Puffer Fish Poisoning (Reading Class)

Poisoning  

Puffer poisoning usually results from consumption of incorrectly prepared puffer soup, fugu chiri, or occasionally from raw puffer meat, sashimi fugu. While chiri is much more likely to cause death, sashimi fugu often causes intoxication, light-headedness, and numbness of the lips, and is often eaten for this reason. Puffer's (tetrodotoxin) poisoning deadens the tongue and lips, and induces dizziness and vomiting, followed by numbness and prickling over the body, rapid heart rate, decreased blood pressure, and muscle paralysis. The toxin paralyzes diaphragm muscles and stops the person who has ingested it from breathing. People who live longer than 24 hours typically survive, although possibly after a coma lasting several days. Some people claim to have remained fully conscious throughout the coma, and can often recount events that occurred while they were supposedly unconscious. The paralysis reduces oxygen demands of the body dramatically, but because the toxin does not cross the blood-brain barrier, neural activity in the brain and from the eyes and ears are generally intact. In Voodoo, puffer's poison must be part of the mixture given to the victim to make them a "zombie", most likely because the paralysis and pseudo-comatose effect simulate the death portion of traditional zombie creation.
Pufferfish, called pakpao in Thailand, are usually consumed by mistake. They are often cheaper than other fish, and because they contain inconsistent levels of toxins between fish and season, there is little awareness or monitoring of the danger. Consumers are regularly hospitalized or die because cooks do not know which organs are not safe.
Treatment consists of supportive care and intestinal decontamination with gastric lavage and activated charcoal. Case reports suggest that anticholinesterases such as edrophonium may be effective.
Saxitoxin, the cause of paralytic shellfish poisoning and red tide can also be found in certain puffers. Cases of neurological symptoms, including numbness and tingling of the lips and mouth, have been reported to rise after the consumption of puffers caught in the area of Titusville, Florida. The symptoms generally resolve within hours to days, although one affected individual required intubation for 72 hours. As a result, Florida banned the harvesting of puffers from certain bodies of water.
It is not believed that puffers produce toxins themselves, as puffer fish kept in tanks or fish farms are totally free of either toxin. The gastric contents of shellfish prey are believed to carry the toxins or their precursors, which are stored in the puffers organs.

Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraodontidae

Paul the predicting octopus dies (Reading Class)

Paul the predicting octopus dies

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP)—Paul the Octopus, the tentacled tipster who fascinated football fans by correctly predicting results at this year’s World Cup, died Tuesday.
Paul had reached octopus old age of 2 1/2 years and died in his tank on Tuesday morning in an aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge said.
Paul seemed to be in good shape when he was checked late Monday, but he did not make it through the night. He died of natural causes, Vieregge added.

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“We had all naturally grown very fond of him and he will be sorely missed,” Sea Life manager Stefan Porwoll said in a statement.

The moment of truth: OctoPaul correctly predicts Spain to win the 2010 World Cup.
(Roberto Pfeil/AP)

The aquarium has not yet decided how best to commemorate their most famous resident, he said.
“We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds, and erect a modest permanent shrine,” Porwoll said.
After rising to global prominence during the World Cup in South Africa in June and July, Paul retired from the predictions business after the final between Spain and the Netherlands—the result of which he also forecast correctly—and returned to his prime role of making children happy.
The blogosphere erupted in sympathy for Paul, although some saw him more as a tasty morsel than a departed friend. “Will they cook him Galician-style? I wonder how much a plate of Paul with a beer must cost,” wrote Jordi, alluding to the popularity of octopus as a dish in the northwest Galicia region and much of Spain.
Others were more philosophical on hearing of Paul’s death.
“For the next month I will go to class dressed in mourning, wrapped in a black suit and with my gaze lost in the horizon, as this calamitous event deserves no less,” wrote ‘relojero’ which means watchmaker. Another blogger, Pedro, saw a sinister hand at work. “An autopsy should be carried out, it’s certain some betting office killed him.”
In July, the Sea Life aquarium in Oberhausen said Paul was stepping “back from the official oracle business.
“He won’t give any more oracle predictions—neither in football, nor in politics, lifestyle or economy,” said spokeswoman Tanja Munzig. “Paul will get back to his former job, namely making children laugh.”
Paul correctly tipped the outcome of all seven of Germany’s games. He made his predictions by opening the lid of one of two clear plastic boxes, each containing a mussel and bearing a team flag.
After his World Cup soothsaying skills were revealed, the English-born Paul was appointed as an ambassador to England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. He had English roots, having been hatched at Weymouth Sea Life Center on England’s south coast in 2008.
Imitators sprang up all over the world, including Mani the Parakeet in Singapore and Lorenzo the Parrot in Hannover, Germany.
The latest was a saltwater crocodile named Dirty Harry, who predicted Spain’s World Cup final win and called the result of Australia’s general election by snatching a chicken carcass dangling beneath a caricature of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
“El Pulpo Paul” became so popular in Spain that the northwestern Spanish town of O Carballino tried to borrow him and made him an “honorary friend.”
In response to hundreds of requests to bring Paul to Spain, the Madrid Zoo asked Sea Life if it would be willing to make a deal to bring him in as a tribute to the Spanish football team’s victory, either temporarily or for good. But the German aquarium turned down that offer, too.
Paul also had an agent and Paul’s name will live on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where a permanent sea turtle rescue center funded in part by donations generated by the famous octopus is being established.
Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin and Paul Logothetis in Madrid contributed to this report.


Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug=ap-paultheoctopusdeath

Fantasy to Reality (Reading Class)

The Story
Once upon a time, a boy and a girl met. He was dedicated to his destiny. She was pledged to another. She was deeply moved by his affections, but it was not meant to be. She wed with her betrothed, and he took to his path. Their names were Lady Nyria and Visatr.
Once upon a time, another boy and girl met. They fell deeply in love. Her parents forbade them to marry, but they wed in secret. She was disowned. One night, the boy disappeared. For years the girl searched for him, losing their infant daughter to sickness during her quest. She despaired, believing she would never find love until the day he reappeared and swept her into his embrace. Their names were Leiya and Cite.
Once upon a now, another boy and girl met. They had begun playing games together. Over time they became friends. One day, the boy asked a favor of loyalty outside the games of the girl, which she did happily. And although a great distance separated them, they grew closer and closer each day. Soon they stopped playing games and chose instead to spend their time talking about many and varied things. They found they had many things in common and shared many passions.
Soon they were each invited to visit mutual friend from the game for a week. They were thrilled, for although they had played together, talked together, shared together, and traded pictures, they had never met face to face. Their names are Kris and Travis.
Joy and apprehension swirled in her mind as she rode with her friend to the station to meet him. Would he be as he was when they spoke? Would she like him? Would he like her? Would they still be as well matched together as they had been before? Would the enchantment and magic they had felt endure? Deep in her heart she already knew...
Hope and anticipation filled his thoughts as the bus carried him closer to her. He knew she loved him and he loved her. He knew what they wanted together, now only to make that happen. They had created a magic together... a magic that would last as long as they stood together.
They pulled into the parking lot and she got out of the car, sighting him immediately. He took a step toward her and opened his arms. Any hesitation she might have had vanished as she stepped into his embrace.
Nyria and Leiya are characters created by Kris for role playing on the internet, just as Visatr and Cite were created by Travis. These fictional characters brought the real people together in the most unique and intense way. Kris and Travis fell in love without ever seeing each other in person. When they did meet, that love was reaffirmed and solidified. And that is the greatest story of them all.
After deciding to move to Northern Virginia, Travis and Kris began to transform other of their fantasies to reality. They live together with her two children, Mullaney and Ian. Do they still play characters online? Oh, yes. Between them they have over two score of characters. Some have never met, some are friends, some lovers, and some mortal enemies. But as Travis tells Kris: The Internet is just a fantasy world. It is what you do to turn that Fantasy to Reality counts.
On April 10, 1999, two years after meeting in person for the first time, Travis and Kristyn entwined their souls in a Renaissance ceremony held in the Ft. Lauderdale area. This is a milestone in life, but merely a step along the path they have chosen to take. Some would say it is the culmination of a story that began in a long ago chat room, but Travis and Kristyn consider it a beginning, a new chapter.



Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://www.cyberlove101.com/story60.htm

Nelie Bly (Reading Class)

Nellie Bly

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nellie Bly
Nellie Bly in 1890
Born	Elizabeth Jane Cochran May 5, 1864(1864-05-05) Cochran's Mills, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, USA
Died	January 27, 1922 (aged 57) New York City, USA
Occupation	Journalist, author
Spouse	Robert Seaman

Nellie Bly (May 5, 1864 – January 27, 1922) was the pen name of pioneer female journalist Elizabeth Jane Cochran. She remains notable for two feats: a record-breaking trip around the world in emulation of Jules Verne's character Phileas Fogg, and an exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. In addition to her writing, she was also an industrialist and charity worker.

Around the world

Nellie Bly in her traveling clothes, 1890

In 1888, Nellie suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days into fact for the first time. A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, and with two days' notice, she boarded the Augusta Victoria, a steamer of the White Star Line^, and began her 24,899-mile journey.
She brought with her the dress she was wearing, a sturdy overcoat, several changes of underwear and a small travel bag carrying her toiletry essentials. She carried most of her money (200 £ in English bank notes and gold in total as well as some American currency)  in a bag tied around her neck.
The New York newspaper Cosmopolitan sponsored its own reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, to beat the time of both Phileas Fogg and Bly. Bisland would travel the opposite way around the world.
To sustain interest in the story, the World organized a “Nellie Bly Guessing Match” in which readers were asked to estimate Bly’s arrival time to the second, with the Grand Prize consisting at first of (only) a free trip to Europe and, later on, spending money for the trip.
On her travels around the world, she went through England, France (where she met Jules Verne in Amiens), Brindisi, the Suez Canal, Colombo (Ceylon), Hong Kong, the Straits Settlement of Penang and Singapore, and Japan. The development of efficient submarine cable networks and the electric telegraph allowed Bly to send short progress reports , though longer dispatches had to travel by regular post and were thus often delayed by several weeks.
She travelled using steamships and the existing railroad systems , which caused occasional setbacks, particularly on the Asian leg of her race. During these stops, she visited an Asian torture garden,, a leper colony in China  and she bought a monkey in Singapore .
Due to rough weather on her Pacific crossing, she arrived in San Francisco on January 12, two days behind schedule. However, World owner Pulitzer chartered a private train to bring her home, and she arrived back in New Jersey on January 25, 1890, at 3:51 p.m.^.
"Seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds after her Hoboken departure" Bly was back in New York. She had circumnavigated the globe almost  unchaperoned. At the time, Bisland was still going around the world. Like Bly, she had missed a connection and had to board a slow, old ship called the "Bothina" in the place of a fast ship called the "Etruria". Bly's journey, at the time, was a world record, though it was bettered a few months later by George Francis Train, who completed the journey in 67 days. By 1913, Andre Jaeger-Schmidt, Henry Frederick and John Henry Mears had improved on the record, the latter completing the journey in less than 36 days.

Special Thanks to:
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly