Types Of Mooncakes

A nurse has heart attack and describes what she felt like when having one

I am an ER nurse and this is the best description of this event that I have ever heard. 

 FEMALE HEART ATTACKS 

 I was aware that female heart attacks are different, but this is description is so incredibly visceral that I feel like I have an entire new understanding of what it feels like to be living the symptoms on the inside. Women rarely have the same dramatic symptoms that men have… you know, the sudden stabbing pain in the chest, the cold sweat, grabbing the chest & dropping to the floor the we see in movies. Here is the story of one woman’s experience with a heart attack: 

 "I had a heart attack at about 10:30 PM with NO prior exertion, NO prior emotional trauma that one would suspect might have brought it on. I was sitting all snugly & warm on a cold evening, with my purring cat in my lap, reading an interesting story my friend had sent me, and actually thinking, ‘A-A-h, this is the life, all cozy and warm in my soft, cushy Lazy Boy with my feet propped up. A moment later, I felt that awful sensation of indigestion, when you’ve been in a hurry and grabbed a bite of sandwich and washed it down with a dash of water, and that hurried bite seems to feel like you’ve swallowed a golf ball going down the esophagus in slow motion and it is most uncomfortable. You realize you shouldn’t have gulped it down so fast and needed to chew it more thoroughly and this time drink a glass of water to hasten its progress down to the stomach. This was my initial sensation–the only trouble was that I hadn’t taken a bite of anything since about 5:00 p.m. 

After it seemed to subside, the next sensation was like little squeezing motions that seemed to be racing up my SPINE (hind-sight, it was probably my aorta spasms), gaining speed as they continued racing up and under my sternum (breast bone, where one presses rhythmically when administering CPR). This fascinating process continued on into my throat and branched out into both jaws. ‘AHA!! NOW I stopped puzzling about what was happening – we all have read and/or heard about pain in the jaws being one of the signals of an MI happening, haven’t we? I said aloud to myself and the cat, Dear God, I think I’m having a heart attack! I lowered the foot rest dumping the cat from my lap, started to take a step and fell on the floor instead. I thought to myself, If this is a heart attack, I shouldn’t be walking into the next room where the phone is or anywhere else… but, on the other hand, if I don’t, nobody will know that I need help, and if I wait any longer I may not be able to get up in a moment. 

I pulled myself up with the arms of the chair, walked slowly into the next room and dialed the Paramedics… I told her I thought I was having a heart attack due to the pressure building under the sternum and radiating into my jaws. I didn’t feel hysterical or afraid, just stating the facts. She said she was sending the Paramedics over immediately, asked if the front door was near to me, and if so, to un-bolt the door and then lie down on the floor where they could see me when they came in. I unlocked the door and then laid down on the floor as instructed and lost consciousness, as I don’t remember the medics coming in, their examination, lifting me onto a gurney or getting me into their ambulance, or hearing the call they made to St. Jude ER on the way, but I did briefly awaken when we arrived and saw that the radiologist was already there in his surgical blues and cap, helping the medics pull my stretcher out of the ambulance. He was bending over me asking questions (probably something like ‘Have you taken any medications?’) but I couldn’t make my mind interpret what he was saying, or form an answer, and nodded off again, not waking up until the Cardiologist and partner had already threaded the teeny angiogram balloon up my femoral artery into the aorta and into my heart where they installed 2 side by side stints to hold open my right coronary artery. 

I know it sounds like all my thinking and actions at home must have taken at least 20-30 minutes before calling the paramedics, but actually it took perhaps 4-5 minutes before the call, and both the fire station and St Jude are only minutes away from my home, and my Cardiologist was already to go to the OR in his scrubs and get going on restarting my heart (which had stopped somewhere between my arrival and the procedure) and installing the stents. Why have I written all of this to you with so much detail? Because I want all of you who are so important in my life to know what I learned first hand. 

