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Washington have created a contact lens with an LED display built into it – with the help of a 3D printer! While it is really difficult to manufacture a contact lens, which is one-third of a millimeter in diameter, a 3D printer sandwiches together different layers of interacting material, which makes it easier to place together so tiny pieces. While it was only an experiment, the research has important implications to improve the display technology of small devices. Maybe Google will 3D print the next generation of digital contact lenses, who knows?

 Healing the eye faster

Innovation in regenerative medicine is flourishing: dentistry, dermatology, ophthalmology. A few specialties which can take pride in healing injured or diseased body parts faster and in a more efficient way.

For example, researchers in Turkey developed a regenerative medicine, that can heal the front of the eye in as little as two days after surgery. The drug called Cacicol stimulates faster tissue repair, appears to relieve eye pain, burning, and light sensitivity following an invasive intervention. Scientists treated with Cacicol patients suffering from a rare disease called keratoconus who went through a surgery known as corneal cross-linking. The drug helped decrease the initial healing from 5 days.

 Artificial Intelligence for detecting eye conditions in time

Image recognition algorithms have the capacity to transform diagnostics based on medical imaging. In 2016, Google developed an eye-scanning technique for looking at retinal images and detecting diabetic retinopathyas well as a trained ophthalmologist. The disease is quite common among diabetes patients, and if it is not spotted early enough it may cause blindness. The machine-learning algorithm uses Google’s method for labeling millions of Web images as it examines photos of a patient’s retina to spot tiny aneurisms indicating the early stages of diabetic retinopathy. A year later, the search giant announced they have begun working on integrating the technology into a chain of eye hospitals in India.

 Google is not the only one working on A.I. solutions for eye care, though. A teenage girl from India, whose grandfather in India was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy, developed a smartphone app that can screen for the disease with the help of a specially trained artificial intelligence program and a simple 3D-printed lens attachment. A truly disruptive innovation: smart, cheap and potentially life-changing!

 Eye conditions through augmented reality

Patient education is key in prevention and it also gives the best chance for physicians arriving at the most accurate diagnosis based on their patients’ explanation of their symptoms.

The use of Orca Health’s EyeDecide could bring exactly this result. The innovative, Utah-based mobile software company’s medical app uses an augmented reality camera display for simulating the impact of specific conditions on a person’s vision. EyeDecide can fully demonstrate the consequences of cataract or AMD and thus help patients understand their actual medical state.

 Cyborgization is upon us?

I’m hopeful that eye conditions, visual impairment, and blindness will be entirely treatable in the future, even if that would mean their replacement with fully capable technologies. I believe the biggest ethical challenge of eye implants or devices replacing visual functions could be that it might facilitate cyborgization.

What if healthy people would like to live as Neil Harbisson? As someone whose vision is extended through an external technology? What if the average user will ask for bionic eyes as it does not get tired, you can zoom with it, browse and search online, even take photos that no one else could see?

Neil Harbisson is actually an artist born with achromatopsia or extreme colorblindness meaning he could only see in black-and-white. Harbisson received a specialized electronic eye, his “eyeborg” to be able to render perceived colors as sounds on the musical scale. He is capable of experiencing colors beyond the scope of normal human perception: Amy Winehouse is red and pink, while ringtones are green. In his view, cyborgization might start with a third eye on the back of the head or an implanted sensor indicating whether there is a car behind you.

 If you are entirely freaked out by now, I have to tell you, we are rather far from implanting third eyes into people. However, we have to start to contemplate about the possibilities of such scenarios as we will arrive at the boundaries of privacy, ethics – and the ultimate merging of the human body with technology. We have to be ready for that!

Technical Dr. Inc.'s insight:

Contact Details :

inquiry@technicaldr.com or 877-910-0004 www.technicaldr.com

[dusudaunord]

New Montréal restaurants to visit

It may seem like it’s hard to keep up with Montréal’s ever growing restaurant scene but this roundup of new spots to visit will help you decide which ones to visit first.

Downtown:

Tiradito – 1076 Rue De Bleury

Chef Marcel Larrea is at the helm of this new restaurant specializing in Nikkei, the Peruvian Japanese fusion cuisine that’s popular in Peru. No need to ask for a seat at the bar since the entire restaurant is basically a bar behind which chefs and bartenders work their magic. Start with a Pisco Sour, Peru’s most famous cocktail, and don’t skip on the ceviche, the chaufa or the butifarra.

Venez prendre une pause chez Libertine! Nous sommes ouvert les lundis! // Stop by and take a break at Libertine! We’re open on Mondays!

