On Pi Day, finding strength in numbers

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="234" id="ep_496" width="416"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="movie" value="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_embed_2x_container.swf?site=cnn&profile=desktop&context=embed&videoId=us/2013/03/14/dnt-piece-of-pi-314.cnn&contentId=us/2013/03/14/dnt-piece-of-pi-314.cnn" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /><embed src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_embed_2x_container.swf?site=cnn&profile=desktop&context=embed&videoId=us/2013/03/14/dnt-piece-of-pi-314.cnn&contentId=us/2013/03/14/dnt-piece-of-pi-314.cnn" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#000000" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="416" wmode="transparent" height="234"></embed></object><br /><br /><div class="cnnEditorialNote" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Editor's note:</strong> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/DanielTammetAuthor" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Daniel Tammet is on Facebook</a> and his personal website is <a href="http://www.danieltammet.net/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">danieltammet.net</a>. <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_tammet_different_ways_of_knowing.html" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Watch his TED talk here.</a></em></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">(CNN)</strong> -- In Daniel Tammet's mind, three is a dotted green crescent moon shape, one is a sort of white sunburst and four is a blue boomerang. Every number has a distinct color and shape, making the number pi, which begins with 3.14, unfold like a beautiful poem.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">For math enthusiasts around the world, March 14 (3-14) is <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/12/pi.day.math/index.html" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Pi Day</a>, honoring the number pi, which is the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle. On Thursday, Tammet is promoting France's first Pi Day celebration at the Palace of Discovery science museum in Paris.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tammet's relationship to this number is special: At age 25, he recited 22,514 digits of pi from memory in 2004, scoring the European record. For an audience at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, he said these numbers aloud for 5 hours and 9 minutes. Some people cried -- not out of boredom, but from sheer emotion from his passionate delivery.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"What my brain was doing was inventing a meaning, like a story," Tammet said. "What I did was make a poem or a novel out of pi, and took those colors and those emotions and used them to perceive patterns, or at least to perceive patterns in my mind that were memorable, that were meaningful to me."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many people around the world -- including me -- have been interested enough in this number, or in memorization itself, to see how many digits they can bank. Pi has infinitely many digits with no discernible pattern, yet it mathematically explains the shape of all circles. This makes memorizing it a difficult, yet somehow meaningful, challenge.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph6" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Serious pi memorizers such as Tammet have become fascinating subjects of study for scientists, too. They bring up fundamental questions about innate ability vs. learned skills. Are the brains of people with superior memory somehow different? Or can anyone learn thousands of random digits?</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph7" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/13/pi-day-how-3-14-helps-find-other-planets-and-more/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">How pi is used in real science</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph8" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Making meaning out of number</strong><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">s</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Superior memorizers, according to the research of K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, have three special skills. They use knowledge and patterns that they already know to encode information in their long-term memory. They associate that information with retrieval cues, so that they can trigger the information again. They also get faster at all this by becoming better at encoding and retrieval through intense practice and effort.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph10" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">This theory appears to explain Chao Lu, who set the current world record for pi recitation at 67,890 digits in 2005, at age 23. Creating associated meanings in numbers played a big part of that. He used mnemonics relating to the sounds of numbers as well as the shapes or meanings of particular digits and images, according to a 2009 study by Ericsson and colleagues.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Strangely, if presented with one number at a time, at one digit per second, Lu's recall is no better than the average person's, Ercisson and colleagues found. With that rate of presentation of numbers, he is forced to rehearse numbers in his head just like everyone else, Ericsson said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph12" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/03/14/national-pie-day/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Sweet recipes for national pi(e) day</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">But with large blocks of numbers, it's a different story. Lu and a previous pi-memorizing record holder, Hideaki Tomoyori, who recited 40,000 digits of pi, have said they linked words or images to groups of two, three or four numbers. Then they created stories connecting them. Tomoyori practiced daily, spending between 9,000 and 10,000 hours total memorizing before his recitation.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph14" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">A rare case was Rajan Mahadevan, who set a record at 31,811 digits of pi and did not report using any mnemonics. When tested by researchers, it appeared he sequentially memorized numbers in blocks of 10. While some argued that Mahadevan may have an innate ability to memorize, Ericsson and colleagues found in their experiments with Mahadevan that he learned his unusual methods for memorizing numerical patterns after a thousand hours of practice.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Amateurs have their own methods and perceptions. Lulis Leal, 47, of New York, is also getting in on the pi memorization action. Inspired by a CNN iReport assignment, she is up to 314 digits and<a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-940885" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">recorded herself reciting them</a>.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph16" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"It's a visual thing," she said of pi. "It's just a picture that I see -- a line going up and down."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Listening to Leal's recitation is jarring for me because I hear it in a different rhythm, as though it were a song with the down-beat on every other digit. When I was a teenager I saw a website suggesting pi could be a song, with one as middle C, two as D, three as E, etc. This helped me get up to 178 digits in college, winning me a T-shirt.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph18" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/13/pi-day-and-american-pi/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A Pi Day song: 'American Pi'</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph19" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The neuroscience of expert memor</strong><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">y</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph20" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">There's no straightforward control over what we remember and what we forget; we all wish we could remember some things and forget others. But it is possible to train as a mental athlete, and there are entire competitions around that, said Joshua Foer, author of "Moonwalking With Einstein" and memory championship winner.</div><a href="" name="em1" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand121" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 27px 0px 10px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="clickToPlay" id="clickToPlayvideoContainerexpand121" style="background-image: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.e/img/3.0/video/416_player_Click_to_play_off.png); border: 0px; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; height: 42px; left: 45px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 27px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 136px; zoom: 1;"></div><img alt="" border="0" class="box-image" height="120" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120608035513-ideas-josh-foer-story-body.jpg" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="214" /><cite class="expCaption" style="background-color: black; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; bottom: 0px; height: 20px; left: 10px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.85; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 214px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: white; display: block; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; left: 4px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;">Memory myths since Socrates' time</span></cite></div><a href="" name="em2" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt cnn_strylftcexpbx" id="expand221" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 27px 0px 10px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="clickToPlay" id="clickToPlayvideoContainerexpand221" style="background-image: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.e/img/3.0/video/416_player_Click_to_play_off.png); border: 0px; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; height: 42px; left: 45px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: 27px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 136px; zoom: 1;"></div><img alt="" border="0" class="box-image" height="120" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120608053352-ted-joshua-foer-feats-of-memory-00180815-story-body.jpg" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="214" /><cite class="expCaption" style="background-color: black; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; bottom: 0px; height: 20px; left: 10px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.85; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 214px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: white; display: block; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; left: 4px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;">Feats of memory anyone can do</span></cite></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph21" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Why do people memorize pi? Why do people climb Mount Everest? You don't need to do it," Foer said. "There's something about wanting to see how far you can go and how much you can push yourself."