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Repairing You Solar Panels

November 3, 2011 / posted in Technology / No Comments

Solar panels are frequently used in homes nowadays. They are usually made from crystalline silicone or amorphous silicone that formed into small thin layers. The older models and even the most common ones are usually made of crystalline silicone but are made into small discs that have been fused together and are covered with glass while being laid in a grid. Conditions that can damage these panels are usually hail, falling branches, rocks and even aging panels. But even if they are damaged, if the can still emit electricity then it would be better to repair than replace.

First, you need to check and see where the problems is. It can either be simple or extensive repairs. If you know what the problem is, you will be able to gather what you need and start working on it as soon as possible. Look into the glass more closely. If you see cracked edges, a glass tape can be used over the cracks by pressing the tape gently on tip of the crack and covering it thoroughly. Only if the crack is extensive that you would need to replace it.

If there are broken pieces on the panel frame, put on working gloves to remove them all. Get the pieces that are embedded in the frame side but do it gently. Make sure you don’t touch the discs under the glass. Look into the discs and see if they are still intact. Use a thing bead of glass cement and place them around the mount’s inner part. Ask help from someone while you life the new panel to avoid injuries. Place it inside the mount gently then push it easily and firmly into place. Lock it in place using the locks of the panels. Have the swing-over latches perpendicular to the side where the glass is attached for the best hold if there are any. Lastly, use a solar panel cleaner and microfiber cloth only to clean the new piece of glass before completing everythin. This maximizes the light that will come into your house. Just make sure to always be careful while dealing with solar panels as they are made of glass that can injure you.

Addressing Your Nicotine Cravings

October 24, 2011 / posted in Science / No Comments

Withdrawal symptoms are not something new you would experience when trying to quit smoking. You would need to deal with cravings for nicotine occassionally as this is how your body would naturally react to the lack of nicotine in the body. It would eventually decrease as you go along your life free from smoking but overcoming it while having increased anxiety, becoming irritable, insomnia, headaches and coughing is quit hard to look at. There are many ways to control yourself while you quit smoking and it is mostly about distracting yourself through activities like exercise in order to control them.

First keeping yourself busy is the best distraction you can use for controlling those cravings for nicotine. Physical activities like running, riding your bike, hiking, running on the treadmill, or any type of activity that gets you moving can take your mind off things, especially your cravings. Other methods of distraction can be talking with friends and family, reading, gardening, cleaning the house, a walk through the park, watch movies or playing with your pet that can’t help you take your mind of nicotine. Taking deep breaths can also be an option. Your cravings will then decrease and subside after three to five minutes of this. Remember to breath first slowly to your nose, exhale slowly through the mouth. This is basically relaxation and you can use other types like yoga, Reiki and tai chi.

Drinking cold water slowly and sucking on ice cubes can also be a method you can use. This is to keep your mouth busy and this can help satiate the appetite you have for nicotine. You would also need to remember why you quit smoking in the first place so making a list of reasons like you not wanting to have lung cancer, yellow teeth and hands, skin aging, and many others can help. Using a note card you can easily bring anywhere whenever you have those cravings can help you be reminded.

Lastly, replacing cigarettes with gum, mint or any ahrd candy can help. Most of us smoke because we have oral fixation issues and this can actually be used to occupy your thoughts of it. If you want to use celery, carot sticks, nuts and dried fruit, then you may do so as they are a healthy option. You can also give yourself rewards everytime you resist by setting aside some money you can use for travelling. There are many ways to distract yourself from smoking and that would be up to you if you want to make sure that you will quit smoking forever.

Proper Storing And Using Of Medication: A Must-Do For Every Person On A Budget

October 15, 2011 / posted in Finance / No Comments

Nowadays, getting sick can be a very draining thing for the budget. You have to pay for the hospital bills and the medications as well which can cost a fortune. Taking prescribed medications should be done religiously as much as possible. Aside from that, you also need to know how to properly store medications at home and its proper usage.