Une publication partagée par Libertine Bakehouse (@libertinebakehouse) le 19 Déc. 2016 à 9h39 PST

Southwest:

Libertine Bakehouse – 806 Atwater Avenue

Patrice Pâtissier alumn Nick Kemball has branched out on his own with Libertine Bakehouse, a new pastry shop with an edge. Libertine’s logo is a stylized mash-up of a skull head and a cupcake and an aqua green skeleton is the mascot of the cute boutique. The pastries on display change often but you’ll be able to taste such delights as a the brioche feuilletée, the apple and lingonberry tart, the miso Paris-Brest or the pistachio cake with citrus, sour cream and olive oil.

“Gimme that funk, that sweet, that gushi stuff…”✨✨ #HENDENMTL #griffintownbar #mtlspeakeasy #FindtheDoor #JustAskDontTell #PlayboyVibes Crédit photo: @twofoodphotographers

Une publication partagée par Bird Bar (@lebirdbar) le 22 Févr. 2017 à 14h38 PST

Henden Bar – 1800 Rue Notre-Dame West

A new underground bar has recently opened its doors in St Henri. Located in the basement of Le Birdbar, Henden comes to us from the same owner and restaurateur Kimberly Lallouz. The bar has a plush, seventies look that’s a cross between a Playboy mansion and a Maroccan living room complete with crushed orange velvet couch and black and gold accents. Henden serves a reduced version of Birdbar’s menu and a complete bar.

*High maintenance * and I’m not talking about my insane shoe game #everythinggood #local #weinhöhle #magdalenamtl #winenight #montrealenlumiere #mtl #mtlmoments @xl.photo

Une publication partagée par Magdalena (@magdalena.mtl) le 23 Févr. 2017 à 5h55 PST

Magdalena – 4005 Rue Notre Dame West

From the people behind Ludger comes this new wine bar (and Ludger neighbour). In a lush décor rich in greenery, Magdalena offers small, vegetable-centric plates and a balanced wine list that includes classics as well as natural and bopdynamic wines.

En collaboration avec @cacaobarryofficial on vous a fait une liste de restos romantiques ✨ @twofoodphotographers

Une publication partagée par Tastet.ca (@tastet.ca) le 6 Févr. 2017 à 14h05 PST

Little Italy / Villeray:

Marconi ­– 45 Avenue Mozart West

Marconi was the most anticipated restaurant opening of the past few months. Former Au Pied de Cochon chef Mehdi Brunet-Benkritly is back in Montréal after a 5-year stint in New York City.  The Zébulon Perron-designed restaurant has conserved some of the old space’s elements giving the dining room a laid back vintage look. The food at Marconi is market driven and includes snacks, small plates and more substantial mains. Don’t skip dessert!

En famille ou entre amis, Aldea est là pour vous recevoir

Une publication partagée par Restaurant Aldea (@aldeamtl) le 17 Déc. 2016 à 12h30 PST

Plateau:

Aldea – 4403 Boulevard Saint Laurent

From caldo verde to bacalhau fritters to pasteis de nata, Aldea, a recently opened restaurant on the Plateau, serves Portuguese traditional dishes in a classic ambiance.

L’Exquise Québécoise ; notre délicieuse inspiration québécoise conçue de frites de plantain, manioc et viande de chèvre #levirunga

Une publication partagée par Le Virunga Restaurant (@levirunga) le 18 Nov. 2016 à 11h55 PST

Le Virunga – 851 Rachel East

The exotic flavours of Sub-Saharan food now have a home in the heart of the Plateau. Revisited traditional recipes with a Quebec twist–plantain and cassava poutine, anyone?–are on the  menu at Le Virunga, in a décor filled with dark woods and rich textures.

Une publication partagée par taqueriaarturo (@taqueriaarturo) le 26 Janv. 2017 à 8h32 PST

Taqueria Arturo – 64 Prince Arthur Street East

Located on the pedestrian part of Prince Arthur Street, Arturo serves up tacos, burritos and some appetizers a an affordable price. The menu here is not a stickler for tradition but that’s besides the point when you have fun menu items such as the delicious falafel and tzatziki taco or the gochjujang ribeye with grilled kimchee.

Be my Valentine, braised pork banh mi from Banh Mi, Banh Yiu

Une publication partagée par Rachel Cheng (@torontrealaise) le 14 Févr. 2017 à 9h01 PST

Mile End:

Bánh Mì Bánh Yiu – 255A Saint Viateur West

A new fun lunch counter in the heart of the Mile End, Bánh Mì Bánh Yiu serves Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwiches ranging from vegetarian to pork to tofu and avocado. The sandwiches are garnished with pickles, housemade sauces and fresh herbs. The long and narrow space consists of a long bar behind which the sandwich assembly happens. The menu also offers a daily soup option as well as salads.

