9 Cinnamon Tea Recipes to Help the Body Heal Itself

 

Cinnamon tea is a convenient way to get a spice that has been used for thousands of years in ancient cultures for its healing properties. You can benefit from it by simply brewing it up and sipping it as you would any other tea. Cinnamon acts as a natural antibacterial and antimicrobial agent in the body, which may help to explain why it’s been regarded for its medicinal value for quite some time. It’s always best to help the body heal itself, and employing a natural spice like cinnamon can help further that process along. Next time you are out, pick up organic cinnamon sticks to have them handy for when you need them. 1. Sudanese Cinnamon Tea Cinnamon tea doesn’t have to be complicated to make in order to capture its healing benefits. This Sudanese cinnamon tea recipe shows that all you need is cinnamon sticks, water, and tea to get the job done. This will give the tea more flavor than just adding hot water to cinnamon, and you can also add sugar to taste, although if you are trying to use it to heal you may want to drink it without the sugar. Here she’s using ceylon tea, so its bringing additional antioxidants and immune system defense to the table. Photo: Je Suis Alimentageuse 2. Thaicia’s Traditional Cold Remedy This tea is a wonderful concoction, with each ingredient serving to help bolster the body back to health. Cinnamon is included for its anti-inflammatory properties and the boost it gives the immune system. She’s also included lemons for their Vitamin C, which will also help support the immune system. There’s honey added to help sweeten things up and make it easier to drink, but also because honey has antibacterial properties. There’s even garlic and ginger, which might not be the best-tasting duo when you have a cold, but the cinnamon, lemon, and honey help with the taste. 3. Crock Pot Chai Tea Latte This is a chai latte that is made in a way that doesn’t use any dairy and a healthy mix of ingredients that are sure to h A traditional chai latte is made with milk, and using coconut milk instead of cow’s milk will make you less likely to get congested after drinking it. If you are trying to drink cinnamon to help fight or avoid a cold, going with this tea latte is a better choice than a conventional chai latte from the coffee shop. She’s made this using a Crock Pot so you can cook it up and leave it simmering for a pick-me-up whenever you need it throughout the day. 4. Warming Cinnamon Tea Cinnamon has a warming effect on the body, and is therefore helpful in overcoming the symptoms of several conditions. This tea takes things back to basics, showing you that you can make a cinnamon tea just using cinnamon and your choice of an all-natural sweetener, like honey. They’re recommending that you go with raw honey, and we’d further add that you should make sure it’s organic, or from a local source that you trust. When consuming such a simple tea it’s important to only use the best possible ingredients. Photo: House of Treats 5. Lemon and Cinnamon Tea This is a simple combination of cinnamon, lemon, cloves, and tea that can help your body heal itself through the use of all-natural ingredients. The lemon provides Vitamin C, while the cloves provide additional anti-inflammatory properties. While she’s using Earl Grey for the type of tea, you can always customize this to your own taste. Using green tea would be one way to get more antioxidants and other substances that help the body, both short term and long term. The English version of this recipe starts halfway down the page. 6. Ginger Cinnamon Detox Tea The combination of ginger and cinnamon is a quite powerful one, and this tea isdesigned to help you detox. You’ll often find healthy ingredients like this combined together, especially when their flavors complement each other. In this case ginger and cinnamon are both rather harsh flavors, and there’s no sugar or sweetener used in this recipe to offset this. It’s meant to be a detoxifying tea, so you don’t want to add anything to it that the body is going to have trouble with. Drink this tea at the first sign of a cold to help warm the body up and shorten the cold’s duration, possibly even avoiding it. 7. Cinnamon Sore Throat Tea For those times when your throat is bothering you, try sipping this sore throat tea made with cinnamon and other ingredients designed to soothe the situation. This is a milky concoction that uses cinnamon and honey, as well as ginger to not only help soothe the throat, but also combat the cause of it. The milk they’re using isn’t cow’s milk, it’s your choice of either almond, rice, or coconut, so you won’t be filling your system with dairy at a time when you could be coming down with a cold. You’ll also score the extra nutrients these milks provide. Photo: Gourmande in the Kitchen 8. Spiced Persimmon Turmeric Tea This tea has a lot going on, but what shouldn’t be overlooked is the use of high-quality cinnamon sticks. It’s going to infuse the tea with the goodness of cinnamon, in addition to everything else it contains. Turmeric is gaining attention for its healing benefits to the body, but has long been known by several cultures that use it everyday in their cooking as well as in tea form. Ginger has a cleansing effect on the body and can help reduce symptoms in a number of conditions. Persimmon is known for its anti-cancer properties and can help protect you from colds. 9. Ginger-Clove-Cinnamon Tea The trio of ginger, cloves, and cinnamon come together nicely in this tea and promise to help the body heal in a natural way. All three of these ingredients are anti-inflammatory, so you can use them to treat a myriad of symptoms from any condition caused by or worsened by inflammation. Ginger and cinnamon will both help your digestive system as well, which in turn helps you process foods and break down their nutrients better, helping your overall health and ability to heal. The instructions themselves are as easy as adding boiling water to the three ingredients.   http://bembu.com/cinnamon-tea-recipes