1. Be aware that something very different is happening in your body, not the usual men’s symptoms but inexplicable things happening (until my sternum and jaws got into the act). It is said that many more women than men die of their first (and last) MI because they didn’t know they were having one and commonly mistake it as indigestion, take some Maalox or other anti-heartburn preparation and go to bed, hoping they’ll feel better in the morning when they wake up… which doesn’t happen. My female friends, your symptoms might not be exactly like mine, so I advise you to call the Paramedics if ANYTHING is unpleasantly happening that you’ve not felt before. It is better to have a ‘false alarm’ visitation than to risk your life guessing what it might be! 2. Note that I said ‘Call the Paramedics.’ And if you can take an aspirin. Ladies, TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! Do NOT try to drive yourself to the ER - you are a hazard to others on the road. Do NOT have your panicked husband who will be speeding and looking anxiously at what’s happening with you instead of the road. Do NOT call your doctor – he doesn’t know where you live and if it’s at night you won’t reach him anyway, and if it’s daytime, his assistants (or answering service) will tell you to call the Paramedics. He doesn’t carry the equipment in his car that you need to be saved! The Paramedics do, principally OXYGEN that you need ASAP. Your Dr. will be notified later. 3. Don’t assume it couldn’t be a heart attack because you have a normal cholesterol count. Research has discovered that a cholesterol elevated reading is rarely the cause of an MI (unless it’s unbelievably high and/or accompanied by high blood pressure). MIs are usually caused by long-term stress and inflammation in the body, which dumps all sorts of deadly hormones into your system to sludge things up in there. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let’s be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive to tell the tale.“

Reblog, repost, Facebook, tweet, pin, email, morse code, fucking carrier pigeon this to save a life! I wish I knew who the author was. I’m definitely not the OP, actually think it might be an old chain email or even letter from back in the day. The version I saw floating around Facebook ended with “my cardiologist says mail this to 10 friends, maybe you’ll save one!” And knew this was way too interesting not to pass on.

This week, we’re taking a look at manuscripts having to do with health, medicine, and human physiology specifically focusing on how bodies are displayed in manuscript illuminations or diagrams across different cultures.

LJS 389 shown above, is a 14th century Chinese treatise on the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of blood vessels titled Shi si jing fa hui. The manuscript is made from bamboo paper and the diagrams and kaishu script are written with black ink. Focus on the diagrams of the bodies and stay tuned this week to see not only how the details and forms of these depictions change from culture to culture, but also the mediums with which these manuscripts are created.

The full LJS 389 manuscript filled with more diagrams can be found on Openn: http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/0001/html/ljs389.html

and Penn In Hand: http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/4824235

Katherine Stinson in Tokyo,Japan - Her Asian tour in 1916 

1.8 M Width House by YUUA Architects and Associates

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Add to your electronic bookshelf with these free e-books from NASA!

1. The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini

This work features 100 images highlighting Cassini’s 13-year tour at the ringed giant.

2. Earth as Art 

Explore our beautiful home world as seen from space.

3. Meatballs and more 

Emblems of Exploration showcases the rich history of space and aeronautic logos.

4. Ready for Our Close Up

Hubble Focus: Our Amazing Solar System showcases the wonders of our galactic neighborhood.

5. NASA’s First A 

This book dives into the role aeronautics plays in our mission of engineering and exploration.

6. See More 

Making the Invisible Visible outlines the rich history of infrared astronomy.

7. Ready for a Deeper Dive? 

The NASA Systems Engineering Handbook describes how we get the job done.

8. Spoiler Alert

The space race really heats up in the third volume of famed Russian spacecraft designer Boris Chertok memoirs. Chertok, who worked under the legendary Sergey Korolev, continues his fascinating narrative on the early history of the Soviet space program, from 1961 to 1967 in Rockets and People III.

9. Take a Walk on the Wild Side

The second volume of Walking to Olympus explores the 21st century evolution of spacewalks.

10. No Library Card Needed 

Find your own great read in NASA’s free e-book library.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

It’s easy:  Form a triangle, then a hexagon, then a bicycle wheel

This is the general mechanism on how a spider spins its web (talk about engineering, right?). When an insect gets caught in its web, the vibrations caused by the insect is felt by the spider which then rushes to engulf its prey.

Now here is the trippy part ; This is the effect of drugs on the pattern of the web.

Hope you are having a great week. Have a good one!

* Spider spinning a web (video) (if you find a better full video let us know)

** Spiders on drugs -  NASA article ; Video

Mary Anning

Mary Anning was born on 21 May in 1799, one of the most famous fossil finders of her day. This large skull was collected by Anning and is part of the skull and lower jaw of an ichthyosaur (Ichthyosaurus platyodon).

Mary Anning’s family had earned a living for years by gathering fossils on the shore at Lyme Regis in Dorset to sell to collectors. Mary learned about the fossils from her parents, Richard and Mary (‘Molly’) Anning. Despite the lack of a formal education, Mary Anning became an expert on the fossils she found, and the most eminent geologists of the day often sought her advice. In the 1820s she became the first person in Britain to find complete specimens of an ichthyosaur, a plesiosaur and a pterodactyl.

The specimens that Anning collected can still be found in museums throughout Britain. The British Museum purchased this example shortly after Anning discovered it.

On loan from the Natural History Museum.