Brunch chez @elda.bistro dans le #mileend ☕️ #montreal #restaurant #sonya6000

Une publication partagée par Manon H (@manon.h.photography) le 10 Févr. 2017 à 19h39 PST

Elda Bistro – 5206 Boulevard Saint Laurent

This new bistro from Mile-Ex chef owner Gregory Paul and co-owner Gabriel Rizzotti has recently opened its doors on the Main. In a timeless décor that’s reminiscent of a Parisian bistro, Elda serves some Mile Ex classics for lunch and dinner such as the cod accras or the delicious beef tartare as well as other dishes created by chef Valentin Wajda. The wines are exclusively by private import company Beau-vin which belongs to Rizzotti’s father and which allows him to offer wine at a great price.

~ Ce lieu ✨ ~ Découverte d’une superbe adresse dans le Milend @les_impertinentes, le lieu est tellement cool, on passerais des heures à siroté un bon café Ici ☕️ | J’ai aussi dégusté une délicieuse tartine poulet cari- raisins //// Discovering the Milend through its good spot welcome to this new place @les_impertinentes, so cosy & beautiful to try ☕️ | I’d a yummy lunch w/ my chiken-grapes toast #ExploremyMTL #brunch #montreal #lunch #Mtlmoments #foodblog #Blogger #travelblog

Une publication partagée par Ben Mahi • (@uncle_bens_) le 18 Janv. 2017 à 11h28 PST

Les Impertinentes – 5380 Boulevard Saint Laurent

This new Mile End Café is the natural extension of the Ballet Hop! dance studio. Fresh juices, salads, bowls, tartines, sweet delicacies and, of course, coffee and tea can be found for lunch or brunch in this light-filled space.

Long weekends are for light lunches • • • • #lunch #bbq #poutine #pulledpork #foodporn #canada #mtl #montreal #latergram

Une publication partagée par Isabel McCalden (@imccalden) le 4 Juil. 2016 à 7h27 PDT

Rosemont:

Le Boucan Rosemont – 2876 Rue Masson

Montréal’s BBQ restaurant Le Boucan now has a second location on Masson Street in Rosemont. The restaurant’s famous smokehouse-inspired menu and whiskey and bourbon selection are on the menu at this second location in a laid-back, rustic ambiance.

Comptoir Asiat’

Une publication partagée par Maneki Comptoir Asiat (@maneki_comptoir_asiat) le 7 Févr. 2017 à 12h11 PST

Maneki Comptoir Asiat’ – 3121 Rue Hochelaga

A new Asian restaurant has opened its doors in Hochelaga. Unpretentious, fun and casual, Maneki’s mission is to make good simple and enjoyable food in a very cool décor with a unique brand identity. Maneki doesn’t declare itself as one particular Asian cuisine but rather all of them. They serve Asian classics favourites from all cuisines and from the looks of it, are managing to do right by all.

Our Spicy Cornbread is back this weekend ! Keep an eye out for more menu items. Brunch this Sat and Sun 10am till Sold out. ( @jadewfoto)

Une publication partagée par CAFE MELBOURNE (@lemelbournecafe) le 21 Févr. 2017 à 16h34 PST

Existing restaurants, new brunches:

Brunch at Café Melbourne – 4615 Boulevard Saint Laurent

This Mile End café inspired by Australia’s café culture has recently partnered up with chef Saad Bahbahani to serve a creative brunch that’s become the talk of the town. The dishes are named after Australian celebrities and we highly recommend the Elle MacPherson or the Nicole Kidman.

Brunch is served! Salmon tataki served with poached egg, tzatziki, guacamole, tobiko & toasted bread / tataki de saumon servi avec oeuf poché, tzatziki, guacamole, tobiko & pain grillé.

Une publication partagée par thazardmtl (@thazardmtl) le 18 Févr. 2017 à 7h16 PST

Brunch at Thazard – 5329 Boulevard Saint Laurent

The Japanese bistro is now open for weekend brunch. The Asian-inspired brunch includes Thazard’s famous ramen bowls as well many other dishes such as chicken and waffles and burgers but always thought out with an Asian twist.

Up next:A round-up of new bars and restaurants in Montréal

  The post New Montréal restaurants to visit appeared first on Tourisme Montréal Blog.

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