A new Ear on the Universe

 

The Documentary Visions of the universe exert an eerie silence. But as Aleem Maqbool reveals in A New Ear on the Universe all this is set to change. Physicists are racing to develop a cosmic hearing aid which will bring us the Universe’s equivalent of sound - gravitational waves It’s the largest lab on the surface of the planet - located in the Columbia Basin region of southeastern Washington. LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, with its giant laser beam arms totalling 5 miles across the remote Hanford desert, is seeking to detect gravitational waves -- ripples in the fabric of space-time. First predicted by Einstein in his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves are produced by exotic events involving coalescing black holes, neutron stars and objects perhaps not yet discovered and even the remnants of gravitational radiation created by the birth of the universe. The giant lab is atmospherically set adjacent to a former nuclear reactor whose village workers have long disappeared, to be replaced by a new community of scientists. Aleem Maqbool journeys to Hanford home to the remote LIGO observatory as, following a major upgrade, the detector completes the final trial runs as it prepares to go live. He examines the science of gravitational waves, and how it’s both an eye and an ear on the motion of distant objects. He scrutinises its cutting edge technology of almost unimaginable sensitivity to enable detection of some of the universe’s most dramatic events. And he examines the passion and the motivation of individuals who have worked for nearly three decades on a single science experiment, engaging in the stories of those who invented a whole new branch of physics in order to prove the last piece of Einstein's theory of general relativity, and to “hear” the universe in a whole new way. With its laser beam tubes the observatory will be chasing a signal from deep space as small as a thousandth the diameter of a proton What will we expect to hear? The death cries of a supernovae? The mating calls of merging black holes?   http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p032v402

Production Process May Yield Self-Healing Tires

 

Fri, 09/25/2015 - 8:38am Greg Watry, Digital Reporter In the winter of 1839, Charles Goodyear was already experimenting with rubber. He was enamored with the substance, saying “There is probably no other inert substance which so excites the mind.” As the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which neither Goodyear or his family were associated with, tells it, the inventor was displaying his latest gum-and-sulfur formula. In a moment of excitement, he waved the substance in the air, flinging it from his hands. It landed on a nearby stove, and rather than melting, the substance took on a leather consistency. So goes the story of the accidental discovery. Today, sulfur vulcanization is the only method for manufacturing automobile tires, making them durable, yet still elastic. However, chemists have discovered a way to bypass the vulcanization step while yielding tire-grade rubber as a result. Further, the tire has self-healing properties.   Their work was published in ACS Applied Material & Interfaces. The work is the result of a collaboration between the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research, the Tampere Univ. of Technology and the Dresden Univ. of Technology.      “Rubber is made of long strand-like molecules tangled and bound together,” according to the American Chemical Society. “When rubber is pierced or torn, critical chemical bonds break and can’t be re-vulcanized, making a damaged tire useless.” Using the commercially available and widely used bromobutyl rubber, the researchers used a carbon and nitrogen additive, which allows rubber to reform important bonds. When punctured or torn, the rubber recovers the durability and elasticity that usually only results from the vulcanization process. Tests showed the rubber was capable of healing itself at room temperature. Heating the rubber to 212 F for the first 10 min sped the mending process up. Eventually, a punctured tire may simply call for a car to be left in the garage for a period of time. After eight days, the rubber tire can withstand pressures at 754 psi, 20 times more than the normal amount of pressure exerted on a tire. Reinforcing agents, such as carbon black or silica, can further strengthen the product, according to the researchers.    While a flat tire may not be the bane of a motorist’s existence like traffic, science is taking steps towards making the inconvenience more manageable. http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2015/09/production-process-may-yield-self-healing-tires

