Walking

Brisk walking helps reduce body fat, lower blood pressure, and increase high-density lipoprotein.h The longest walk around the world was completed by a former neon-sign salesman, Jean Beliveau. He walked 46,600 miles around 64 countries. The trip took him 11 years.l Fire walking, or the act of walking over hot stones or embers with bare feet, is a religious ceremony practiced in several parts of the world, including the Indian subcontinent, China, Fiji Islands, New Zealand. It was also practiced in ancient Greece and India. Fire walking is said to help guarantee a good harvest or purify the participants.k Racewalking has been an official Olympic sport or over 90 years. Distances vary from 1 mile to 95 miles. Racewalking usually is not the most popular sport of the Olympics.j Modern literary theorists see a similarity between walking and writing. As Michel de Certeau observes, “writing is one way of making the world our own, and walking is another.”m The average Japanese takes 7,168 steps per day The United States walks the least of any industrialized nation. The average Australian takes 9, 695 steps per day (just a few short of the ideal 10,000), the average Japanese takes 7,168; the average Swiss: 9,650; and the average American just 5,117.o In modern traffic engineering, pedestrians have often been described as “pedestrian impedance,” or “vehicular delay.” Researchers note that walking has become a casualty of modern life. With the loss of walking as a cultural activity, there is a loss of an ancient and profound relationship with the body, world, and imagination.o Given that the world is about 25,000 miles in circumference and that the average walking rate is 3 miles per hour, it would take a person walking nonstop approximately 347 days to walk around the world.h It would take about 225 million years to walk one light-year at the pace of a 20-minute mile. It would take 95,000 years to travel one light-year on NASA’s Mach 9.68 X-43, a hypersonic scramjet that is the fastest aircraft in the wild. One light-year is about 5.9 trillion miles.c A typical pair of tennis shoes will last 500 miles of walking.c

Sleep

Humans spend a third of their life sleeping (25 years or more).h Humans can survive longer without food than they can without sleep.e During the first two years of a baby’s life, new parents will miss six months of sleep on average.e In 1894, Russian scientist Marie Mikhaïlovna de Manacééne conducted one of the earliest experiments on extreme sleep deprivation. She found that when she deprived puppies of sleep, they all died within four or five days, despite every effort to keep them alive. The younger the puppy, the more quickly it died.k Giraffes sleep just 1.9 hours a day while koalas sleep up to 22 hours a day Giraffes sleep only 1.9 hours a day in five- to 10-minute sessions. Koalas, however, are the longest-sleeping mammals, sleeping up to 22 hours a day.a,b The word “sleep” derives from the Proto-European base *sleb, “to be weak,” and is related to “slack.” “To sleep around” was first recorded in 1928.j Sleep is a universal characteristic of complex living organisms and has been observed in insects, mollusks, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals.f Only one half of a dolphin’s brain goes to sleep at a time. Dolphins are capable of what is known as unihemispheric sleep, in which one hemisphere of the brain goes into a deep sleep while the other hemisphere remains awake. This allows dolphins to sleep under water without drowning. Dolphins spend approximately one third of their lives asleep.k Slow-wave sleep appeared about 180 million years ago. REM sleep is believed to have appeared 50 million years later. Humans most likely developed a monophasic sleep/wake pattern in the Neolithic period (10,000 B.C.).k In Greek mythology, Hypnos (Somnus in Roman mythology) was the god of sleep. Thanatos, or death, was his twin. Poppies and other sleep-inducing plants grew at the entrance of Hypnos’ cave.k