Most drugs can be stored at room temperature, but there are a few that should be kept refrigerated. These drugs include some eye and ear drops and insulin which is used to treat diabetes. All other drugs should be locked away out of the reach of children. If several members of the household are taking medication on a regular basis, each person should store his drugs separately.
It is crucial to read a drug’s instructions advising how it should be taken before the first dose is given. The paper inclusion in the drug’s package is there for a reason and that is for you to read it. Reading a manufacturer’s pack is really crucial. Through it, you will know the drug’s special instructions, side effects, and guidance on dealing with accidental overdose. Seek professional help for further advice.

In the case of antibiotics, drugs to cure stomach ulcers, and short course of steroids, it is essential that the full course of the medication is undertaken. This is done to ensure the complete effect of the drug is experienced, because symptoms will often go half-way through treatment. If it stopped prematurely, partially treated illnesses are most likely to recur. Nobody wants that to happen. Long term conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, or asthma should not be stopped prematurely unless ordered by your doctor. Doing so might endanger your life. Be aware of drugs that can cause drowsiness or sedation like antihistamines, strong analgesics, and antidepressants. If you are taking these drugs, avoid driving and alcohol intake.

Teaching Kids How To Handle Finances

October 4, 2011 / posted in Finance / No Comments

Before we can teach anyone on the value of a certain thing, we must first be educated about it ourselves. This way we are able to hand down critical information more effectively for other to understand fully. The concept of handling finances can be started as early as childhood. You are not to overwhelm these kids with technical terms, but instead your are just helping shape them become sensible money users. Children, after all, are very receptive to learning when properly stimulated. They may have a limited attention span, yet you do not actually need to sit with them for a discussion. You have to show them how to deal with finances. Remember that kids usually think that whatever their elders are doing, it is automatically considered right. You are their role model in this world full of misconceptions. They are keenly observing our actions without us actually knowing and paying attention to it. Set a good example to your kids by being frugal and practical with money handling. Kids learn more through our actions and not much on actual discussions.

As responsible adults, we must be well-educated on the aspect of budgeting, saving, investing, reducing debts, and cutting down unnecessary expenses. These are just the basic things we must know to be able to have a good grasp on our finances. By being informed, we can share this knowledge to our kids in many creative ways possible. Teaching these kids can’t be done in one setting. It takes place as kids grow, hence patience should be observed. Take one step at a time.

Just like everyone else, we can learn most if we are actually able to handle real situations by ourselves. Experience will always be the best teacher, yet having ideas head on can be helpful. Let your kids make their own experience in handling money and make mistakes along the way. This way they can learn more effectively. While on it, make sure to be on their side to guide them well.

Shopping With You Kids: Possible?

September 25, 2011 / posted in Finance / No Comments

Shopping is one great activity parents can have with their children. With it, they are able to bond and share opinions while picking up their choices. It is very important for parents to be able to hear out their kids’ personal opinions on things. This way they can do something to expound their knowledge, and correct whatever misconceptions they have. Basically when we go on a shopping spree, communication is improved in the process. Indeed, this can be a form of a family activity.

Sometimes, parents and other elders have doubts on whether they should bring their kids along during shopping. Kids are often viewed as little brats and with a very manipulative behavior. They get to tantrums when they do not get what they want. They cry and make a scene whenever this happens. As adults, we need to understand the nature of children. It might help to know that kids by nature are how you typically see them—manipulative at times and have tantrums. Once you know their nature, you are able to relate with them more effectively. Shopping with them won’t be such a hard task by then.

To get off with their manipulative behavior, you need to make an agreement with them before you start with the shopping. Give them a limit as to how much they can spend for that activity. This way they will get preoccupied with their set budget and would hardly bother you. It is also in this way that they learn how to apply the concept of budgeting in their everyday life. They learn how to compromise as to which should be bought first and which ones can wait. Basically, they learn how to prioritize. When kids learn these concepts at an earlier age, they become more effective managers of money in the near future. Shopping then with your kids is very much possible and should be encouraged.