This man is planning to swim across the entire Pacific Ocean

 

by Katie Medlock, 09/23/15 Anyone who’s ever goofed around with GoogleMaps to see how long it would take to swim across the Pacific Ocean need wonder no longer: Ben Lecomte is about to take on the 5,500 mile challenge, which is the world’s longest open water swim – without a kickboard. Beginning in Tokyo and ending in San Francisco, Lecomte hopes to inspire people to work together to combat climate change for the benefit of future generations. Lecomte is no stranger to vast, open water swims, as he was the first to traverse the Atlantic Ocean in 1998 without a kickboard – a trip which took 73 days. He hopes the notoriety gained from this accomplishment will bring more attention to his current cause, explaining “Rather than just an event, my swim is a platform to get people’s attention about growing environmental and sustainability issues, mobilize fans with emotion, and inspire them to become full-blown advocates.” The Longest Swim is partnered by Water Defense, the Mark Buffalo-founded organization who will attach a WaterBug sensor to Lecomte on his journey to collect water quality data. Not only will information be gathered about the surrounding sea, but also about Lecomte, himself. Using “remote guidance echo” technology – used in monitoring cardiovascular changes in astronauts – real-time echocardiogram information will be transmitted via satellite to record the effects of the journey’s demands on the swimmer’s body. Currently, the project has raised $8,000 of its $50,000 IndieGoGo campaign goals to help fund all of the voyage’s technical needs. The campaign explains that the first step is to get Lecomte’s boat, the Rolano, which will follow alongside him on his trek, to Japan in preparation for the swim. Stay tuned to see when Ben sets sail on this landmark journey. +The Longest Swim http://inhabitat.com/swimmer-who-traversed-the-atlantic-is-now-taking-on-the-pacific-in-the-longest-swim

The Nile at night

 

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, recently past the halfway mark of his one-year mission to the International Space Station, photographed the Nile River during a nighttime flyover on Sept. 22, 2015. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, "Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from@space_station! #YearInSpace."

 

Image Credit: NASA

Last Updated: Sept. 25, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-nile-at-night

New strategies address one of science's greatest mysteries

 

36 NSF-funded research teams work to help reveal how neurons team up to produce thoughts and actions In 2014, NSF awarded a total of $10.8 million to 36 brain research projects. September 23, 2015 Your brain is the boss of you. It controls vital physiological functions--such as breathing--as well as thoughts, memories and learning. Yet our understanding of the brain is downright rudimentary compared to our understanding of other organs. As part of The BRAIN Initiative, the National Science Foundation is working to change that through projects that study the brain's circuitry in action. The six videos accompanying this story explain some of these creative, futuristic projects. The secrets of circuits Our brain cells, called neurons, work together to produce every memory, thought, behavior and sensation. The human brain has 80 to 100 billion neurons--each of which transmits and receives signals to and from thousands of other neurons. To fully understand how the brain functions, scientists research how these neural circuits work. The circuits are quite complex--they can connect neurons in distant regions of the brain and operate at different temporal and spatial scales. Because of this complexity, scientists still have a lot to learn about circuits' structure and function. How do circuits manage to operate at the speed of thought? Which circuits control specific brain functions, and where are they located in the brain? How are circuits organized? How do a circuit's neurons coordinate their activities? How do circuits develop as an organism matures after birth? Bold research projects NSF's BRAIN Initiative efforts are working to answer those questions. In 2014, NSF awarded a total of $10.8 million to 36 brain research projects. These awards, which each provide $300,000 over two years, are called Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER). They are part of NSF's broader efforts to understand the healthy brain. Each BRAIN EAGER supports a bold, promising--but untested--approach to develop groundbreaking technologies or concepts that advance our understanding of neural circuits. The 36 awards collectively fund 76 researchers who are applying their expertise across almost all scientific and engineering fields. Three EAGER teams are international. Lords of the fruit flies: What goes into fruit fly courtship? It might seem like an odd question, but understanding its neural underpinnings--and studying the male-female interactions at the milliscale level--could help us better understand the complexities of social behavior. A Princeton University team--neuroscientist Mala Murthy and physicists William Bialek and Joshua Shaevitz--will stimulate individual neurons as the fruit flies (Drosophila) conduct complex courtship behaviors. They will also develop mathematical models that predict the dynamics of interactive behavior. Seeing the brain in a whole new light: Researchers all over the world use technology called optogenetics that allows them to turn neurons on and off in living laboratory organisms by exposing them to certain types of light. Stephen Boppart of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign wants to expand optogenetics even further. His project involves developing new physics-based techniques to improve control over those beams of light. This would enable researchers to activate circuits of neurons with greater resolution and spatial specificity than ever before, laying the foundation for new types of brain research on how circuits produce behavior and cognition. New ways to scope the brain: Compare a boxy 1980s television to the sleek, high-definition TVs of today: That's a significant difference. Spencer Smith's wants to make an even bigger jump with microscope technology, though--a 100-fold difference over the instruments used today. Smith, of the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine, and his team developed the new microscope, which can simultaneously view individual neurons firing in two or more brain regions of a moving laboratory animal. The microscope will enable researchers to see how different areas of the brain work together to process information. As the worm turns: The tiny roundworm (C. elegans) is a great animal for brain research. It is transparent, so its neurons can be seen through a microscope. And its simple nervous system consists of just 302 neurons. Plus, it matures from an egg to an egg-laying adult in two days. Harvard University's Aravinthan Samuel will exploit all these benefits to document, for the first time, all behaviors and neural activities simultaneously demonstrated by an individual animal by studying a roundworm as it matures from birth to adulthood. This project will shed light on the parallel development of brain circuits and behavior. Spying on synapses: Signaling across synapses--the tiny gaps between neurons, over a thousand times thinner than a sheet of paper--requires multiple molecules to work together. To learn how neurons communicate, and ensure they pass across the synapses at the right pace and time, Nancy Xu of Old Dominion University and her team are developing new imaging tools and nanotechnology. These tools provide enhanced resolution and may lead to new insights about the role of abnormal signaling involved in brain diseases, injuries and drug addiction. Measuring the brain's chemical cocktails: Dopamine is a special chemical, neurologically speaking. The neurotransmitter is crucial for decision-making, learning, movement and more. Scientists know that varying dopamine levels affect neurons, but they don't yet have a method to measure exactly how. Michael Heien and Stephen Cowen from the University of Arizona are developing a tool that will simultaneously measure dopamine release and the activity of groups of neurons. The technology will help provide a real-time picture of how dopamine affects abilities such as motor control and learning. -- Lily Whiteman, National Science Foundation (703) 292-8070lwhitema@nsf.gov -- Jessica Arriens, National Science Foundation (703) 292-2243jarriens@nsf.gov http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=135837&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1