The Human Mind

The mind is typically defined as the organized totality or system of all mental processes or psychic activities of an individual.c Many philosophers hold that the brain is a detector of the mind and that the mind is an inner, subjective state of consciousness.h Philosophers have used a variety of metaphors to describe the mind, including a blank sheet, a hydraulic device with different forces operating in it, or a television switchboard.h Attempts to understand the mind go back at least to the ancient Greeks. Plato, for example, believed that the mind acquired knowledge through virtue, independently of sense experience. Descartes and Leibniz also believed the mind gained knowledge through thinking and reasoning—or, in other words, rationalism.c In contrast to rationalists, empiricists, such as Aristotle, John Locke, and David Hume, believe that the mind gains knowledge from experience.c Combining both rationalism and empiricism, Kant argued that human knowledge depends on both sense experience and innate capacities of the mind.c Scientists are unsure if other types of animals have a mind or if some man-made machines could ever possess a mind.h Historically, there have been three major schools of thought that describe the relationship of the brain and the mind: 1) dualism, which holds that the mind exists independently from the brain; 2) materialism, which argues that the mind is identical to the physical processes of the brain; and 3) idealism, which posits that only mental phenomena exist.i Scientists propose that the human mind evolved largely through the sexual choices our ancestors made, similar to the way a peacock’s tail evolved through sexual selection.h Brand names have a strong influence on the mind In one study, a group of experimenters were given unlabeled samples of both Pepsi and Coke. Not a single tester could tell the difference between the two. The test was repeated with the correct labels attached. Three out of the four testers chose Coke. In fact, the Coke label activated parts of the brain associated with the mind (memory, self-image, and culture) that the Pepsi label didn’t.i

Left-Handedness & Left-Handed People

Between 10-12% of people on earth are “lefties.” Women are more likely to be right-handed than men by about 4 percentage points.i August 13th is “Left-Hander’s Day.” Launched in 1996, this yearly event celebrates left-handedness and raises awareness of the difficulties and frustrations left-handers experience every day in a world designed for right-handers.e At various times in history, left-handedness has been seen as many things: a nasty habit, a mark of the devil, a sign of neurosis, rebellion, criminality, and homosexuality. It has also been seen as a trait indicating creativity and musical abilities.b Some scholars note that left-handers may be one of the last unorganized minorities in society because they have no collective power and no real sense of common identity. Additionally, left-handers are often discriminated against by social, educational, and religious institutions. Social customs and even language set the left-hander apart as “different” and even “bad.”b The word left is from the Anglo-Saxon lyft, meaning weak or broken Many sources claim that left-handers may die as many as nine years earlier than right-handers.b The word left in English comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lyft, which means weak or broken. The Oxford English Dictionary defines left-handed as meaning crippled, defective, awkward, clumsy, inapt, characterized by underhanded dealings, ambiguous, doubtful, questionable, ill-omened, inauspicious, and illegitimate.b Phrases in English suggest a negative view of left-handedness. For example, a “left-handed complement” is actually an insult. A “left-handed marriage” is not a marriage but an adulterous sexual liaison, as in a “left-handed honeymoon with someone else’s husband.” A “left-handed wife” is actually a mistress.b Research has shown a link between trauma during gestation or during birth with an increased chance of being left-handed.b Tests conducted by St. Lawrence University in New York found that there were more left-handed people with IQs over 140 than right-handed people. Famous left-handed intellectuals include Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Benjamin Franklin.b Mothers who are over 40 at the time of a child’s birth are 128% more likely to have a left-handed baby than a woman in her 20s.b

The Korean War

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when 75,000 North Korean soldiers poured over the 38th parallel into South Korea to impose communism on its neighbor.l The Korean War was the first military action of the Cold War.d The Korean War began at 4:30 a.m. on June 25, 1950, and ended on July 27, 1953. There are still more than 7,000 U.S. soldier missing in action from the war.a The North Korean film Unsung Heroes (1978) glorifies members of the North Korean military while depicting war crimes by South Korean and the U.S. In its cast were several U.S. soldiers who had defected to North Korea.j The 38th parallel was first suggested as a dividing line in 1896 The Korean War took a heavy toll—up to a total of 5 million dead, wounded, or missing, and half of them civilians.a Although actual hostilities during the Korean War ended on July 27, 1953, Congress lengthened the war period to January 31, 1955, to extend benefit eligibility for soldiers because peace was so uncertain after the 1953 peace negotiations.b Compared to WW II, there are few movies about the Korean War. Some of the most well known include The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Pork Chop Hill (1959), andBirthday Boy (2004). a North Koreans who were born after the Korean War in the late 1950s are on average about 2 inches shorter than South Koreans.g In March 2013, North Korea declared the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War invalid.k At the end of the conflict, the combatants signed a cease-fire at 10:00 a.m. on July 27, 1953. There was not a treatise or an official end to the Korean War.d