Reduction In Child Mortality Now Seen

September 16, 2011 / posted in Science / No Comments

Child mortality has been a big problem that a lot of nations have been experiencing and each year, millions of these children die from different reasons. In the last year, there has been a huge drop in the number of childre under five that die every year due to different causes. From 12 million in 1990, it went down to 7.6 million in the last year according to the UN. Unicef and the World Health Organization states that due to better access to health care and immunisation, the drop in the mortality was made possible. But there are still a lot more to be done to reach UN development goals on reducing the child mortality rates. This is due to the fact that 21,000 children still die of preventable causes each day.

The good thing about the figures is that even the poorest areas around the world are making progress. In sub-Saharan Africa, the mortality for children has been declining twice as fast as it was a decade before. Budgets and investments were mostly focused on the most disadvantaged communities so that they could help save lives more quickly and more cost effectively than before. Other factors that have contributed to the reductions in child mortality would include better healthcare for newborns, prevention and treatment of childhood diseases, clean water and better nutrition.

What is very good to see about the sudden drop is the chance for the poorest nations and countries that are seeing improvements in their mortality rates for children in the past decade. Top five of those countries are Sierra Leone in West Africa, Niger, Malawi, and Liberia also in Africa and East Timor in South East Asia. The success in Sierra Leone was because the government scrapped all fees for their maternal and child health. Half of all the deaths in the recent statistics for children dying below five are mostly from the countries India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Discovery For New TB Vaccine, In Its Early Research Stages

September 5, 2011 / posted in Science / No Comments

There might be a new vaccine for Tuberculosis or TB that would take the form of a modified bacteria that is related to the said cause of the disease and then injecting it to the body. Experiments were made recently on mice and there showed complete elimination of tuberculosis bactoria in some cases as showed in Nature Medicine reports. As we all know, BCG jab is the only TB vaccine and it is not very effective. The study is still at the early stages and human vaccine is still a potential that is unknown according to a campaign group, TB Alert.

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis has been the main cause of TB and it is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in figures from WHO or World health Organization. It kills 1.7 million people each year. The BCG vaccine has very varied results as it would show 0% to 80% effectiveness in different parts of the world. Knowing that there is a chance for 0% immunity from TB even if you are injected with the vaccine makes it ineffective. It would also give problems to risk patients like the ones with HIV if given the live vaccine.

The investigation was concentrated on a cluster of genes called esx-3. This gene is a variant in all types of Mycobacterium and help the said bacteria to evade the immune system. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was never able to survive without the gene. Its relative, the Mycobacterium smegmatis was, however, able to do so. Three days after injecting into mice with M. smegmatis that had deleted esx-3 genes, it had cleared the bacteria from the lungs and kidneys but it was an otherwise deadly dose. They also tried putting esx genes from M. tuberculosis into M. smegmatis and they call it Ikeplus. As the mice were able to rapidly clear the Ikelpus infection, there was a lasting trace of immunity against M. tuberculosis.

The study is still on its early stage and that is one of the reasons why it is still unknown if human vaccine would be possible. Further studies would be conducted according to the research team but the research itself as well as the early discovery to possibility is already an early good news about possibly controlling th disease.

New Prevention For Dengue Fever Discovered

August 29, 2011 / posted in Science / No Comments

As we all know, dengue hemorrhagic fever has already killed millions of people in the past and it has even been killing mostly children in just recent reports around the world. Even with the efforts of the different countries to control dengue, casualties still grow in number and preventing dengue seems to be hard to deal with as of late. But there has now been a discovery of a cheap and effective method of preventing transmission of this deadly viral disease. Australian scienctists have recently made a study where they infected the mosquitoes that spread the disease with bacteria and it proved to have blocked the transmission of the said virus.

As these insects that were infected were released into the willed, when they interbred with the wild ones, they have halted the ability of these mosquitoes to transmit dengue. The details for this study was published in the journal Nature. The hope that the research brings is to bring viable control for the disease that has been affecting 50 million people every year, worldwide. The problem with this this viral disease is that is it untreatable. As a mosquito-borne illness, the incidence of this in many parts of the world has increased and according to WHO or the World Health Organization, around one third of the world’s population is at risk from dengue fever. The problem with the recent control for such insects is that the pesticides that are being used are becoming more resistant, losing its effectiveness.