Aphasia: The disorder that makes you lose your words

It’s hard to imagine being unable to turn thoughts into words. But, if the delicate web of language networks in your brain became disrupted by stroke, illness or trauma, you could find yourself truly at a loss for words. This disorder, called “aphasia,” can impair all aspects of communication. Approximately 1 million people in the U.S. alone suffer from aphasia, with an estimated 80,000 new cases per year.  About one-third of stroke survivors suffer from aphasia, making it more prevalent than Parkinson’s disease or multiple sclerosis, yet less widely known.

There are several types of aphasia, grouped into two categories: fluent (or “receptive”) aphasia and non-fluent (or “expressive”) aphasia. 

People with fluent aphasia may have normal vocal inflection, but use words that lack meaning. They have difficulty comprehending the speech of others and are frequently unable to recognize their own speech errors. 

People with non-fluent aphasia, on the other hand, may have good comprehension, but will experience long hesitations between words and make grammatical errors. We all have that “tip-of-the-tongue” feeling from time to time when we can’t think of a word. But having aphasia can make it hard to name simple everyday objects.  Even reading and writing can be difficult and frustrating.

It’s important to remember that aphasia does not signify a loss in intelligence. People who have aphasia know what they want to say, but can’t always get their words to come out correctly. They may unintentionally use substitutions, called “paraphasias” – switching related words, like saying dog for cat, or words that sound similar, such as house for horse. Sometimes their words may even be unrecognizable.  

So, how does this language-loss happen? The human brain has two hemispheres. In most people, the left hemisphere governs language.  We know this because in 1861, the physician Paul Broca studied a patient who lost the ability to use all but a single word: “tan.” During a postmortem study of that patient’s brain, Broca discovered a large lesion in the left hemisphere, now known as “Broca’s area.” Scientists today believe that Broca’s area is responsible in part for naming objects and coordinating the muscles involved in speech. Behind Broca’s area is Wernicke’s area, near the auditory cortex. That’s where the brain attaches meaning to speech sounds. Damage to Wernicke’s area impairs the brain’s ability to comprehend language. Aphasia is caused by injury to one or both of these specialized language areas.

Fortunately, there are other areas of the brain which support these language centers and can assist with communication.  Even brain areas that control movement are connected to language. Our other hemisphere contributes to language too, enhancing the rhythm and intonation of our speech. These non-language areas sometimes assist people with aphasia when communication is difficult.

However, when aphasia is acquired from a stroke or brain trauma, language improvement may be achieved through speech therapy.  Our brain’s ability to repair itself, known as “brain plasticity,” permits areas surrounding a brain lesion to take over some functions during the recovery process. Scientists have been conducting experiments using new forms of technology, which they believe may encourage brain plasticity in people with aphasia.  

Meanwhile, many people with aphasia remain isolated, afraid that others won’t understand them or give them extra time to speak. By offering them the time and flexibility to communicate in whatever way they can, you can help open the door to language again, moving beyond the limitations of aphasia.

Earlier this semester, I got this book out for a class on the material culture of Christianity. It’s a beautiful Bible bound in purple velvet, with gold embellishments, edges, and clasps.  It originally came in a leather case lined with silk, which has since fallen to pieces at the joints, but the same silk features on the gilded endpapers.  The clasp is even engraved with the initials of the book’s first owner, Josephine Bonaparte Bolton.

This book is beautiful, but it’s even more interesting after reading the note that came with it from its donor, Josephine’s granddaughter:

When Josephine Bonaparte Bolton was sixteen years old, she taught three negro women to read and write. Her mother, Mrs. Wm. Bolton, was so proud of her daughter’s achievement, that she gave her this little Bible as a memento. The Boltons lived in Jefferson City, Missouri.

Josephine Bolton Kerns (Granddaughter)

June 1, 1977

The clasp is dated 1851, which means that the original Josephine broke Missouri law by giving reading and writing lessons to the three African American women mentioned in the note.  Missouri law in 1847 stated that “No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of negroes or mulattos, in reading or writing, in this State.”  Teaching a person of color to read was punishable by a fine of not less than $500 and up to six months in jail. 

I could not find any information about either Josephine, but for the most part, the Bolton families of Cole County and Jefferson City seem to have been Confederate sympathizers.  Dr. William Bolton, who may have been Josephine’s father, was a prominent Jefferson City physician and a known slave owner.  I’d love to know more about Josephine, her mother, and the story behind this beautiful book. Wouldn’t you?