Civil War

The Civil War was the bloodiest war ever fought on American soil. During an average day during the war, approximately 600 people were killed. By the end of the war, over 618,000 people had died. This is more Americans than WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.b If the names of the Civil War dead were organized similar to the names on the Vietnam Memorial wall, the Civil War memorial would be over 10 times longer.J During the Civil War, 2% of the U.S. population died. This is equivalent to 6 million men today. While rifles were the deadliest weapons during the war, disease killed more men. Camps became breeding grounds for measles, chicken pox, and mumps. One million Union solders contracted malaria.d One of every 65 Federals and 1 of every 45 Confederates were killed in action.d The Civil War is also known as "The Boy's War" The youngest soldier in the Civil War was a 9-year-old boy from Mississippi. The oldest was an 80-year-old from Iowa. More than 10,000 soldiers serving in the Union Army were under 18 years old.g A Civil War soldier’s chance of surviving the war was about 1 in 4.e More Americans died at the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania, Virginia, in May 1864 than at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944.d Both the war’s bloodiest day (Antietam) and its bloodiest battle (Gettysburg) occurred in Union states. More than 5,000 soldiers died at Antietam, making September 17, 1862, the single bloodiest day in U.S. military history.d Gettysburg was the largest battle ever fought in North America. It’s victor, General Meade, was born in Spain.d The most common operation performed on soldiers during the Civil War was amputation. The best surgeon could have a limb severed and discard within five minutes. Civil War doctors were nicknamed “sawbones.” There were 60,000 partial or complete amputations during the war.h

The Holocaust

The Holocaust began in January 1933 when Hitler came to power and technically ended on May 8, 1945 (VE Day).i Between 1933 and 1945, more than 11 million men, women, and children were murdered in the Holocaust. Approximately six million of these were Jews.f Over 1.1 million children died during the Holocaust.c Young children were particularly targeted by the Nazis to be murdered during the Holocaust. They posed a unique threat because if they lived, they would grow up to parent a new generation of Jews. Many children suffocated in the crowded cattle cars on the way to the camps. Those who survived were immediately taken to the gas chambers.e The Holocaust would not have been possible without mass transportation The majority of people who were deported to labor and death camps were transported in cattle wagons. These wagons did not have water, food, a toilet, or ventilation. Sometimes there were not enough cars for a major transport, so victims waited at a switching yard, often with standing room only, for several days. The longest transport of the war took 18 days. When the transport doors were open, everyone was already dead.b The most intensive Holocaust killing took place in September 1941 at the Babi Yar Ravine just outside of Kiev, Ukraine, where more than 33,000 Jews were killed in just two days. Jews were forced to undress and walk to the ravine’s edge. When German troops shot them, they fell into the abyss. The Nazis then pushed the wall of the ravine over, burying the dead and the living. Police grabbed children and threw them into the ravine as well.a Carbon monoxide was originally used in gas chambers. Later, the insecticide Zyklon B was developed to kill inmates. Once the inmates were in the chamber, the doors were screwed shut and pellets of Zyklong B were dropped into vents in the side of the walls, releasing toxic gas. SS doctor Joann Kremmler reported that victims would scream and fight for their lives. Victims were found half-squatting in the standing room only chambers, with blood coming out their ears and foam out of their mouths.b In 1946, two partners in a leading pest control company, Tesch and Stabenow (Testa), were tried before a British military court on charges of genocide. It was argued that the accused must have realized that the massive supply of Zyklon B they provided to concentration camps was far above the quantity required for delousing. They were convicted and hanged.e Auschwitz was the largest of the German concentration camps Over one million people were murdered at the Auschwitz complex, more than at any other place. The Auschwitz complex included three large camps: Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz.b Prisoners, mainly Jews, called Sonderkommando were forced to bury corpses or burn them in ovens. Because the Nazis did not want eyewitnesses, most Sonderkommandos were regularly gassed, and fewer than 20 of the several thousand survived. Some Sonderkommandos buried their testimony in jars before their deaths. Ironically, the Sonderkommandos were dependent on continued shipment of Jews to the concentration camps for staying alive.e