Wolbachia is now the key to stopping dengue as this bacterium would infect the insects, it would stop dengue in its tracks. This is a natural bacterial agent you can find extremely common in the envirinment and growing intracellularly in insects. About 70% of the insects would naturally carry this. Countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and Indonesia where the disease is endemic would be receiving the further test that the team will do and the hope to make the disease come to a minimal would help all the people that might be at risk for it around the world.

Disruptive Radiation To Increase In A Few Decades?

August 22, 2011 / posted in Science / No Comments

Planes and spacecrafts have already become modes of transportation here on Earth as well as in outerspace. But in recent research at the Reading University, the solar storms are likely to be more disruptive to then in just a matter of decades. The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters and it predicts that once the Sun would shift towards the era of lower solar activity, hazardous radiation would increase and reach the Earth. One of the basis is that the Sun is currently at a grand solar maximum and began in the 1920s and is lasting throughout the space age.

They have predicted that the Sun will soon exit this grand solar maximum and then go into low solar activity. While the Sun is at its grand solar maximum, the peaks of the 11-year sunspot cycle are larger and the average number of solar flares. Associated events also happen like where coronal mass ejections are greater. However, in grand solar minimum there are almost no sunspots for several decades. This has already happened before during the Maunder Minimum, between about 1650 and 1700. Their data suggest that most radiation hits the Earth during periods of middling solar activity and with this, there is a particular problem for aviation and communications and there were no such technology yet when Maunder Minimum happened.

One of their basis for research was evidence from ice cores and tree trunks going back 10,000 years as they measured levels of nitrates and cosmogenic isotopes. When these enter the atmospherem, they are deposited in ice and organic material. According to their data, an unfortunate combination of solar conditions will be on our way in the next few decades. The only question is how much more radiation will we be getting and how long will it lasts this time. There have been disruptive radiation throughout the decades and the most disruptive one was from solar energetic particles that are carried away from the Sun by coronal mass ejections, or solar storms, that would explode from the Sun’s surface.

What the evidence shows is even though there are fewer solar storms when it leaves the grand maximum state, they are more powerful, faster and have more particles that have those disruptive radiation effects. Also, with the declin in solar activity, more radiation from other parts of the galaxy will enter our Solar System. What will happen to us when this will all occur? Only thing to do is wait for more evidence and find a solution to protect us from such problems.

New Cure For Delayed Asthma Attacks?

August 16, 2011 / posted in Science / No Comments

Are you an asthmatic patient? Do you suffer from asthma attacks that you find hard to handle in the past few years that you have tried to treat it. There might be new hope for you yet as scientists have now ran into a potential new treatment from delayed asthma attacks that usually happen a few hours after exposure to allergens. Imperial College London had a team that found blocking sensory nerve functions stopped a “late asthmatic response” in mice and rats.

Half of the people who have asthma can experience delayed symptoms. If the research goes well, we will be able to understand asthma better according to the charity Asthma UK. This research was written in the journal Thorax and it stated that late asthmatic response occur due to the fact that the allergen triggers sensory nerves in the airways. These nerves then set off a chain reaction which causes the release of neurotransmitter acetylcholine, that would make the airways to narrow. If this findings were the same in humans, anticholinergics that block acetycholine could now be used to treat patients that are suffering from the delayed asthma attacks.

These attacks would usually occur at night and are three to eight hours after the contact with grass pollen or house-dust mites, which are the usual allergens for asthma patients. There is a typical early asthmatic response that occurs within an hour from the exposure to allergens. Even with the current main treatment, steriods, it is not effective for all patients as much as it is needed to be. Charity Asthma UK states that 5.4 million people in the UK have asthma and it can be suffered at any age. If they are able to conclusively give an answer to this, the use of anti-cholinergics would be a new way to treat asthma attacks. Separated clinical studies have also reveealed these drugs to have improved symptoms and lung function in asthma patients but then again, it has not been linked yet properly as they have only yet to stumble on the idea.

Asthma attacks are not easy to deal with and being able to find a new treatment that would not only depend on steriods would be a great find and could help patients all over the world.

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