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph22" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/10/opinion/foer-ted-memory" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Foer: How to train your mind to remember anything</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph23" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">For memorization, it helps to find meaning in the information and tie it to multiple senses, such as auditory and visual, said Dara Manoach, associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph24" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">An area of the brain called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex gets activated when you're holding information online -- for instance, keeping a phone number in your head until you can write it down or call it. Associating a number with sensations, and integrating it with existing knowledge, engages more neural systems and helps you store the information.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph25" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Studies of people with exceptional memory have not found any structural differences between their brains and those of people with average memory, Ericsson said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">But researchers have found differences in the activation of certain brain areas in exceptional memorizers. The patterns reveal at the neurological level how people with "good memory performance" are associating new information with things they already know, such as familiar numbers like area codes or other semantic information.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ericsson's take on becoming an expert at something, such as memorizing pi, is deliberate practice. His research basis for the idea, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, is that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve expertise. But Ericsson pointed out that this was based on studies of musicians in top groups who spent an average of 10,000 hours at practice. That means some spent more time and some spent less.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph28" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"To win an international piano competition, I calculated that you need about 25,000 hours of piano training," Ericsson said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">That doesn't mean there aren't people who can just memorize numbers without connecting them with anything else -- but, said Ericsson, "so far I've yet to see anybody who is willing to be tested."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph30" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/03/14/pi.tau.math/index.html" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On Pi Day, is 'pi' under attack?</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph31" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A coincidence of sense</strong><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">s</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph32" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">There are, however, ways in which Tammet may inherently have a different approach to numbers than most pi memorizers.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tammet has high-functioning autism, a developmental condition associated with impaired social communication and repetitive behaviors or fixated interests. On top of that, he has <a href="http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2010/11/17/on-the-brain-when-numbers-have-color-synesthesia/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">synesthesia</a>, meaning he experiences a mixing of senses and perceptions -- specifically, he sees words and numbers as colors and shapes.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph34" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/01/health/mental-health/autism-asperger-diagnoses-profile" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">With autism, no longer invisible</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph35" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">In an analysis of Tammet's case, published by Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues in the <a href="http://docs.autismresearchcentre.com/papers/2007_BC_Savant_J%20Consc%20St.pdf" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Journal of Consciousness Studies in 2007</a>, researchers wrote that both autism and synesthesia, while different, are associated with an excess of neural connections; it's possible they have a "common neural abnormality." They also proposed the idea that autism and synesthesia together may have increased the likelihood of Tammet's savant memory. More research is needed to support both these ideas.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph36" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Foer's book questions whether Tammet has used mnemonic methods to memorize digits of pi and other information, just like everyone else without synesthesia. But Julian Asher at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, who studied Tammet, said synesthesia is "fundamental to his feats of memory." Recalling pi for Tammet is like "walking through a synaesthetic landscape in which different numbers are represented by geographical features, and 'reading' them off as he goes," Asher said in an e-mail.</div><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: left; float: left; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr cnn_strylccimg300" style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px 22px 20px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 300px;"><div class="cnn_strylccimg300cntr" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; height: 169px; margin: 0px 0px 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 300px;"><img alt="Daniel Tammet, 34, recited more than 22,000 digits of pi in 2004. He has high-functioning autism." border="0" class="box-image" height="169" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130313104452-daniel-tammet-story-body.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="300" /></div><div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Daniel Tammet, 34, recited more than 22,000 digits of pi in 2004. He has high-functioning autism.</div></div></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph37" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tammet grew up as the oldest of nine children. The stimulation he received from his large family probably helped him develop social skills, he said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph38" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"If I hadn't had that love and that patience and that support from an early age, I might not be where I am today, certainly," he said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">As a child, he was called "private," "shy" and "timid." He also had epileptic seizures, and took medication until he grew out of them.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph40" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"When he sat on the carpet during story time, with his eyes tight shut and his fingers in his ears, picturing numbers in his mind and their shapes and colors, whilst the other children looked at each other or at the teacher and listened to the story, (Tammet) was in some sense in a world of his own," Baron-Cohen and colleagues wrote.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph41" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/23/geekiness-and-autism-is-there-a-connection/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Geekiness and autism: Is there a connection?</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph42" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">In high school, Tammet learned about pi and thought it was beautiful. But when he talked about it with his classmates, they didn't understand. For them, pi was just a number. It didn't have any color or beauty or emotion.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph43" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"That's when I had a perception of the world, of words, of numbers, that was different," he said. Secretly, he started memorizing digits of pi.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph44" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/14/pi-day-25-years-in-san-francisco/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">San Francisco museum celebrates 25 years of Pi Day</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph45" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Finding life throug</strong><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">h</strong><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> pi</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph46" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">At age 25, Tammet finally felt confident enough to "share all those years of loneliness, all those years of battling with this condition, with my autism, all the years of also experiencing this tremendous beauty, this emotion."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph47" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">He spent about three months learning thousands of digits of pi, which he saw as an emotional experience, being transported into another world.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph48" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Tammet's achievement of the European record for pi recitation wasn't about showing off, he said. First and foremost, he wanted to accomplish something that meant something to him personally. He was able to reach out to people without autism, without synesthesia, and communicate to them in a new way. The event also benefited an epilepsy charity.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph49" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"When the digits darken in my mouth — heavy eights and nines packed together — the tense distant faces grow tenser still. When a sudden three emerges from a series of zeroes and sevens, I hear something like a faint collective pant. Silent nods greet my accelerations; warm smiles welcome my slowdowns," he wrote in his book "Thinking in Numbers," which comes out in the United States in July.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph50" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">At the pi recitation, Tammet realized he had a gift of communicating, and that set him on the path to becoming a full-time writer.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph51" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The pi memorization event also led Tammet to Baron-Cohen and colleagues, who made the diagnosis of high-functioning autism. It explained the difficulties he had with communication and social skills as a child.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph52" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">He has not recited pi since the 2004 event, but still appreciates the beauty and wonder of the number enough to promote Pi Day in France.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph53" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"You can find a lover's telephone number. Your date of birth. Your Social Security code. You can find everything in pi," he said. "It's big enough to have all of life inside of it."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph54" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Want to memorize pi? <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/12/pi.digits/index.html" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here are 10,000 digits</a>.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph55" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/space" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">More space and science news from CNN Light Years</a></div></div>