Adolf Hitler

Historians note that, more so than Stalin or Mao’s regime, Hitler’s dictatorship stands as a paradigm of the 20th century. It reflects unforeseen levels of state repression and violence, unparalleled manipulation of the media to control and mobilize the masses, acute dangers of über-nationalism, the destructive power of ideologies of racial superiority and racism, and a perverted use of modern technology and social engineering.i Historians note that Hitler’s regime is particularly chilling because it reveals how a modern, advanced, cultured society can rapidly sink into barbarity and genocide. In short, Hitler’s dictatorship reveals what we are capable of.i As it is their goal to do this for all people who have ever lived on the Earth, Mormons posthumously baptized and endowed Hitler in 1993. He was “sealed” to his parents on March 12, 1994. Both took place in England.m A recently opened clothing store in the Indian metropolis of Ahmedabad is named “Hitler.” A swastika dots the letter “i” in Hitler.k Hitler’s immediate legacy is dramatic and includes the Cold War, a split Germany, the Iron Curtain, nuclear weapons, and moral trauma.j Hitler’s longest relationship was with Eva Braun (1912-1945). She tried to commit suicide twice in an attempt to garner more of Hitler’s attention.i Hitler was a gifted orator but had a raspy voice as a consequence of a gas attack he suffered during WWI.i Hitler's mustache has also been nicknamed the "toothbrush mustache" When Hitler’s close associate Ernst Hanfstaengl told him that his short mustache was unfashionable, Hitler replied: “If it is not the fashion now, it will be because I wear it.”e Historians argue whether Hitler was a natural consequence of German history or an aberration of it.i Hitler and Eva Braun were married in 1945 and killed themselves 36 hours later. Braun was 33 years old. Hitler was 56.j

World War II

World War II was the most destructive conflict in history. It cost more money, damaged more property, killed more people, and caused more far-reaching changes than any other war in history.a The country with the largest number of WWII causalities was Russia, with over 21 million.i For every five German soldiers who died in WWII, four of them died on the Eastern Front.c It is estimated that 1.5 million children died during the Holocaust. Approximately 1.2 million of them were Jewish and tens of thousands were Gypsies.i Eighty percent of Soviet males born in 1923 didn’t survive WWII.c Between 1939 and 1945, the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs, which averaged to 27,700 tons per month.c Russia and the Red Army were accused of several war crimes, including systematic mass rape (over 2 million German women aged 13-70 were allegedly raped by the Red Army) and genocide.h Many historians believe that the Battle at Stalingrad (1942-1943) is not only arguably the bloodiest battle in history (800,000-1,600,000 casualties), but also the turning point of WWII in Europe.f Many severely ill concentration camp prisoners died after liberation Even after the Allies arrived, many concentration camp prisoners were beyond help. In Bergen-Belsen, for example, 13,000 prisoners died after liberation. Nearly 2,500 of the 33,000 survivors of Dachau died within six weeks of liberation.i Max Heiliger was the fictitious name the SS used to establish a bank account in which they deposited money, gold, and jewels taken from European Jews.c

Shooting Deaths and Gun Control

Almost 2/3 of all murders in the United States involve guns.a The CDC Injury Prevention and Control Center notes thatsuicide firearm injuries were the 4th leading cause of injury deaths in the US in 2006. Motor vehicle accident injuries were the first leading cause of injury death in that year, followed by unintentional poisonings (2nd leading cause) and unintentional falls.a Among U.S. suicide deaths in 2007, firearms were used most often (50.7%), followed by hanging/strangulation/suffocation (23.1%) and intentional poisonings (18.8%).a The most common suicide method for males is firearms Males most often committed suicide with firearms (56%), whereas females most often used poison (40.8%) followed closely by firearms (31.9%).a In 2007, homicide by firearms occurred most often (66.1%), and in homicides of both males (71.7%) and females (46.4%). Sharp instruments were the second-most used method of homicide overall (12.1%) followed by blunt instruments (5.8%).a Men are not only more likely than women to be the victims of gun homicides but they are also more likely to be the perpetrators of homicides committed with a gun. However, firearm-related deaths rates for both sexes have decreased over the past few decades.a African American women had the highest death rate from firearm-related injuries than women of other ethnic groups. Asian or Pacific Islanders females had the lowest rate.a The proportion of the costs for medical treatment versus lost productivity is lower for self-inflected injuries than for assault injuries. This is because the death rate for self-inflected firearm injuries is higher than the death rate for firearm injuries due to assaults.a In some states, gun violence widely exceeds the rest of the country. For example, from 2001 to 2010 in Louisiana, there were 18.9 gun deaths for every 100,000 people, more than six times the rate in Hawaii.j Since 1982, there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms in 30 states. In most cases, the killers obtained their weapons legally.i