Wooden Little House on Stilts

 

Posted: 23 Sep 2015 02:00 PM PDT

L’architecte Nozomi Nakabayashi a conçu une petite maison montée dur pilotis. Destinée à un client écrivain, souhaitant s’évader de son quotidien et trouver son inspiration, sa création fait l’objet d’un certain confort, comme un lit et un poêle pour le chauffage. Faite en bois, cette grande cabane dispose même d’une terrasse munie d’un balcon pour profiter de la vue sur l’espace dans lequel elle se trouve.

 

www.fubiz.net

Sweet-potato waffles with blueberry syrup

 

By Mayo Clinic Staff Dietitian's tip: A hint of spices and a blanket of juicy berries make these waffles a breakfast treat. Leftovers can be frozen and popped into the toaster. The syrup will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to a week. Serves 6   Ingredients   For the syrup: 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries 2 tablespoons water if using fresh berries 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest 1 tablespoon dark honey 1 tablespoon light molasses Pinch of ground cloves 1/3 cup peeled and diced sweet potato, or 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree 3/4 cup all-purpose (plain) flour 1/4 cup whole-wheat (whole-meal) flour 1/4 cup cornmeal, preferably stone-ground 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger 1 cup plain soy milk (soya milk) 2 tablespoons light molasses 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 egg white Directions To make the syrup, in a saucepan, combine the blueberries, water (if using), lemon juice and zest, honey, 1 tablespoon molasses, and cloves. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the berries burst and the juices are slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Frozen berries may take slightly longer to thicken. Set aside and keep warm. If using sweet potatoes, bring a small saucepan half full of water to a boil. Add the sweet potatoes, return to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium low and simmer until very tender, about 10 minutes. Drain and puree in a food processor or mash with a potato masher until smooth. Set aside. If using pumpkin puree, reserve. In a small bowl, sift together the flours, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and ginger. In a large bowl, whisk together the soy milk, sweet potato puree, olive oil and 2 tablespoons molasses. Add the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Make sure that the mixing bowl and beaters are spotlessly clean and free of fat. Even a small amount of fat, such as egg yolk or oil, can prevent the egg whites from whipping properly. Once whipped, gently whisk 1/3 of the egg white into the batter to lighten it. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the remaining egg white into the batter, mixing just until incorporated. Place a baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 225 F. Preheat a waffle iron. Spoon or ladle about 1/2 cup batter into the waffle iron, depending on the size of the iron. Spread evenly and cook according to the manufacturer's instructions. If the batter thickens, thin with a little soy milk. Transfer the waffle to the baking sheet in the oven to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining batter to make 6 waffles. Serve topped with the syrup.   Nutritional analysis per serving Serving size :1 waffle with about 1/3 cup syrup Total carbohydrate 39 g Dietary fiber 3 g Sodium 352 mg Saturated fat 1 g Total fat 6 g Trans fat 0 g Cholesterol 0 mg Protein 5 g Monounsaturated fat 4 g Calories 230 Sugars 10 g   http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/recipes/sweetpotato-waffles-with-blueberry-syrup/rcp-20049624

Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant

 

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago.

Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.

This view is a mosaic of six Hubble pictures of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure.

This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun. The fast-moving blast wave from the ancient explosion is plowing into a wall of cool, denser interstellar gas, emitting light. The nebula lies along the edge of a large bubble of low-density gas that was blown into space by the dying star prior to its self-detonation.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

Last Updated: Sept. 24, 2015

Editor: Sarah Loff

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/veil-nebula-supernova-remnant

Scientists break distance record for quantum teleportation

 

Scientists at NIST have teleported quantum information over a distance of more than 100 km, four times farther than the previous record (Credit: Shutterstock) A new record distance has been set for the quantum teleportation of information over optical fibers. Researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) claim to have transmitted the quantum information carried in light particles over 100 km (62 miles), four times farther thanpreviously achieved. Breakthroughs in quantum physics continue to accelerate, having already shown the practical potential of quantum cryptography and increasingly making progress toward powerful, everyday, quantum computers. This new record set by NIST adds to this momentum by providing the ability to transmit quantum state information much farther than previously thought practicable. According to the researchers, this capability was only possible through the advancement of NIST’s own bespoke single-photon detectors made in its laboratory in Colorado. Utilizing superconducting nanowires created from molybdenum silicide, these detectors are so sensitive that they can record the arrival of more than 80 percent of the photons transmitted, even after traveling more than 100 km – unboosted – down an optical fiber. "Only about 1 percent of photons make it all the way through 100 km of fiber," said NIST’s Marty Stevens. "We never could have done this experiment without these new detectors, which can measure this incredibly weak signal." In this particular experiment, the scientists used quantum states to indicate precisely when in an arrangement of time slots a single photon arrived. In this way, the information stored as a qubit (a quantum bit) was encoded as a sort of "timestamp". To do this, a single photon was emitted which then had two pathways to travel down. One was a short length and the other considerably longer. The path the photon traveled was completely random, however, and each path determined the time – "early" or "late" – at which the photon appeared. Because the state of the photons is entirely random, they could be in either of the two time states. If, as a result of the travel times, the photon is "in phase" where the superposition of states is the same, then the peaks of the waves will align and the signal will carry through. If, on the other hand, they are out of phase, then the peaks will align with the troughs of the wave, and they will effectively cancel each other out. The first step in the teleportation process is to generate a photon in a superposition of all possible states. It is then fired into a crystal splitter where the photon is cleaved into two entangled photons (which NIST dub "helper" and "output" photons). A second photon (randomly encoded with a "late" or "early" timestamp) is generated simultaneously and fired into a beam splitter exactly as the "helper" photon arrives. Two detectors at this point determine if the helper photon and the input photon are in or out of phase. Because the helper photon is entangled with the output photon, when the output photon reaches the end of its long journey down the optical fiber, it should arrive at the detector end mirroring the state of its entangled twin. In this way, the superposition of the entangled pair – in phase/out of phase can be determined to verify that the states have remained intact and the data of that state has been effectively transmitted. Prior to this research, a great deal of quantum information was lost in the fiber transmission medium, meaning that data transfer speeds and achievable distances were both low. Previous attempts to solve this problem sought the answer in such things as exceptionally complex quantum memory systems that could briefly store, and then re-transmit, quantum data without upsetting the finely-strung quantum spin states. The new teleportation method may, say the researchers, obviate the need for such storage systems by providing the long-sought ability to add a type of repeater/amplifier system into an optical network that would emulate those already used in current light communications systems. They also believe that this may one day help build a type of "quantum Internet" where vast numbers of these devices periodically resend data in order to almost infinitely extend such a network. The results of this research were recently published in the journal Optica. Source: NIST   http://www.gizmag.com/scientists-break-distance-record-for-quantum-teleportation/39525