Pi On Pi Day, finding strength in numbers

Editor's note:   Daniel Tammet is on Facebook  and his personal website is  danieltammet.net .  Watch his TED talk here. (CNN)  -- In Da...

Read more »

Petstop

I'm very lucky to work near to a great pet shop.<br /><br />While popping in to pick up food for Bones I saw this.....,<br /><br />Yes! They are Easter Eggs for dogs!!! <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyOjUhVZBtVAsDwfKVzlHIGrhEpuOw_bv2GCqCbI_y3VLoH-IOmBmyg8nvIuK6gyYYhNsXLyqYkhXnloaelQ3CQ2QxJHlPd1zmYedk2q3GMmb71u6dYWThYNCP5xjGCl2nc29UKgwq4fs/s640/blogger-image-1877817455.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyOjUhVZBtVAsDwfKVzlHIGrhEpuOw_bv2GCqCbI_y3VLoH-IOmBmyg8nvIuK6gyYYhNsXLyqYkhXnloaelQ3CQ2QxJHlPd1zmYedk2q3GMmb71u6dYWThYNCP5xjGCl2nc29UKgwq4fs/s640/blogger-image-1877817455.jpg" /></a></div> <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvyZLntkBEK9oVvZzgxTjXaCZrUqcPz-isngMz5HnKwI4HpRNuDRl4ujFcVJkBHkPu2BTtLoDpVtq7zAxzh5rbyNq5jYBdl6femL6WPS2bnnKTSL9j01Y-5yr_qLAKFj7RU9RWGpUYDpI/s640/blogger-image-1261808098.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvyZLntkBEK9oVvZzgxTjXaCZrUqcPz-isngMz5HnKwI4HpRNuDRl4ujFcVJkBHkPu2BTtLoDpVtq7zAxzh5rbyNq5jYBdl6femL6WPS2bnnKTSL9j01Y-5yr_qLAKFj7RU9RWGpUYDpI/s640/blogger-image-1261808098.jpg" /></a></div> <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fM-pBZ_DHyx5Rw2Vmy0bjqgR2nE3JyLojYA2FlL7iYDAdOreoCFZObcPjlM9GNaHQLAi-4EjTLbB13vFXr1McuszO9z-si-zaTrXKU8Id5ExKd5n6YzfSapcfpfW0APOBS-raU9e3mJI/s640/blogger-image--570358772.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fM-pBZ_DHyx5Rw2Vmy0bjqgR2nE3JyLojYA2FlL7iYDAdOreoCFZObcPjlM9GNaHQLAi-4EjTLbB13vFXr1McuszO9z-si-zaTrXKU8Id5ExKd5n6YzfSapcfpfW0APOBS-raU9e3mJI/s640/blogger-image--570358772.jpg" /></a></div> <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wi7TVyQQrso4CAk36m-F9G09mJEq0hEJj8iDZIHpGC3DacpgCBquAg-nymx2gt4I4ZyuorB3CdBMDRjpAXTZQ2R90MC9IIqLsqG3KqWED99x2gMHBVbmcWc5iBI8V_VqLfKiREkPMDHM/s640/blogger-image-255769346.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8wi7TVyQQrso4CAk36m-F9G09mJEq0hEJj8iDZIHpGC3DacpgCBquAg-nymx2gt4I4ZyuorB3CdBMDRjpAXTZQ2R90MC9IIqLsqG3KqWED99x2gMHBVbmcWc5iBI8V_VqLfKiREkPMDHM/s640/blogger-image-255769346.jpg" /></a></div> <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYJGpN1lfafhN6ND5LDLedCr2qAbH36uhWVWtGFKspAKti4eOVVNQfBpyHrLbqd-uiQMtZOAkXMa7z33OIs3kvWnMNlcY_WAcgr9fmR0pZ5Q2er8irJFvtwr5jdfX3EINqE24eRwsw7xeU/s640/blogger-image-49224574.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYJGpN1lfafhN6ND5LDLedCr2qAbH36uhWVWtGFKspAKti4eOVVNQfBpyHrLbqd-uiQMtZOAkXMa7z33OIs3kvWnMNlcY_WAcgr9fmR0pZ5Q2er8irJFvtwr5jdfX3EINqE24eRwsw7xeU/s640/blogger-image-49224574.jpg" /></a></div> <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwQdECayicII_x7nDYzN-hyvzYleIWSfGGmEd-yLMhTyXPVX8sNuKwMJuQFMiJukjGtm7KVQU83MNutaCauUZCK5VCkN21IWiB1mKiI3KSRyB77JyMpIEV74whDldfJFsbxCExPCDF2C4/s640/blogger-image-1588617697.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwQdECayicII_x7nDYzN-hyvzYleIWSfGGmEd-yLMhTyXPVX8sNuKwMJuQFMiJukjGtm7KVQU83MNutaCauUZCK5VCkN21IWiB1mKiI3KSRyB77JyMpIEV74whDldfJFsbxCExPCDF2C4/s640/blogger-image-1588617697.jpg" /></a></div> <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3aT2oN3VH_pRGKKkqQNgF9VaoQZhNBxd7__nOm7uLYKC9CiDyTi-DkZSXzP4Qc3PWurrqbCqYbEzzdZEofoFEJstndIAfjgKH-diw9kCTkR-97h6klcPB4nLDwXzl-3S_SRUSPiGk7WFx/s640/blogger-image-1577227528.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3aT2oN3VH_pRGKKkqQNgF9VaoQZhNBxd7__nOm7uLYKC9CiDyTi-DkZSXzP4Qc3PWurrqbCqYbEzzdZEofoFEJstndIAfjgKH-diw9kCTkR-97h6klcPB4nLDwXzl-3S_SRUSPiGk7WFx/s640/blogger-image-1577227528.jpg" /></a></div>

Petstop

I'm very lucky to work near to a great pet shop. While popping in to pick up food for Bones I saw this....., Yes! They are Easter Eggs f...

Read more »

