Tip: Don't Start to Smoke & Avoid "Gateway Sequence" - cigarettes & alcohol serve as gateway drugs before progressing to marijuana, cocaine, etc

Alternate orders of exposure to nicotine and cocaine were examined. The authors found that pretreatment with nicotine greatly alters the response to cocaine in terms of addiction-related behavior and synaptic plasticity (changes in synaptic strength) in the striatum, a brain region critical for addiction-related rewards. On a molecular level, nicotine also primes the response to cocaine by inhibiting the activity of an enzyme―histone deacetylase―in the striatum. This inhibition enhances cocaine’s ability to activate a gene called FosB gene, which promotes addiction. The relationship between nicotine and cocaine was found to be unidirectional: nicotine dramatically enhances the response to cocaine"
Health News - Nicotine “Primes” the Brain for Cocaine Use: The Molecular Basis of the Gateway Sequence of Drug Use for Nicotine and Cocaine: "Cigarettes and alcohol serve as gateway drugs, which people use before progressing to the use of marijuana and then to cocaine and other illicit substances; this progression is called the “gateway sequence” of drug use. An article in Science Translational Medicine by study author Denise Kandel, PhD, of the Mailman School of Public Health; and Amir Levine, MD; Eric Kandel, MD; and colleagues at Columbia University Medical Center provides the first molecular explanation for the gateway sequence.
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We should protect those areas which provide longer term refugees, where velocities are low, and where refugees from climate change may arrive

When we talk about velocity of climate change, we mean the speed and direction of movement of temperature. So when temperature increases in a particular spot, anything wanting to stay at the same temperature as before needs to move to a cooler place. In an area where there is a very flat thermal landscape, or where temperatures vary little from place to place, that cooler place could be a long way away. And so velocity of climate change would be high. Where cooler places are right next door, like up a nearby mountain range or on the other side of an oceanographic boundary, life only needs to move a short distance to follow temperatures over the same time period. So, the much flatter thermal landscape in the ocean tends to increase velocities, and therefore offsets the effect of greater warming on land to bring the velocities for the two environments closer together. By a similar process, reduced seasonal changes in the ocean tend to push up estimates for seasonal shifts to values close to those for land."
New Evidence That Climate Change Threatens Marine Biodiversity - Hans Villarica - Life - The Atlantic: "
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Update: India & China, huge users of coal. Biggest jump in global warming gases.The good news is that their economies are growing rapidly, however...

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases. It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past. Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said. "It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over.""
The Associated Press: Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases: "
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Tip: The key is moderation in everything and maintain the state of emotional balance

"Dietary extremes also affect your emotions. As your fixation deepens, you may feel intense anxiety if your eating ritual is somehow altered or delayed, experience guilt after eating "imperfectly," or find yourself skipping out on social or work functions involving food outside of your comfort zone. Over time, these symptoms can lead to depression, sleep difficulties and hindered interpersonal relationships. The three markers that your health-food interest has become an obsession are extreme rigidity in your eating patterns, in your allowed foods and in the amount of food you consume. "Unwillingness to stray from carefully planned meals or mealtimes, as well as obvious stress and irritability when presented with impromptu eating -- i.e., dining out, grabbing food on the go -- are the behavioral manifestations of these issues," Shaw-Draves explained. The amount of time you spend thinking about food is another factor, including time spent planning meals, calculating your caloric intake and reprimanding yourself for eating foods you've banned from your diet. Your dreams and first thoughts upon waking may also involve food."

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Green Business Awards seeks innovative, ambitious & effective initiatives in achieving environmental sustainability & smart business practice

Sindicatum Wins Green Business Awards 2011 - MarketWatch: "Sindicatum Group CFO, Michael Boardman said: "We are very proud of having been selected by the judges as winners of both awards - the award in the Renewable Energy category is particularly poignant, in light of the current events in Thailand: we are contributing to the relief effort in the country not just by continuing to produce clean power despite the adverse weather conditions but also by contributing financially and materially to the relief effort in our local communities. Awards and recognition from organisations such as the Green Business Awards allow us to intensify our efforts and motivate further our staff in this difficult environment." Other awards won by Sindicatum in 2011 include the Carbon Finance Transaction of the Year award by Environmental Finance ( http://www.environmental-finance.com/ ) and the Most Progressive Corporate Leader award by the Association for Sustainable & Responsible Investment in Asia, awarded to Assaad Razzouk, Group CEO ( http://www.asria.org/ and http://conference.asria.org/awards/2011/ )."

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Update: About 2 degrees of warming cause by Climate Change could reduce California's premium wine-growing land by 30 to 50 percent

Climate Change Has California Vintners Rethinking Grapes : NPR: "The specific type of grape, or varietal, is how most of us think about wine. At one recent meeting of the San Francisco Wine Lovers Group, for instance, members listed pinot noirs, sauvignon blancs or cabernets among their favorite kinds of wine. All are well-known varieties grown in the California region.

"That's the big problem," says Andy Walker, a grape breeder at the University of California, Davis. "We've spent the last 100 years emphasizing varieties, and we've really marketed those names very effectively."

The university's test vineyard grows hundreds of different wine grapes from around the world. The vast majority are unknown to consumers because most wineries focus on only a handful of French grapes that prefer cool climates.

Extreme heat can be the enemy of good wine; it destroys acidity, and changes color and aromatics, Walker explains."

'via Blog this'According to a recent study from Stanford University, about 2 degrees of warming could reduce California's premium wine-growing land by 30 to 50 percent. That could happen as soon as 2040. Water supply is also expected to be an issue.

Tip: Healthy Mind: Monitor Your Sense of Self Awareness by Checking Your Body Ownership & Self-Agency or the capability to initiate your own action

How to know if one is mentally healthy. One way is to do this test: "Rubber Hand Illusion” or RHI. This tactile illusion, which was discovered in 1998, is induced by simultaneously stroking a visible rubber hand and the subject’s hidden hand. “After a while, patients with schizophrenia begin to ‘feel’ the rubber hand and disown their own hand. They also experience their real hand as closer to the rubber hand,” says Sohee Park, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, who conducted the study with doctoral candidate Katharine Thakkar and research analysts Heathman Nichols and Lindsey McIntosh. While Healthy people get this illusion too, but weakly. Some don’t get it at all, and there is a wide range of individual differences in how people experience this illusion that is related to a personality trait called schizotypy associated with psychosis-proneness.”

Futurity.org – Mind-body reconnect in schizophrenia: "The experiment, reported in the journal PLoS One, measured the strength of body ownership of 24 schizophrenia patients and 21 matched control subjects
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