Bullying

Research shows that half of all children are bullied at some time during their school years. More than 10% are bullied regularly.d More parents are allowing their young children to undergo plastic surgery to combat bullying. For example, Samantha Shaw, a 1st grader, underwent surgery to get her ears pinned back to prevent her from being bullied.m The word “bully” was first used in 1530 and originally applied to both genders and meant “sweetheart.” It is from the Dutch boel, meaning “lover” or “brother.” Around the seventeenth century, the term began to mean “fine fellow,” “blusterer,” and then “harasser of the weak.”c Over 30% of children who suffer a food allergy report having been bullied at school. While verbal abuse was the most common form of bullying, 40% reported having been physically threatened, such as having the allergen thrown or waved at them or being touched by the allergen. Food allergies affect an estimated three million children.i Girls bully in groups more than boys do.l Though girls tend to use more indirect, emotional forms of bullying, research indicates that girls are becoming more physical than they have in the past.l Boys tend to bully according to group, such as “athlete” versus “non-athlete.” Girls tend to bully according to social status, such as “popular” vs. “non-popular.”q Bullying is an international problem When boys bully, they tend to use more threats and physical intimidation on both boys and girls. Girls are usually more verbal and tend to target other girls.d Bullying happens not just in the United States but also all over the world. International researchers have demonstrated that bullying in schools is universal.a Several factors increase the risk of a child being bullied, including parental over-control, illness or disability, passivity, social phobia, agoraphobia, and higher levels and expression of general anxiety.k

Suicide

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Suicide

The word “suicide” comes from two Latin roots, sui (“of oneself”) and cidium (“killing” or “slaying”).i People have committed suicide in an endless variety of ways, including swallowing poisonous spiders, power-drilling holes in their heads, sticking hot pokers down their throats, choking on underwear, injecting peanut butter into their veins, crushing their necks in vices, and hurling themselves into vats of beer.b In China, someone takes his or her own life on average every two minutes. China accounts for nearly a quarter of the global total of suicides with between 250,000 and 300,000 suicides a year.b Among famous figures who committed suicide: Sigmund Freud, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Hannibal, Nero, Virginia Wolf, Adolf Hitler, Ernest Hemmingway, Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh, Jack London, Dylan Thomas, Judy Garland, Rudolph Hess, Pontius Pilate, Socrates, and possibly Tchaikovsky, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe.i It is more likely someone will die from suicide than from homicide. For every two people killed by homicide, three people die of suicide.b The suicide rate in the United States has been climbing steadily since 1999 In America, someone attempts suicide once every minute, and someone completes a suicide once every 17 minutes. Throughout the world, approximately 2,000 people kill themselves each day.b Suicide is the 8th leading cause of death in the United States.b The most common types of suicide include copycat, euthanasia, familicide, forced, honor, Internet, martyrdom, ritual, attack, and cop suicides.b The acne medication isotretinoin (Acutane) has been linked to a possible increase risk of suicide. The FDA requires Acutane to include a label warning that the product may be linked to suicide, depression, and psychosis.b The spring months of March, April, and May have consistently shown to have the highest suicide rate, 4-6% higher than the average for the rest of the year. Christmas season is actually below average. Some studies suggest greater seasonality in suicides in rural rather than urban areas.g