- Kelli

The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments : translated out of the original tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by His Majesty’s special command, appointed to be read in churches. London : Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1848.  Rare BS185 1848 .L6

The alleged lexical extravagance of the Eskimos comports so well with the many other facets of their polysynthetic perversity: rubbing noses; lending their wives to strangers; eating raw seal blubber; throwing grandma out to be eaten by polar bears; “ We are prepared to believe almost anything about such an unfamiliar and peculiar group,” says Martin, in a gentle reminder of our buried racist tendencies. The tale she tells is an embarrassing saga of scholarly sloppiness and popular eagerness to embrace exotic facts about other people’s languages without seeing the evidence. The fact is that the myth of the multiple words for snow is based on almost nothing at all. It is a kind of accidentally developed hoax perpetrated by the anthropological linguistics community on itself. The original source is Franz Boas’ introduction to The Handbook of North American Indians (1911). And all Boas says there, in the context of a low-key and slightly ill-explained discussion of independent versus derived terms for things in different languages, is that just as English uses separate roots for a variety of forms of water (liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam) that might be formed by derivational morphology from a single root meaning ‘water’ in some other language, so Eskimo uses the apparently distinct roots aput 'snow on the ground’, qana 'falling snow’, piqsirpoq 'drifting snow’, and qimuqsuq 'a snow drift’. Boas’ point is simply that English expresses these notions by phrases involving the root snow, but things could have been otherwise, just as the words for lake, river, etc. could have been formed derivationally or periphrastically on the root water.  But with the next twist in the story, the unleashing of the xenomorphic fable of Eskimo lexicography seems to have become inevitable. What happened was that Benjamin Lee Whorf, Connecticut fire prevention inspector and weekend language-fancier, picked up Boas’ example and used it, vaguely, in his 1940 amateur linguistics article 'Science and linguistics,’ which was published in MIT’s promotional magazine Technology Review (Whorf was an alumnus; he had done his B.S. in chemical engineering at MIT). Our word snow would seem too inclusive to an Eskimo, our man from the Hartford Fire Insurance Company confidently asserts. With an uncanny perception into the hearts and minds of the hardy Arctic denizens (the more uncanny since Eskimos were not a prominent feature of Hartford’s social scene at the time), he avers:  “We have the same word for falling snow, snow on the ground, snow packed hard like ice, slushy snow, wind-driven flying snow – whatever the situation may be. To an Eskimo, this all-inclusive word would be almost unthinkable; he would say that falling snow, slushy snow, and so on, are sensuously and operationally different.” […] Notice that Whorf’s statement has illicitly inflated Boas’ four terms to at least seven (1: “falling”, 2: “on the ground”, 3: “packed hard”, 4: “slushy”, 5: “flying”, 6, 7 …. : “and other kinds of snow”). Notice also that his claims about English speakers are false; I recall the stuff in question being called “snow” when fluffy and white, “slush” when partly melted, “sleet” when falling in a half-melted state, and a “blizzard” when pelting down hard enough to make driving dangerous. Whorf’s remark about his own speech community is no more reliable than his glib generalizations about what things are “sensuously and operationally different” to the generic Eskimo.  But the lack of little things like verisimilitude and substantiation are not enough to stop a myth. Martin tracks the great Eskimo vocabulary hoax through successively more careless repetitions and embroiderings in a number of popular books on language. […] But never mind: three, four, seven, who cares? It’s a bunch, right? Once more popular sources start to get hold of the example, all constraints are removed: arbitrary numbers are just made up as the writer thinks appropriate for the readership. […] Among the many depressing things about this credulous transmission and elaboration of a false claim is that even if there were a large number of roots for different snow types in some Arctic language, this would not, objectively, be intellectually interesting; it would be a most mundane and unremarkable fact. Horsebreeders have various names for breeds, sizes, and ages of horses; botanists have names for leaf shapes; interior decorators have names for shades of mauve; printers have many different names for different fonts (Caslon, Garamond, Helvetica, Times Roman, and so on), naturally enough. If these obvious truths of specialization are supposed to be interesting facts about language, thought, and culture, then I’m sorry, but include me out. Would anyone think of writing about printers the same kind of slop we find written about Eskimos in bad linguistics textbooks? Take a random textbook like Paul Gaeng’s Introduction to the Principles of Language (1971), with its earnest assertion: “It is quite obvious that in the culture of the Eskimos… snow is of great enough importance to split up the conceptual sphere that corresponds to one word and one thought in English into several distinct classes…” (p. 137). Imagine reading: “It is quite obvious that in the culture of printers.., fonts are of great enough importance to split up the conceptual sphere that corresponds to one word and one thought among non-printers into several distinct classes…” Utterly boring, if even true. Only the link to those legendary, promiscuous, blubber-gnawing hunters of the icepacks could permit something this trite to be presented to us for contemplation.

Geoff Pullum, in The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax. (via allthingslinguistic)