Author: Nancy Goldsmith

Four Basic Skin Care Tips

skinMost good skin care can be broken down into a four-step regimen which, if followed, will give you a strong likelihood of maintaining healthy skin. These four steps are:

1. Cleansing – never use soap on your face. On the other hand, you don’t need to spend a lot of money either. The drugstore will provide you with the right cleanser, a creamy one for dry skin or a clear one for oily skin. Never over-clean your face.

2. Exfoliation will make a big difference so don’t skip this step. Once a week, make use of a good facial scrub or micro-dermabrasion kit.

3. Moisturize – everyone should moisturize, even people with oily skin (unless you have acne). But do be careful not to over-moisturize as this can clog pores.

4. Apply sunscreen. Yes, that’s right, sunscreen is just as important as a moisturizer for healthy, young-looking skin, as sun damage is the number one cause of wrinkles. Use sunscreen from a young age, even on cloudy days. Your best bet is to buy two moisturizers, one for night, and one for day with UV protection.

Top Ten Benefits of Water

waterEveryone knows that drinking water is a necessary part of life. We always hear warnings of dehydration, but we often fail to take them seriously. Here is a list of ten positive effects that water has on the body:

1.       Drinking water can help you lose weight by ridding the body of the by-products of fat breakdown. Dehydration also often causes hunger, even though the body does not actually need food. Water also has zero calories.

2.       Drinking water is usually an effective way to eliminate headaches.

3.       Your skin needs water in order to stay hydrated and flexible. Healthy skin makes your whole body look healthier.

4.       90% of the brain is water. Staying hydrated will help you stay more focused and alert during the day.

5.       Water regulates your body temperature. If you stay hydrated, you’ll feel more energetic and exercising will become easier, as your body will stay cooler.

6.       Water is directly involved with and aids your metabolism and digestive system.

7.       Proper hydration ensures that your muscles and joints stay lubricated, lessening the chances of cramps and sprains.

8.       Drinking sufficient amounts of water helps your body rid itself of toxins and waste, which can lessen the chances of getting sick.

9.       The cleansing qualities of the water in the body also help to relieve fatigue.

The health benefits of water directly affect the mood– when your body feels healthy, your mind feels healthy

Planetariums Reach for the Stars with New Technologies

Planetariums are a beloved tradition for family outings which are not only highly educational, but usually a lot of fun as well. But considering the incredible progress society has made in the technology of communications in the past 50 years or so, it seems strange that the technology almost every planetarium uses to display the heavens to observers has not changed in any significant ways since its first introduction in 1923, and that is the ‘star ball.’

Now there is a way of supplementing star balls with digital projectors and software, bringing the beauty of the entire universe into the dome shaped screen, the main even at the planetarium in a new and wonderful way.

The inexpensive change, estimated to cost about $38,000, would create a ‘rich and truly interactive experience’ to visitors. The technology is a team project of the University of Washington and Microsoft, and will bring to planetariums all over the U.S. a WorldWide Telescope, foru Sharp XV-Z15000 digital light processing projectors (DLP); a Navitar Screenstar conversion lens; an Nvidia GTX275 video card; and all the cables, switches and seven computers all running Windows 7 with 1TB hard drives and 6GB RAM.

“Planetariums with image resolution of a few million pixels typically cost several hundred thousand dollars,” said Andrew Connolly, team member and University of Washington associate professor of astronomy.

“Our system is about 8 million pixels, but at a fraction of the cost,” he said.

“Their cost is much less than most commercially available systems,” Mark Sonntag, director of the

Angelo State University (ASU) Planetarium.

Winter Health Tips

Winter is the season when many people get sick with flu, colds or coughs. Hence it is important take care of your health during the season of rain and snow. Here are a few winter health tips that guarantee an enjoyable winter:

First, a balanced diet assures proper health throughout the year and winter is no exception. In winter you should emphasize fresh foods and seasonal food items. Make salads with vegetables and fruit and eat healthy carbs and fats. Make sure to eat from a range of different foods so as to ensure that you get the vitamins you need to maximize your immunity and resistance power.

Although it isn’t hot, so you don’t’ feel thirsty, it is just as important to drink plenty of water duing the winter. Hot soups and herbal teas are also a good source of winter fluids.

Exercise! This is especially important in winter as it invigorates the body and develops the immunity system and resistance power of the body to fight the flu, cold and cough and other illnesses that frequent during the winter.

Dress in layers, with protective garments like sweaters and jackets to shield yourself from the cold winds and falling temperatures. Keep your head and feet particularly warm.

Stay warm and healthy and enjoy the winter!

Daycare May Mean Getting Sick Less

Beginning daycare at a younger age may reduce children’s illnesses during the elementary school years, a new study says. The report, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, tracked 1,2000 children in Quebec from birth through age eight. They found that kids who began attending a daycare program with at least seven other children when they were younger than two-and-a-half initially got sick more – suffering 60% more respiratory tract and ear infections than stay-at-home toddlers. However, these same children then experienced 21% fewer respiratory tract infections and 43% fewer ear infections during their first years in elementary school. The children had, on average, three respiratory infections, one ear infection and one gastrointestinal infection each year. No variance in gastrointestinal infection rates was seen among the different groups of children.

The study’s lead author, Sylvana Cote of the University of Montreal, in Quebec, suggested that being sick more frequently at a younger age may help to build children’s immunity and thus enable them to better protect themselves against infections at a later age.

About one in three children in the U.S. attends an organized childcare program prior to kindergarten.