Stress

Stress has been called “the silent killer” and can lead toheart disease, high blood pressure, chest pain, and an irregular heartbeat.d While it is a myth that stress can turn hair gray, stress can cause hair loss. In fact, telogen effluvium (hair loss) can begin up to three months after a stressful event.j In 2009, the top most stressful jobs were a surgeon, commercial airline pilot, photojournalist, advertising account executive, and real estate agent. The least stressful jobs were actuary, dietitian, astronomer, systems analyst, and software engineer.l The top three stressful cities in America are Chicago, Ilinois; Los Angeles, California; and New York, New York.i Stress alters the neurochemical makeup of the body, which can affect the maturation and release of the human egg. Stress can also cause the fallopian tubes and uterus to spasm, which can affect implantation. Stress in men can affect sperm count and motility and can cause erectile dysfunction. In fact, stress may account for 30% of all infertility problems.b Stress can make acne worse. Researchers say stress-related inflammation rather than a rise is sebum (the oily substance in skin) is to blame.p Laughter is a powerful stress reducer Laughing lowers stress hormones (like cortisol, epinephrine, and adrenaline) and strengthens the immune system by releasing health-enhancing hormones.o The stress hormone cortisol not only causes abdominal fat to accumulate, but it also enlarges individual fat cells, leading to what researchers call “diseased” fat.d Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, liver cirrhosis, and suicide.f The stress of caring for a disabled spouse increases the risk of stroke substantially.o

Yoga

The word “yoga” is derived from the Sanskrit root yuj meaning to yoke or join together. It most often refers to the yoking of a conscious subject (jiva-atman) with a Supreme Spirit (parama ta man) in order to reach an ecstatic condition (Samadhi, a “placing or putting together”). It is derived from the Proto-Indo-European base *yeug-, meaning “to join” as in jugular.n A 2008 market study in Yoga Journal reports that some 16 million Americans practice yoga and spend $5.7 billion a year on gear.l “Doga” is a type of yoga in which people use yoga to achieve harmony with their pets.Dogs can either be used as props for their owners or they can do the stretches themselves. It reportedly started in New York in 2002 when Suzi Teitelman started “Yoga for Dogs.”l The swastika is a yoga symbol that comes from the Sanskrit term Svastik, meaning “that which is associated with well-being.”c The yoga symbol “Om” is found in Hindu and Tibetan philosophy. It is said to be the primordial sound of the universe and is connected to the Ajna Chakra (the conscience) or “third eye” region.d Hatha yoga is the type of yoga most frequently practiced in Western culture. Hameans “sun” and tha means “moon,” representing hatha yoga’s attempt to combine both complementary forces.j Aaron Star teaches “Hot Nude Yoga” in a Chelsea studio. The classes are men-only, and there are only two rules: “no kissing and no touching penises.”k Yoga can improve sexual performance A growing body of research shows that yoga can improvesex and may even prevent and treat sex problems by increasing the overall health of the cardiovascular system.b Yoga can improve orgasms. When a person has an orgasm, the pelvic floor muscles that run between the legs rapidly contract. In yoga, the pelvic floor muscles are known asmoola bandha. Yoga strengthens them, providing benefits similar to Kegel exercises.b Pierre Bernard (1875-1955), also known as the “Omnipotent Oom,” was one of the first prolific American yogis. He founded the Tantrik Order, a secret society which taught its initiates Hatha yoga, philosophy, and Sanskrit and which also sanctioned sacramental sex.b

