This article is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "Things you'd only know from traveling abroad"
I have a whole list of things to add in a later post.
19 Things You'll Appreciate Only If You Studied Abroad
The Huffington Post | By Suzy StrutnerPosted: 12/23/2013 8:11 am EST | Updated: 12/26/2013 11:29 am EST
Because as someone famous once said, "the best things you learn aren't learned in a classroom."
1. Contrary to every mother's belief, you won’t even feel sick if you eat gelato for every meal. Or pizza. Or crepes. Or empanadas. Or anything in the top, bad-for-you section of the food pyramid. We’re on a budget here, people.
2. Humans are inherently kind. Strangers will go far, far out of their way to help you get around. All you must do is ask sincerely and thank copiously.
3. Just because something is in a guidebook doesn’t mean you have to go look at it. Exhibit A: Manneken-Pis.
4. It’s better for everyone if we just pretend Euros are dollars. Just forget the exchange rate, and stop converting every price to dollars in your head. It causes too much pain.
5. Ryanair seats do not recline. …but you could’ve guessed that from the prices.
6. America is not the center of the universe. There are other people living on this planet, and they live differently than we do, and they are really happy that way. It’s an awesome thing to realize.
7. Doner kebab as drunk food is one thousand times better than nachos as drunk food. Mostly because nobody’s really sure which animal that shaved meat comes from. What a fun, mysterious taste bud adventure!
8. Every person in a hostel is a potential best friend. And sometimes they’ll agree to travel with you for days or weeks, after knowing you for a mere day. Voilà ! Lifelong pals!
9. Trains don’t always depart when they say they will. …or ever.
10. It is not only possible, but socially permissible, to wear the same outfit for seven days in a row How else are you going to fit your suitcase into the easyJet carry-on box? All you really need are a few colored scarves… that way, people won’t notice the same T-shirt recurring in photo after photo.
11. English truly is the universal language. And people who are learning English looove to practice it with you, even if they don't make sense.
12. Dinnertime in America is seriously warped. Why did the Founding Fathers decide to eat at six when everybody else on the planet waits till 10?
13. Spontaneity is rewarded. Like that time you snagged the one Euro flight to Finland in an online promo. Or when you bought a last-minute ticket to the show in Ibiza. They weren’t the most logical decisions, to be sure, but they’re memories you’ll replay in your mind forever.
14. Nothing bonds you like traveling. The way to know if you’re truly friends with someone? Food poisoning from the street fruit. Or a seven-hour bus delay. Or Wizz Air.
15. Studying abroad involves, on average, about four minutes of actual studying. Shh, don’t tell.
16. Taxi drivers are some of the greatest people on Earth. They just love to talk. And they’re so enthusiastic. And they drive you places so you don’t get lost like usual.
17. Traveling solo reveals hidden talents. You wouldn’t have thought you could navigate a Czech subway without a map… but you did.
18. The Guinness Storehouse is a legitimate historical site. No, we’re not proud of this fact. But at this point, it’s pretty much true.
19. Study abroaders are incredibly lucky people. Very few humans get to spend carefree months exploring the world beyond their hometown, let alone during college. To study abroad is a privilege, and an awesome one at that.
I have to admit, when I started blogging, a post about the proper position while using the restroom was not on my list to write! Lately, I’ve come across research and resources that have convinced me that this is an important topic, and I’m going to attempt to address it while keeping the TMI to a minimum.
The Idea of Squatting
The concept of squatting when defecating is not a new one. In fact, I was quite surprised the first couple of times I saw toilets designed for this purpose when traveling. At that time, I just considered it an outdated and primitive toilet, and couldn’t understand why anyone would use one.
Fast forward a few years to my toothpaste and deodorant making, organic-cookingdays and the concept actually makes a lot of sense. In fact, young children often do this naturally when eliminating (I can often tell when my one year old is about to need a diaper change because she is squatting down behind the couch).
Recently, I’ve seen posts from everyone from Dr. Mercola to Dr. Oz touting the benefits of proper bathroom posture, and even Bill Gates recently held a contest to re-design the modern toilet. Experts point out that the squatting position is more natural and can help avoid colon disease, constipation, hemorrhoids, pelvic floor issues and similar ailments. Since Colon disease runs in my family and hemorrhoids and pelvic floor issues can often be an unfortunate side effect of pregnancy, I was willing to give it a try.
As this website explains: “When we’re sitting this bend, called the anorectal angle, is kinked which puts upward pressure on the rectum and keeps the feces inside. This creates the need to STRAIN in order to eliminate. Compare sitting on the toilet to a kinked garden hose, it just doesn’t work properly. In a squatting posture the bend straightens out and defecation becomes easier.