Join the Partners in Learning Network at www.pil_network.com

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4ebN-LGBaqmQM6SlvJ3a3KlgTg2oQ9Md4ClzD02TjspQyYtQOYRCt88LqYFzxohKtUo_jvb4-PRXHvCWe-W-m0rxHi1SbalP9lwYBxxnfxsKCLxgmVTz-icEkNAZq2atw9ywIU-ptcY/s1600-h/image%25255B19%25255D.png"><img alt="image" border="0" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlA9wkpFMA0oBY-qu8S19PDcdsYHAp6IOAuPRiH-W5RIfDHpUCMYTUV4xM2f9wRpTBkZTJUfiLCT0DXTyEc9-HAob5oZZ9McJVe9nsvR7dBtsGv89PenItFKDHmil9AMONVE_Yk9CrPzc/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="240" /></a></span></div><i><br /></i><i>Submitted by Megan Rademeyer of Schoolnet</i><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Microsoft Partners in Learning Network has been re-launched and is well worth visiting to access the Microsoft Learning Suite tools and lesson plans; to get support from tutorials and online professional development and to connect with other teachers to share resources and to discuss hot topics. The Partners in Learning Network is also the place where teachers who are entering the 2013 South Africa and Lesotho Microsoft Partners in Learning Forum will need to go to upload their Learning Activities.<u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To find out more about what is available at <a href="http://www.pil-network.com/">www.pil-network.com</a> click here…<u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To join the Partners in Learning Network, go to <a href="http://www.pil-network.com/">www.pil-network.com</a><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once you are there you can register using your Windows Live ID, Office 365, Facebook, Yahoo, or Gmail account. If you don’t have any of these, you can create a Windows Live ID. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">  </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6g70xlgAL1TW5LxfrKDwIGulvDmqmjnoNkTAT5UYm4h3tFqNMaLjx2IUbfBJR9hGaixje5BYzOiI6m_tD9bMr74Qs-h2DmMUZk5QXNo41ixRexBKRwrZh3nuIFgLzibnYpFwy269ShcA/s1600-h/image%25255B5%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvCgWSe_EtM6PGp_wFaWbx33RpdPSqtHN9ojpynZEThYcyS5hkt_GzfYmzM7AjjwFSuMs-mI1duQfawrh84IAjnIFlLzYlv63iCg0RRMyhs9yBFCUlfPlxUunDdWJ5vDTm8PPlK2mOVec/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><u></u><u></u></b> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">  </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The homepage gives a sense of what is available. See what new tutorials there are, join a popular discussion, stay connected, see what the focused teacher has been up to or access the free tools. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY62IZ2rjYNF7f4OZewvNAN8TOZQu6VU3AJ23xIPBAth37lTWHcBl3VfylomJDBgCwhQgGvzJ-_6mLDomFhN2j4_HymNeifiB_gNCGU5vzS05kUHdiDxXzlQsuf_Hh2Ul60AS_SKQxgvo/s1600-h/image%25255B8%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmMZaVoza1V-bZWddIq21QiHypib0IiQV7TbCgAo2QCp8HjgJqQYc6SFjrmdASZqQLfr39P3QZUfwtAmzgZL8bsDgfTiFq5fZlTbcD34xqODlgyYWspLHq6gz3FjBbeOdJxPTXF6bchlU/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is definitely worth completing your profile so that others can find you and see what common interests you share. This may lead to a collaborative project or other teachers finding you to discuss one of your resources.<u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAehZFMpQ1OqY1rvlaOfrlV_AM8yTdqBBVbwq9FsTZ0AUnLJBmCnnjIyMANWOeqHJHgRxaqQ8kQuOdStgfF-PXqAMxlDJyEEXw-rwHVgR0_mQKRk3v7o2cCM6jJPwtnI7ieND3YCC1PbI/s1600-h/image%25255B11%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEMV2lJGbBYtFJx4xmPwbQnQFIP72yWZX8uTIieMP5U8ojtG6KkMI0iSNcyLqf1lS1xW44EsMtMHApyNycNky2n6dGc22sKO6ZeajLBiGg8Q37Lij93ZsElFm-lhFo_AUNEfZIApqCj7g/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can join community discussions that interest you – or you can start your own discussion on a new topic.<u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVLFfKhKoqck5Yuj7T77h0kMiadd7shgBiYU1fWSenPANSrefaqFA-1Yn4OdKyrtR_x8RripyxbDDsUcqM8NfvqyAAJTRTEGA_G4SZsGwxgXvCapiumjkW0NfSCfwJnMWqnHnKCJm83zs/s1600-h/image%25255B14%25255D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_gQIdFy34GO5QSV2J5A-zZyeJVWWoW4o7vtwfrRAG6h29ighrK8aT486e1g9bKiIlmZbj46uA5BAVijBB-EVE6FsDN6MmSh8Y20ry3UzPiGn7SqhOPqG15e3Z9HYzMLDS9ZHaRFPlNd0/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u></u><u></u> </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, let me encourage you to please join and take a good look around; and stay in touch with new developments on the Partners in Learning Network </span><br /> <br /></div>

Microsoft Join the Partners in Learning Network at www.pil_network.com

Submitted by Megan Rademeyer of Schoolnet The Microsoft Partners in Learning Network has been re-launched and is well worth visiting to acce...

Read more »

The Benefits of Mobile Health, On Hold - NYTimes.com

The world now has 5 billion mobile phones – one for every person over 15. Africa has a billion people and 750 million phones, and mobile is growing so fast there that in a few years there will be more phones than people. In some countries this is already true — South Africa has 47 million people, but 52 million SIM cards.<br /><br><br /><br>The mobile phone is doing more than revolutionizing communication. It has the potential to improve many aspects of life in poor countries: commerce, health, agriculture, education. As we say repeatedly in Fixes, there are a lot of great new products that poor people can use to improve their lives. The problem is that it's very difficult to get those out to people who need them. The same is true with information. It's there, but people can't get it, because they lack Internet service and electricity and the electronics that require these things. Delivery is the problem. It's almost always the problem.<br /><br><br /><br>Until now. Now we have the mobile phone, a pipeline that can be used to bring information to everyone in the world – not just information, but any product that can be chopped up into electronic bits.<br /><br><br /><br>Most people, of course, use basic handsets, not smartphones. But such phones are plenty useful. Money can be chopped up into electronic bits, and with mobile banking services like Safaricom's M-PESA in Kenya, millions of people who had no access to banking services now send and receive payments through their mobile phones. (Kenya, with 10 million households, has about 15 million active users of M-PESA.) Because mobile phone banking is instant, safe and trusted, it has also opened the door to other services — for example, it is persuading small farmers to adopt crop insurance.<br /><br><br /><br>Since a lot of health revolves around information, public health experts had high expectations for the mobile phone. Hundreds of projects throughout Africa and South Asia are testing the various ways phones might make people healthier: by texting advice or sending voice messages to pregnant women, texting reminders to AIDS patients to take their meds, tracking the spread of diseases, allowing community health workers to keep records electronically and variations on all these themes. "We had this techno-utopian optimism," said Gustav Praekelt, a South African software developer who runs a foundation aimed at making technology to solve the problems of the poor. "The moment someone's got a mobile phone we can make all this information available and we will just magically see all the behavior change we want to see."<br /><br><br /><br>But roughly a decade after the start of mHealth, as the mobile health field has come to be known, these expectations are far from being met. The delivery system is there. But we don't yet know what to deliver.<br /><br><br /><br>In the vast majority of cases, if mHealth projects have been evaluated at all, they've been evaluated for feasibility – does this system work? will people use it? – rather than impact on health. Sometimes it turns out that people won't use it. Living Goods, which sells health products in Uganda, tried to get its franchisees to track client interactions on mobile phones. "What we saw as an enormous opportunity to improve impact and sustainability, the agents saw as more work," Living Goods president Chuck Slaughter wrote on a Skoll World Forum Web site debate on scaling up mHealth. The saleswomen had to share their phones with family members, so they didn't always have them. And most didn't know how to use their phones for anything but making and receiving calls. (Living Goods has solved these problems, but is still short of its goal of universal adoption.)<br /><br><br /><br>When programs have tested health outcomes, the results have usually been dismal. Several recent meta-studies combed through published literature to find studies testing whether mobile phones could improve the health caredelivery process or help patients manage their diseases better. Success was extremely rare. A third study concluded: "We found some, albeit very limited, indications that in certain cases mobile phone messaging interventions may provide benefit in supporting the self-management of long-term illnesses."<br /><br><br /><br>Even the successful programs, moreover, tend to be tiny islands. The pilot is successful in a small group of clinics – but the project can't grow. The reason could be that it uses an operating system that doesn't mesh with the nationwide system. Or it requires a platform that can handle a few users, but not a whole lot at once. Or it would be too costly. For example, it might rely on donated phones or worse, on smartphones. The cost of sending text messages alone may make a small project impossible to scale up.<br /><br><br /><br>The proliferation of pilots has gotten so chaotic that at least two countries, Uganda and South Africa, took the extraordinary step of banning further mHealth pilots, at least until each government can set its health strategy and technical specifications and make sure that the projects fit. (Here's amap of pilots in Uganda that eloquently explains why.)<br /><br><br /><br>Mobile phones deliver more than information, of course. Suddenly everyone has a device with a camera, computer and connectivity – and the potential to become a piece of portable, cheap health care equipment. In 2009, scientists had already made a microscope capable of diagnosing malaria and tuberculosis from a mobile phone fitted with an inexpensive eyepiece and lenses. A new version made from an iPhone 4 with an $8 lens attached with double-sided tape has just been tested in Tanzania and was not great, but pretty good, at diagnosing hookworm – a first step.<br /><br><br /><br>Aydogan Ozcan, who runs an electrical engineering lab at U.C.L.A., has developed small attachments to cellphones that can serve as a sophisticated microscope, diagnose common diseases, detect pathogens such as E. coli and sniff out allergens. The phone can also send reports to a Google Map server to plot the spread of disease (it's only meaningful, of course, if enough people use the system). Perhaps most intriguing, his lab has developed an online game in which players undergo a brief training, then examine slides of cells to guess if they are infected with malaria. Dr. Ozcan found that a group of nonexperts came within 1.25 percent of the accuracy of an expert, opening the possibility that a crowd of amateurs could perform remote diagnoses when experts are scarce.<br /><br><br /><br>This technology will no doubt sell in the rich world – the United States Army, Dr. Ozcan says, is particularly interested in portable rapid diagnostics. But these products – although far cheaper than laboratory models – are likely to still be too expensive for widespread adoption where they are most needed.<br /><br><br /><br>It is too early to write off mHealth, a field that is still young. Studies move slowly but the pace is picking up; Patricia Mechael, executive director of the mHealth Alliance, says that a lot of new research should be finished in the next year.<br /><br><br /><br>And important lessons are emerging from the evidence already in. Success should mean better health outcomes – so that is what programs need to measure. Virtually every project that has been able to grow has included lots of different partners, including the government and the private sector – mobile phone providers, for example.<br /><br><br /><br>One of the few projects that has been successful on a large scale is Mwana, which now covers virtually all of Zambia and Malawi. Many babies are born to H.I.V.-positive women, and testing whether these babies are H.I.V.-positive and getting the results back to their caregivers used to take weeks. The Mwana program trains health workers to send the information by text message – cutting the total time by more than half. In addition, fewer results are lost.<br /><br><br /><br>What makes Mwana work? "Incredible simplicity," said Erica Kochi, the co-leader of tech innovation for Unicef, which is one of the partners in the project. "It's not trying to replace the health information system. For its users, it makes things easier rather than adding more complexity to an already difficult, challenging health system."<br /><br><br /><br>Mwana, like the other programs that have been able to grow, was also designed from the beginning to be able to work on a large scale. The program employs community health workers' own mobile phones and an open-source SMS platform.<br /><br><br /><br>It was also developed with its users – Mwana's designers moved for a month to the town of Mansa, Zambia, near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and built the system alongside local community health workers. This co-creation may be even more important when an mHealth project works with patients instead of health workers. "We spend tons of time under the mango tree in Ghana working on refining the messages," said Tim Wood, the director of mobile health innovation at the Grameen Foundation. One of its programs, Mobile Midwife, (see the program'slessons learned), uses text and voice messages to provide health advice to pregnant women in Ghana. "It took many, many rounds of going back – even now we're looking at how people are using messages and refining them."<br /><br><br /><br>The moral of this story is perhaps the single most important lesson in mHealth: the technology is the easy part. An mHealth project is just as complicated as any other health project, just with a phone attached. "The tech is only as good as the people it is connecting or system it's connected to," Mechael said. "We can get excited about the shiny new object, but the real impact comes from thinking about the cultural and professional context in which it's being implemented."<br /><br><br /><br><a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/the-benefits-of-mobile-health-on-hold/">http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/the-benefits-of-mobile-health-on-hold/</a>

The Benefits of Mobile Health, On Hold - NYTimes.com

The world now has 5 billion mobile phones – one for every person over 15. Africa has a billion people and 750 million phones, and mobile is...

Read more »

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 03/14/2013

<ul class="diigo-linkroll"> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-57574201-233/google-reader-is-dying-but-we-have-five-worthy-alternatives/">Google Reader is dying, but we have five worthy alternatives | iPhone Atlas - CNET Reviews</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">Alternatives to Google reader. I just need to find one that has the features to integrate with Mr. Reader and Diigo and do all that I do with it. Oh dear. Very frustrated.</p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/apps">apps</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/google">google</a></p> </li> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3006993/most-innovative-companies-2013/say-farewell-google-reader?utm_source=twitter">Say Farewell To Google Reader | Fast Company</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">This is horrible news to most bloggers I know as many of us use Google reader and the apps that go with it like Mr. Reader and Feedly to pull information out of the web. RSS is one of the most useful features of Web 2 and I'm really unhappy w/ Google. iGoogle was a mistake, this a travesty. Google needs to read outliers and the mavens who use tools. I'll be researching new rss tools. This is ridiculous. ""While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader," Urs Hölzle, SVP Technical Infrastructure wrote. "Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.""</p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/education">education</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/news">news</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/apps">apps</a> <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/google">google</a></p> </li> </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='https://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='https://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 03/14/2013

Google Reader is dying, but we have five worthy alternatives | iPhone Atlas - CNET Reviews Alternati...

Read more »

Web Tools #30: Add speech bubbles to a photo online and then download the photo

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKSslAbAfX36gre4ursOB9zaLFkfKFLo-G2Br-QsIrPJhYlW-pCA4mUgFFvHiMZbgDfu5ZADpSixaRGBUwNvPetIajfuL4RyA7Xq5IHeqskTx7GZ3Y_aMxJG2JpZRcJSl78QPO86nnyrw/s1600/phraseit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="60" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKSslAbAfX36gre4ursOB9zaLFkfKFLo-G2Br-QsIrPJhYlW-pCA4mUgFFvHiMZbgDfu5ZADpSixaRGBUwNvPetIajfuL4RyA7Xq5IHeqskTx7GZ3Y_aMxJG2JpZRcJSl78QPO86nnyrw/s320/phraseit.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Submitted by Fiona Beal. </i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the last in my series of 30 Days of Web Tools series - but of course I continue adding many web tool posts in the days to come</i><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I came across the coolest website today called Phrase.it (<a href="http://phrase.it/">http://phrase.it.</a>)  It is a very easy to use tool where you simply upload your photo (or select it from Facebook), add your bubble and text and then save it.  Let’s go through it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>1. Open Phrase.it</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-uq8myMbPAl9t_WIpLxWK9Ub43lQ7-aW1Hgjm2etsday3_LKB58OTAITmCCi4ijcN3s2A6suD3QuhxE-8wuu9nm1GmwabOkTqE7q-puA5Ejz26WnVG_JoTgT-UVhwBZq0kRsy95_gwI/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>2. Add your photo</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can import from Facebook, upload one or use a random stock photo. I added one from the TeachMeet in East London on Tuesday. I notice that the image must be over 400kb. Phrase.it gives you little messages as it uploads – it goes very quickly. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am using a photo from the TeachMeet at East London on Tuesday.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrK_wg0puoaQ7GdXYYeOm7VImGhNKm0y0OGjnDzZ0KzFLyhm6I5_RSx9MGbBgE-QytSb9C1on8f6L6nqXTIWkFbdsNXYqm5x3aoulmUJb14auEF2v4etDcuwNnw1Gd9DiIrkBkRWdC8U/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>3. Add your speech bubbles</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiES3C7hLjKjuakabFxMPDCHn5zN5BH6d8evLP4DSlrLnFVJgzqnIcL4VZ6NEr9qV0WtzWi9xUARnzC11EYWT69oQ_ahZiDAG0UCjXAtDI-JROn90kTG2gxT0OfWdNuBTJA0gKz3MWSJq8/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="400" /></span></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>4. Preview what you have done</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnYMcVS3RFsfFC0eozlfypmqnbj3M3DN-17Gr2uuL75p1xHAbbRRNKtzxaQAQr6u2IWP5KKKby6dl67QScieIyoHo1vGkgbB9-McLq8Z8EjaGDV45hZxlVRQzeekSi-_XbLefLesS8Nzo/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="242" /></span></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>5. Save and download</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You have various options. One is to email it. I chose download. A little box comes up as you download to see if you want to display it on any social media.  There is also an option to make an optional monetary donation. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="image" border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0NKmfycLieTsSei6vZ7Wo6SNjCGCpJCG6LhP3JYhigSUaQYZAaUPNT4_U2H8GLTPUWzE-rdhtMy-pVXNZKkvM1uI3IIAromZloBfvSaOsj12GENI4f1FnMl3UJ_T5pu2ELF2RiYexEM/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="image" width="77" /></span></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>6. View the final result</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="qvc9fq" border="0" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiKtQDvluGaICh9jOwtysy82nvIL5FmBay02i7tDcITPiCN_6-o0g7uFj30wASoFzVvB1Qk1DuP_RT7uUL4l5Gz5OtrbPtoYyY0aaTbV5NQ1qo-V0Z0wYFtkwSSjmdkb3qyPKiG4Ma13A/?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="qvc9fq" width="400" /></span></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I must confess, I need to play around with it a bit. I couldn’t get the speech bubbles to go any smaller, for example. I also couldn’t raise them so that the end bit didn’t overlap with a person’s face. But I love this idea of adding speech bubbles to photos quickly. Phase.it is quick and easy. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Classroom use</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Use this in the classroom for a board display. <br />2. Let your students upload a photo of themselves and add something that says something about themselves, their charactger, their opinion etc. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Just have fun with it.</span></div>

Phrase.it Web tools Web Tools #30: Add speech bubbles to a photo online and then download the photo

Submitted by Fiona Beal.  This is the last in my series of 30 Days of Web Tools series - but of course I continue adding many web tool posts...

Read more »

An Old Spic? Really?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhz1rsQhRKHQv-EDgq4iIQEjesp4vwiopRa4HXURbdUov3J6LtQ410NclMJaP0KF2KOUcb-Ja-dfcxozyjQUt1bm8TRuOngwxstNpDyXiOW604OvrAHoSXHlnAVLUH0aTbcs_hNtX3_Js/s1600/Pope+Francis+I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhz1rsQhRKHQv-EDgq4iIQEjesp4vwiopRa4HXURbdUov3J6LtQ410NclMJaP0KF2KOUcb-Ja-dfcxozyjQUt1bm8TRuOngwxstNpDyXiOW604OvrAHoSXHlnAVLUH0aTbcs_hNtX3_Js/s400/Pope+Francis+I.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>Cheeeeeers Bitches and to Catholics all around the world…Happy Popepapalooza!!<br /><br />Seems that yesterday, the gaudily dressed gaggle of Eucharist eating pedophiles from across the globe conclaved and elected a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church.<br /><br />Well, Praise Jeebus, settle with me out of court, and hand me the gag order concerning your abuse, that’s wonderful!!<br /><br />Anyhoo…<br /><br />The new Pope is 76 year old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Mr. Bergoglio, has chosen Pope Francis I as his papal name.<br /><br />Uh-huh…how clever.<br /><br />Francis?  Really?  That’s gay.  Oh wait?  Was that one of the requirements…being gay?  Hell, I am clueless, because I wasn’t in the room with all of those sweaty, incense sniffing, drenched in Holy Oil, robe wearing men.  I have to plead ignorance on that.<br /><br />I think I know why Pope Whore-Hey picked the name Francis…He’s from Argentina…Y’know, South America.  And dig it…<br /><br />Do you remember those old b/w movies starring Donald O’Connor and Francis the Talking Mule?<br /><br />Well my friends, Pope Francis I from South America is a talking mule as well.  A talking DRUG MULE!!<br /><br />Connect the dots as I have folks…Bergoglio’s (if that’s his REAL name) parents came to Argentina from Italy.  Y’know…Syndicate City.  Francis has drug trading Mafioso written all over his tano face.<br /><br />Look it…When the white smoke came out of the Vatican chimney, it wasn’t really white smoke…it was pure, unadulterated, Argentine BLOW, Bitches!!<br /><br />Oh Hell yeah, the Catholic Church is piping in coke on the Buenos Aires to Rome Popemobile as we speak. Child rape settlements don’t settle cheaply my friends, but Francis has the connections to make them all go away in a supernatural and fiduciarily pleasing way.  Amen!!<br /><br />Annnnnd…Ol’ Pope Francis better make his Godly and virginal voodoo work quickly because he is no spring chicken.  The bastard is 76.  Guess we can expect another conclave in four years, amirite!?  Hell electing a Pope is gonna become like the Olympics!!<br /><br />Every four years, gay, juiced up Catholic theologians will gather into the venue of shame and denial and elect a “venerable” man who is less shameful and in denial as the rest of them.<br /><br />As a former Catholic, I ask myself at times…<br /><br /><i>“Where the Hell is the first Pope, St. Peter, when you need him?”</i>  And then I realize…<br /><br />Peter is in the ass of some innocent kid in the silent and cloistered vestibule of a Catholic Church.<br /><br />And what I find ironic?<br /><br />Never ever, should an elected Pope ever choose their Papal name to be Pope Peter or Pope Innocent.<br /><br />Well…okay maybe they should, because that would be fucking funny…and sad.<br /><br /><i>Cheers!!</i><br /><br /><i>Matt-Man</i><br /><a href="mailto:mattmaniws@ymail.com">mattmaniws@ymail.com</a><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/MattMan_IWS"><span style="color: blue;">@mattman_iws</span></a></div>

An Old Spic? Really?

Cheeeeeers Bitches and to Catholics all around the world…Happy Popepapalooza!! Seems that yesterday, the gaudily dressed gaggle of Eucharist...