Nutrition

“Nutrition” is derived from “nourish,” which is from the Latin nutrire, meaning to feed, nurse, support, and preserve--literally, “she who gives suck.” Essentially, nutrition refers to the variety of ways the body makes use of food.i Anthropophagites, or cannibals, are humans who eat human meat. While human flesh itself contains high-quality protein, cannibalism in most cultures likely served a more symbolic than nutritional purpose.h The Greeks and Romans regulated nutrition on the theory of the four humors circulating throughout the body (warm, cold, moist, dry). Classical physicians tried to correct an excess of cold and moist “humors” by providing hot, dry foods and vice versa. For example, a woman’s body was seen as wetter and colder than a man’s and, therefore, she was to avoid food that would make her even colder and wetter, such as fish, eels, and meat from newborn animals.e Many parents during the Roman empire who were influenced by doctors such as Soranus and Galen often denied their babies colostrum (protein-rich breast milk) believing it was too thick and not good for the child’s digestion. They regularly gave their babies to a wet-nurse (though the mother’s milk was usually the best) and were likely to wean their babies onto foods that lacked adequate nutrition, such as diluted cereals and mixtures of honey or wine with softened bread.e Most likely due to poor nutrition as children, many Greeks and Romans were shorter than people today. Men from Pompeii, for example, averaged 5 ft. 5-½ in. and women averaged 5 ft. 2 in.e The Ebers papyrus (1350 B.C.) suggests placing drops of crushed and roasted ox liver in the eyes of people suffering from night blindness. While Egyptians most likely were not aware of vitamin A, liver does have high levels of the vitamin which help maintains normal vision in dim light.e Common diseases that are caused by nutritional deficiencies include beriberi (Vitamin B1-thiamine), pellagra (B3-niacin), anemia (B12-cobalamin), and scurvy (C-ascorbic acid).d The English are sometimes called “limeys” because British sailors would eat limes to stave off scurvy. Limes were later replaced by lemons due to the lack of adequate vitamin C in lime juice.f Sunlight is a major source of Vitamin D Vitamin D is unusual because it is the only vitamin that can be synthesized in the body. Sunlight is the main source of Vitamin D, though sunscreen lotions with high SPF can prevent vitamin D formation. Vitamin D is also the only vitamin that is a hormone.d There are approximately 60 nutrients which are placed in six major categories: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, and water.i

Autism

Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939), a Swiss psychiatrist, first termed “autism” but applied it to adult schizophrenia. In 1943, the term was redefined by Leo Kanner (1894-1981) who dissociated autism from schizophrenia to create the modern understanding of the disorder.b Autism affects one in every 150 children born in the United States.c If one identical twin is diagnosed with autism, the other twin has about 90% chance of develop an autistic disorder.f Mutations on chromosome 16 have been tied to autism. The glitch is in a DNA region that contains “morpheus” genes, or genes which historically have changed very rapidly as humans evolved. In other words, the same method that helped evolve human intelligence may contribute to autism.b There is no blood test, no scan, and no image that can detect autism. Diagnosis relies on behavioral observation and screening.f “Naughty Auties” is a virtual resource center for those with autism.i Environmental factors that could trigger predisposed genes to mutate and cause autism are vast and could include certain drugs, chemicals, heavy metal exposure, antibiotics, extensive television viewing, flame retardant, or infections duringpregnancy.f A study suggests that counties with higher precipitation levels have higher autism rates A study from three states suggests that counties with higher precipitation levels have higher autism rates. Higher precipitation rates might carry more pollutants, decreased vitamin D levels, and increased television watching that could trigger autism.h Across a mere 10-year period—1993-2003—statistics from the U.S. Department of Education revealed a 657% increase in the nationwide rate of autism. Researchers debate whether autism rates are increasing or if broadening definitions of autism allow more people to be diagnosed.j Autism is more common than childhood cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined.j

Pregnancy

Each year in the United States, there are approximately six million pregnancies. This means that at any one time, about 4% of women in the U.S. are pregnant.a Only 25% of couples actively trying to conceive will experience pregnancy within the woman’s first cycle. However, 90% of couples will achieve pregnancy within the first 12 months of actively trying.a Approximately 10% of pregnancies will end in miscarriage. Many miscarriages often occur before a woman even knows she is pregnant.a Each year, 1.2 million women in the U.S. choose to end their pregnancies through early termination.a Just 3% of all pregnant women will give birth to twins About 3% of all pregnant women will give birth to twins. This rate is an increase of nearly 60% since the early 1980s. However, 17% of pregnant women over 45 will give birth to twins.b Nigeria has the highest twinning rate in the world at around 4.5%. Some experts attribute this number to the large consumption of yams in Nigeria.b Just under 500,000 babies are born each year in the U.S. to teenage mothers.a After delivery, approximately 13% of U.S. women are diagnosed with post-partumdepression.b The average size of a full-term baby in the U.S. is 8 pounds. This is an increase from an average size of 6 pounds 30 years ago.a The largest baby ever born weighed in at over 23 pounds but died just 11 hours after his birth in 1879. The largest surviving baby was born in October 2009 in Sumatra, Indonesia and weighed an astounding 19.2 pounds at birth.g