Assuming the squat position is the natural way to achieve easier and more complete elimination. Research has shown that in some people, the kink is completely gone while squatting.”
Let’s face it: most of us don’t get the fiber we need in our diets. It’s true. And we fail to get all the water we need as well. These two things along with improper toilet posture which doesn’t allow us to eliminate completely is a bad combination that creates hard dry stools. These hard dry stools are very hard to push out. It’s called constipation, and we’ve all experienced it. Unfortunately, it’s the norm for altogether too many of us. But that’s just the beginning…
#2: Hemorrhoids
Getting those hard stools out calls for lots of pushing. And that pressure causes hemorrhoids, which can be very painful. Hemorrhoids are inflamed anal varicose veins that have swollen because of our need to push excessively to get those hard stools to pass. And as bad as hemorrhoids are, they aren’t the worst of our potential problems.
#3: Colon Disease
Eliminating completely and often helps maintain good colon health. Many studies point to fecal buildup in the colon as a cause of diseases including colon cancer. And when there is buildup in the colon, our bodies can’t absorb all the nutrients from the food we eat, leaving us without the energy we could enjoy if our colons were healthy.
#4: Urinary Difficulty/Infections
Urinary flow is usually stronger and easier when women squat to urinate. The bladder is emptied more completely when squatting rather than sitting or “hovering”. Squatting can help reduce episodes of urinary tract infections in both frequency and intensity. Now, that is good news!
#5: Pelvic Floor Issues
One of the main causes of this condition is straining on the toilet. The “sitting” position causes a great amount of pressure on the anorectal Angle of the colon causing the lower part of the colon to drop and protrude into the wall of the vagina. Pelvic floor nerves can be protected by squatting for bowel elimination. Men can also suffer from pelvic floor disorders and can readily benefit from using the Squatty Potty as a part of their everyday routine.
An Interview:
To help explain the concept of squatting and how it can be beneficial, I interviewed Robert Edwards, creator of the Squatty Potty:
How did the concept of the Squatty Potty come about?My mother has suffered from lifelong colon issues and has spent years trying to find a way to alleviate them. A colon hydro-therapist suggested putting her feet up and so she started gathering boxes and stacking phone books in front of the toilet to serve as squatting platforms. The results were immediate, but the method was inconvenient and was always in the way. So, I designed a footstool that fits snugly underneath the toilet when not in use, and is the correct height and slant for use with the westernized toilet.
To create the best possible product, I consulted with doctors, nurses, alignment specialists and natural health experts to identify the perfect height, position and angle ideal for squatting in addition to reading numerous studies on the subject and working with pelvic floor clinics and gastroenterologists nationwide to develop something that they would (and do) recommend to their clients We started selling Squatty Potties in fall of 2011 out of our St. George headquarters. We are proud to say that our products are manufactured in the USA.
What are some of the shortcomings of the current way most of us use the restroom? The colon doesn’t fully relax in the sitting position. It isn’t until the colon is in the squatting position that the strain (to go) is eliminated. The kink in your colon maintains continence. Squatting properly aligns the colon and peristalsis is normalized (or quickened). [The above video explains more.]
In short, what is the benefit of using the Squatty Potty compared to just using the restroom “normally?” The Squatty Potty helps create a squatting position while on the toilet which lends itself to better toilet posture, helping users prevent colon disease, constipation, hemorrhoids and similar ailments.
Can anyone use the Squatty Potty or are there people who won’t be able to use it?Everyone can use the Squatty Potty! Because we have styles that range from 5-9 inches, most everyone can find a height that works for them. It’s an easy solution for women with pelvic floor issues, seniors with constipation and everyone else in between.
Any other info you would like my readers to know? Physiologically, we are designed to squat. I think a great example can be seen in children that are still in diapers who squat to poop. Many of them then struggle to poop when sitting on training toilets because it is unnatural – they instinctively squat.
My Experience
The concept made a lot of sense to me, especially after seeing with myself and other laboring women, how relaxation and proper positioning of the sphincter muscles can make a night and day difference in labor (and babies are much bigger!). I’d noticed in the past how the relaxation techniques I used in labor (relaxing the jaw, etc) can help elimination be a lot easier, and it made sense that position would have an effect as well (as squatting often makes labor faster/easier as well).
After reading several accounts of people whose elimination was greatly improved by simply changing their position, I attempted to try it their way and just squat on the toilet seat. Sounds easy enough, but when pregnant, it is not. Hilarity ensued.
I was excited to have the chance to try the Squatty Potty, as it is much more convenient that trying to balance on the toilet seat (and more sanitary!), and it looks a lot better than the empty coconut oil buckets I had tried using.
What surprised me with the Squatty Potty was the immediate difference I noticed. The first time I used it, things moved much more quickly (there I go starting with the TMI). Within two days, this position felt so natural that it was strange to sit in the “normal position” anymore.
Another advantage, as we currently have a newly potty-taught little one is that it is the perfect height for kids to use to climb up to the toilet. Between the Squatty Pottyand the convertible toilet seat for little ones that we just installed, we’ve had a lot fewer “I-couldn’t-get-there-in-time” accidents. My husband is also very happy that we’ve gotten rid of the free standing kids potty, as it had gotten permanently gross after being used for multiple kids.
Though I don’t struggle with constipation during pregnancy, (thank you probiotics!) I have struggled with hemorrhoids at the end of a couple of my pregnancies and my midwives are often reminding of the importance of maintaining pelvic floor strength since I’ve had my babies so close together. I’m excited to see what effect the Squatty Potty might have in both of these areas.
If you haven’t tried it, I’d definitely recommend modifying your restroom posture to see how it will effect your bowel health. I was surprised at the difference and think you will be too!
The next wave of wearable tech will be under our skin
WHO'S BEHIND IT?
Tech entrepreneurs, the medical industry
WHAT COULD IT DO?
Improve preventative medicine through constant health monitoring
HOW CLOSE IS IT TO BECOMING REALITY?
Several years away
By Heather Kelly, CNN
Wearable sensors might have been considered strange a few years ago, but now we're used to devices like FitBits and sensor-filled smartphones monitoring our movements, tallying calories, observing sleep patterns and even tracking heart rate, blood-sugar levels and other vitals.
The next step will be tiny sensors under our skin, coursing through our bloodstreams and implanted in our brains to collect valuable information about our health. Doctors already implant devices such as pacemakers in our bodies, but sensors are a more advanced and delicate technology that requires additional research.
"What is lacking are electronics in direct intimate contact with the body, sensing or actuating. We are presently mostly inserting electrodes but not genuinely electronics," said Paul Berger, a professor of electrical and computer-engineering physics at Ohio State University who has worked with implantable sensors. "This area has huge growth opportunities."
Another researcher, Michael Strano, and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a hydrogel that can be implanted under the skin like a tattoo and used to monitor nitric oxide levels. Next, they hope to expand the technology to work on glucose.
Other sensors can monitor implants as they heal or detect early signs of organ rejection after a transplant. A sensor in the human brain could even help people control a prosthesis or use assistive technologies such as wheelchairs.
"The most revolutionary aspect will be the ability for patients to analyze and understand biochemical signaling and metabolism within their bodies and how this is influenced by their diet, lifestyle and environment," Strano said. "It will be enormously enabling."
Researchers need to puzzle out many issues before this technology can go mainstream, including power supply, wireless data transmission and rejection or degeneration over time by the human body. Even so, some versions of implantable sensors are already in use: We use them to help track our pets.
Being able to constantly collect data about someone's health could keep hospital costs down by catching diseases early and helping the ill or elderly manage their own health between doctors' visits. Over time, something as simple as a smartphone app could detect anomalies in a patient's health data and automatically contact their doctor.
Taken together, massive amounts of health information uploaded from sensors to the cloud could be an important tool for researchers mining big data to learn more about diseases and treatments. Algorithms could sift through the information for clues about what keeps us healthy or makes us sick.
And while most implantable sensors are focused on health, the technology could have more uses in the future, including environmental monitoring, space exploration and security.
"It turns out that the engineering problem of generating and collecting a signal from within the human body is useful for many other remote sensing applications," Strano said. Who knows? In a decade, we may all be wearing microchips.
I've been a lot of good feedback from fellow nurses about paying for med school and secondary options..
This confirmed through an Army Healthcare recruiter that told me I wasn't qualified.
Competitive program to Military Scholarship (HSPS). If you dont get the military scholarship, this is equally a good deal, even better actually- keeps you out of war, keeps you inside America without being deployed, pays school off faster than military obligation.
CRISPR corrected a cataract-causing genetic defect in a mutant mouse (left); control cataract-model mouse (right).JINSONG LIIt was less than a year ago that scientists first applied CRISPR, a genome-editing technique, to human cells. In short order, the technique has taken off like wildfire. And now, two papers appearing in Cell Stem Cell today (December 5) show that CRISPR can be used to rewrite genetic defects to effectively cure diseases in mice and human stem cells.
“What’s significant about this is it’s taking CRISPR to that next step of what it can be used for, and in this case, it’s correcting mutations that cause disease,” said Charles Gersbach, a genomics researcher at Duke University, who was not involved in either study.
CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. These RNA sequences serve an immune function in archaea and bacteria, but in the last year or so, scientists have seized upon them to rewrite genes. The RNA sequence serves as a guide to target a DNA sequence in, say, a zygote or a stem cell. The guide sequence leads an enzyme, Cas9, to the DNA of interest. Cas9 can cut the double strand, nick it, or even knock down gene expression. After Cas9 injures the DNA, repair systems fix the sequence—or new sequences can be inserted.
In one of the new papers, a team from China used CRISPR/Cas9 to replace a single base pair mutation that causes cataracts in mice. The researchers, led by Jinsong Li at the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences, designed a guide RNA that led Cas9 to the mutant allele where it induced a cleavage of the DNA. Then using either the other wild-type allele or oligos given to the zygotes repair mechanisms corrected the sequence of the broken allele.
Li said that about 33 percent of the mutant zygotes that were injected with CRISPR/Cas9 grew up to be cataract-free mice. In an e-mail to The Scientist, Li said the efficiency of the technique was low, “and, for clinical purpose, the efficiency should reach 100 percent.”
Still, this was the first time CRISPR had been used to cure a disease in a whole animal, an advance that Jennifer Doudna, a leader in CRISPR technology at the University of California, Berkeley, said was encouraging. Both studies “show the potential for using the technology to correct disease-causing mutations, and that’s what very exciting here,” she said.
Hans Clevers, a stem cell researcher at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, The Netherlands, led the other study, which used CRISPR/Cas9 to correct a defect associated with cystic fibrosis in human stem cells. The team’s target was the gene for an ion channel, cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductor receptor (CFTR). A deletion in CFTR causes the protein to misfold in cystic fibrosis patients.
Using cultured intestinal stem cells developed from cell samples from two children with cystic fibrosis, Clevers’s team was able to correct the defect using CRISPR along with a donor plasmid containing the reparative sequence to be inserted. The researchers then grew the cells into intestinal “organoids,” or miniature guts, and showed that they functioned normally. In this case, about half of clonal organoids underwent the proper genetic correction, Clevers said.
For both studies, the researchers did not have to make significant modifications to existing CRISPR protocols. Clevers said in an e-mail to The Scientist that, compared with other gene editing techniques, CRISPR was straightforward. “We tried TALENs [transcription activator-like effector nucleases] and Zinc finger approaches. CRISPR is exquisitely fast and simple,” Clevers said. Li agreed. “I think CRISPR/Cas9 system may be the easiest strategy to cure genetic disease than any other available gene-editing techniques,” he said.
One limitation of CRISPR is that the approach can create off-target effects—alterations to sites other than the target DNA. In both studies, off-target effects were relatively rare, said Gersbach. “While reducing off-target effects is a priority, it’s unrealistic to think you’d be able to get rid of all off-target effects,” he told The Scientist.
While the approach is far from ready for prime time, the results of both these studies show promise for future clinical potential. “I think each time an advance like this is made, people are more sure that this is a technique that is likely to be useful in treating humans,” said Doudna.
G. Schwank, “Functional repair of CFTR by CRISPR/Cas9 in intestinal stem cell organoids of cystic fibrosis patients,” Cell Stem Cell, 13:653–58, 2013.
Y. Wu, “Correction of a genetic disease in mouse via use of CRISPR-Cas9,” Cell Stem Cell,13:659–62, 2013.
Great article about a patient Timothy Brown being cured off HIV !!
Very promising news and amazing article about how it was done.
It was done BY ACCIDENT, just like when Louis Pastuer discovered penecillin...by accident.
Tim's got HIV and cancer at the same time. His cancer treatment accidentally cured him of his HIV at the same time....BOGO. Two birds with one stone. Pretty amazing.
Everyone should go through EMT training before going to med school. I believe this is really fundamental to becoming a great doctor or PA....especially if you are into emergency/trauma medicine like myself.
All the surgeons and trauma docs I've met went through EMT training before they because a doc. It only takes 2-3 months. It is the BEDROCK that all medicine is based on. For this fundamental reason, I believe EMT training is critical for your understanding of medicine BEFORE med school.
Going to EMT school crystallized a lot of things for me practically and mentally.
I joined the fire dept to keep my EMT skills sharp and learn from first responders.
Really enjoying it.
I've been encouraged into going to fire academy to earn my fighter-level 1 training and certification; to be able to go to a fire and accident calls to help out above and beyond just being an EMT.
This would allow me to be multi-functional and do everything within the fire dept and also set me up very well to get hired as a professional fire fighter and get paid for it.
Vaccinated against whooping cough, BUT still an infectious carrier
My Q: How often does this happen with other diseases? ( Puts a whole different perspective on disease control and vaccination effectiveness....cures the host, but leaves diseases active to be transmitted later)
As 