Read more »

Today's archidose #657

Here are a bunch of photos of the <a href="http://www.naf-aad.com/works/2005/006.html">Mecenat Art Project</a> (2010) in Hiroshima, Japan, by <a href="http://www.naf-aad.com/">naf architect & design</a>, photographed by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlee2010/">Ken Lee</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlee2010/8534361980/" title="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan by Ken Lee 2010, on Flickr"><img alt="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan" height="640" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8505/8534361980_b5caecb3f8_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlee2010/8537076802/" title="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan by Ken Lee 2010, on Flickr"><img alt="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8521/8537076802_f56762b1a4_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlee2010/8535971901/" title="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan by Ken Lee 2010, on Flickr"><img alt="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan" height="640" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8383/8535971901_6f9e3de270_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlee2010/8537076444/" title="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan by Ken Lee 2010, on Flickr"><img alt="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8090/8537076444_8ba9b9fd24_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlee2010/8537076382/" title="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan by Ken Lee 2010, on Flickr"><img alt="其阿弥美術館, Mecenat Art Office, Hiroshima, Japan" height="480" src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8249/8537076382_8fa394bc6d_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:<br /><blockquote>:: Join and add photos to the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/archi-dose/">archidose pool</a>, and/or<br />:: Tag your photos <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/archidose/">archidose</a></span></blockquote>

Today's archidose #657

Here are a bunch of photos of the Mecenat Art Project (2010) in Hiroshima, Japan, by naf architect & design , photographed by Ken Lee ....

Read more »

Julie's Organic Ice Cream Review

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzMm9KO2HDqq7TzFP4oFkpABr57J_MAX9vCjqD8jelzWjFK0PD88HVzuKulvGybeEmitkKHZrBp5HGWpro6eSq444VhhmlZ7SrO8nOIuKFjJcxhlm8KdkfV6oJQnNoY6I-4xC6cz0HfpU/s1600/julie's+organic+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzMm9KO2HDqq7TzFP4oFkpABr57J_MAX9vCjqD8jelzWjFK0PD88HVzuKulvGybeEmitkKHZrBp5HGWpro6eSq444VhhmlZ7SrO8nOIuKFjJcxhlm8KdkfV6oJQnNoY6I-4xC6cz0HfpU/s1600/julie's+organic+logo.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Julie and her husband Tom of <a href="http://juliesorganic.com/">Julie's Organic Ice Cream</a> along with their two sons purchased a ice cream company in 1996 and wanted to make ice cream products that were better for the family and also the environment.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So she set out on a mission and started to get to work by finding the best of ingredients to make the ice creams taste great!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They started getting their hands on the best add ins for their ice creams such as fruits, cream, chocolates and ice cream.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Then in 1998 they launched their company of the most delicious ice creams and have grown since then from pints, ice cream bars, novelties, and they've also got non dairy products as well!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Have you ever heard of Alden's ice cream?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Julie's son is in fact Alden, he launched the first family sized ice cream!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Wow, I never knew that!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Growing up I would always have ice cream, whether it was  for going to see the fireworks, going to the beach or just as a treat at the ice cream parlor it was pure heaven and so delicious!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So, words can not describe how excited I was when I was sent some coupons for review!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I couldn't wait to try them!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjvAtuFBFkj87XHrJl0IratNoyK9mg_RtxeS2IP-1PeL3-I1Y5lb7-2Kpypl3E6MrhNAcgbsMq9kKWKQDaZ3i-pkFO8-c7M1ZHoeOj7QptWcXos5TgEgnEaYHOQv0bNtH84ez10qxgZE/s1600/Julie's+Organic+Vanilla+Ice+Cream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjvAtuFBFkj87XHrJl0IratNoyK9mg_RtxeS2IP-1PeL3-I1Y5lb7-2Kpypl3E6MrhNAcgbsMq9kKWKQDaZ3i-pkFO8-c7M1ZHoeOj7QptWcXos5TgEgnEaYHOQv0bNtH84ez10qxgZE/s320/Julie's+Organic+Vanilla+Ice+Cream.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ha ha I have found you at least!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At first when I went into Whole Foods I couldn't find the pints.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So today I went to my local Shaw's market and what do you know!?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BAM!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Right in the freezer section!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am so glad I found this stuff!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vanilla cookie with Lemon Ice Cream Sandwich:</span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhdy5iOs4rL83lG4w9tNrHViscutQRClHtl97KAuxRyTi9UiVeBAGVH3VGdNfMUWF291ajmb8hKl5TdWF1hME9hY0s2NBWOyvstRfoKbNMi81WiDqMVcCq4V8Kh8xKOctQ54Zl0Sdg_uQ/s1600/Julie's+organic+lemon+and+vanilla+cookie+sandwich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhdy5iOs4rL83lG4w9tNrHViscutQRClHtl97KAuxRyTi9UiVeBAGVH3VGdNfMUWF291ajmb8hKl5TdWF1hME9hY0s2NBWOyvstRfoKbNMi81WiDqMVcCq4V8Kh8xKOctQ54Zl0Sdg_uQ/s320/Julie's+organic+lemon+and+vanilla+cookie+sandwich.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The lemon ice cream is creamy, cool and refreshing with a citrus zing that will make your lips pucker!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tastes great with the decadent smoothness of the vanilla cookie.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Chocolate Cookie with Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich:</span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzRh8IxnZ8CZOXn904Yfvk-v_rHbX-AhUimPx55v2eAAoA4NQJl8vCBXrRARIvVS46EKPaAItASlbiLzozDRQwtCRTvyW3y1m0bRdbNl9BnKVZNFPDHPMolN26c2xc6Uki790HI0sbpR0/s1600/Julie's+Organic+chocolate+and+vanilla+ice+cream+sandwich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzRh8IxnZ8CZOXn904Yfvk-v_rHbX-AhUimPx55v2eAAoA4NQJl8vCBXrRARIvVS46EKPaAItASlbiLzozDRQwtCRTvyW3y1m0bRdbNl9BnKVZNFPDHPMolN26c2xc6Uki790HI0sbpR0/s320/Julie's+Organic+chocolate+and+vanilla+ice+cream+sandwich.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now I've tried many ice cream sandwiches and loved them as a kid!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love the packaging of these, they are very creative and decorative looking!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You could even reuse them!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mom and I couldn't wait to eat one, so we opened one in the car.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You know how when you bite into an ice cream cookie sandwich and it's mushy and it gets all over your fingers?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well not this cookie!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has great chocolate taste in the cookie and it's a little crunchy so it doesn't melt on your fingers!</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Great vanilla ice cream center, so delicious and creamy sandwiched between the two cookies!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vanilla Ice Cream:</span></u></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkj-8kV_Cwie7Xl0k8h7eu7qp0dEOSUO3I1kZfi8PmHdvcVJHZUNyzUFhyphenhyphenLaChLguvbRYg_KxHD4AV7mhd_Q-9VJZux8Bzw0mRf7dn0BxerHvGSX7qFWp0Cgq5RQ4zO8WjV6lMxsQefAY/s1600/Julie's+Organic+vanilla+ice+cream+with+love+crunch+aloha+blend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkj-8kV_Cwie7Xl0k8h7eu7qp0dEOSUO3I1kZfi8PmHdvcVJHZUNyzUFhyphenhyphenLaChLguvbRYg_KxHD4AV7mhd_Q-9VJZux8Bzw0mRf7dn0BxerHvGSX7qFWp0Cgq5RQ4zO8WjV6lMxsQefAY/s320/Julie's+Organic+vanilla+ice+cream+with+love+crunch+aloha+blend.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't know about you but whenever I have ice cream it needs something on top, whether it's some fresh fruit, chocolate syrup or caramel sauce!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Just tastes good with a little extra something you know?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One of my latest obsessions is the Nature's Path Love Crunch granola's!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They are so delicious and don't have all those added sugars,fats and hidden ingredients like other brands do.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So I sprinkled some of the Love Crunch Aloha Blend on top of Julie's Organic Vanilla ice cream.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those of you who haven't heard or seen the Aloha mixture it has bits of coconut, freeze dried pineapples and best of all white chocolate!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I couldn't wait to dig in!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I then took a little spoonful and tried it!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is seriously the best ice cream that I have had in a long time!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's made with organic and all natural ingredients and it tastes homemade like it came fresh out of the ice cream maker!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Great vanilla taste and it didn't even need any ingredients at all, but hey that's just me!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Chocolate Frozen Yogurt:</u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDnQkppjo3mRsDk8xGhs9ooi62lfiIRltPR8bZw1h5vY2wCtqfTzmA9U_MUlvAgPMfwqJKzi7SPigb0NSQfMKURBDK0s3-1V8SUvhTwk-OTILjofQbPZUdVGZ7K0ZuKUmWIyWwjNWcL0/s1600/Julie's+Organic+chocolate+froyo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaDnQkppjo3mRsDk8xGhs9ooi62lfiIRltPR8bZw1h5vY2wCtqfTzmA9U_MUlvAgPMfwqJKzi7SPigb0NSQfMKURBDK0s3-1V8SUvhTwk-OTILjofQbPZUdVGZ7K0ZuKUmWIyWwjNWcL0/s320/Julie's+Organic+chocolate+froyo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I could not believe the taste of the chocolate, it was amazing!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sweet, creamy and delicious.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Didn't have the icy texture in it like some other frozen yogurts do.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Great for shakes, on a cone or in a bowl with some sprinkled granola or fresh fruit!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Blackberry Sorbet Bar:</u></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkhgYQwP9KS18GP57xpZciwl-1OA7-U__uXu5C8xxCZDZWzTcJrJ2aAKg8J_FX4zdXR4YlU-g6pfDOrVlvzClXk6IisSSGRXrHxNmUFmZXHmWwjC9BdmoYcEhSumbjjKd8oIpjUaYlCA/s1600/Julie's+Organic+blackberry+sorbet+bar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifkhgYQwP9KS18GP57xpZciwl-1OA7-U__uXu5C8xxCZDZWzTcJrJ2aAKg8J_FX4zdXR4YlU-g6pfDOrVlvzClXk6IisSSGRXrHxNmUFmZXHmWwjC9BdmoYcEhSumbjjKd8oIpjUaYlCA/s320/Julie's+Organic+blackberry+sorbet+bar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hot day?</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This refreshingly cool and creamy treat will sure cool you down.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So light and delicious.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You can really taste the blackberries as well which is great because I love blackberries!</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Always throw them on top of my yogurt when I have some handy in the house.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">*Other products*</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sorbet bars</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">non dairy pints</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ice cream bars</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">non dairy novelties</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ice cream sandwiches</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">frozen yogurt</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ice cream pints</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">yogurt bars</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Website: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://juliesorganic.com/">http://juliesorganic.com/</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like them on Face Book here:</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/juliesorganic">https://www.facebook.com/juliesorganic</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Follow them Via Twitter here: </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://twitter.com/JuliesOrganic">https://twitter.com/JuliesOrganic</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Due to FFC rules I've received no compensation for this.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Julie's Organic Ice Cream Company has provided me with coupons for free ice cream products of my choice in exchange for a product review.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, all opinions expressed are my own.</span></div></div>

Julie's Organic Ice Cream Review

Julie and her husband Tom of  Julie's Organic Ice Cream  along with their two sons purchased a ice cream company in 1996 and wanted to m...

Read more »

Be cautious of mind-altering drugs for kids: doctors | Reuters

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><span class="focusParagraph" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.5; ">Doctors warn about the ethical and medical implications of prescribing attention-boosting and mood-altering medications to healthy kids and teens, in a new statement from the American Academy of Neurology.</p></span><span id="midArticle_1" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Focusing on stimulants typically used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, researchers said the number of diagnoses and prescriptions have risen dramatically over the past two decades.</p><span id="midArticle_2" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Young people with the disorder clearly benefit from treatment, lead author Dr. William Graf emphasized, but the medicines are increasingly being used by healthy youth who believe they will enhance their concentration and performance in school.</p><span id="midArticle_3" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1.7 percent of eighth graders and 7.6 percent of 12th graders have used Adderall, a stimulant, for nonmedical reasons.</p><span id="midArticle_4" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Some of those misused medicines are bought on the street or from peers with prescriptions; others may be obtained legally from doctors.</p><span id="midArticle_5" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"What we're saying is that because of the volume of drugs and the incredible increase… the possibility of overdiagnosis and overtreatment is clearly there," said Graf, from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.</p><span id="midArticle_6" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">In their statement, published in the journal Neurology, he and his colleagues say doctors should not give prescriptions to teens who ask for medication to enhance concentration against their parents' advice.</p><span id="midArticle_7" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Prescribing attention- or mood-enhancing drugs to healthy kids and teens in general cannot be justified, for both legal and developmental reasons, Graf and his co-authors conclude.</p><span id="midArticle_8" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"You're giving amphetamines to kids. I think we have to be worried about how that affects the brain, mood, rational thought… and we don't have enough data about that yet," he told Reuters Health.</p><span id="midArticle_9" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Almut Winterstein, a pharmacy researcher from the University of Florida in Gainesville, agreed that not much is known about the effects of long-term stimulant use - another reason to be careful and make sure they're really necessary for a specific child. In the short term, stimulants increase heart rate and blood pressure.</p><span id="midArticle_10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"If you have a child who actually can sit still and doesn't seem to have a problem focusing on a task, a stimulant won't do a thing, and definitely won't improve school performance," said Winterstein, who didn't work on the new statement.</p><span id="midArticle_11" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">"I am concerned personally that many parents believe that if their child doesn't do well in school, they must have ADHD," and therefore need stimulants, she told Reuters Health.</p><span id="midArticle_12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">The new statement is also endorsed by the Child Neurology Society and the American Neurological Association.</p><span id="midArticle_13" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Graf noted that childhood is changing in the United States: kids are being challenged in school, but also spending more and more time in front of screens.</p><span id="midArticle_14" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "></span><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.6; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: static; z-index: auto; ">"The majority still has to agree that we're not going to give a pill for every problem in childhood," he said. "We're talking about healthy kids."</p></div><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-medications-kids-idUSBRE92C17H20130313">http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-medications-kids-idUSBRE92C17H20130313</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Be cautious of mind-altering drugs for kids: doctors | Reuters

Doctors warn about the ethical and medical implications of prescribing attention-boosting and mood-altering medications to healthy kids and ...

Read more »