Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Brain Awareness Week

This week is a Brain Awareness Week. I heard it on the radio earlier this week, it made me curious so I googled it up and found some sites promoting this event. To contribute a bit to this, I'd like to share with you lovely tutorials on human anatomy at getbodysmart.com (check the brain section ;-)) and on the National Geographic site .
Also I'd like to share with you a fascinating TED talk by a neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, who
... had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another

Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Downloading music... did you know?



Here's a nice quote from a blog entry entitled Apple iTunes Store Environmental Impact. ... I had no idea. How many CDs and DVDs do you have? How many have you thrown away?
Sooner or later, all Music CD’s and the Jewel Cases they are packaged in will end up in a landfill somewhere. CD’s are mostly manufactured from Aluminum and Polycarbonate along with Lacquer, Dyes, and other materials such as water, glass, and nickel. Most of these materials must also be processed before manufacturers can use them to make CD’s. As an example, to make plastic, crude oil from the ground is combined with natural gas and chemicals in a processing plant. In addition to manufacturing, there are transportation costs (shipping CD’s in trucks to the store) as well as packaging costs (the jewel cases, shrink wrap, etc.) to consider as well.

By buying your music from the Apple Store, you are helping to prevent a stack of CD’s 2.6 miles high from having to be manufactured PER DAY.