Choosing exciting places for first date increases the chances of the other person falling for you.
Farting helps reduce high blood pressure and is good for your health. Breastfeeding allows a baby to give germs to mothers so that her immune system can respond and can synthesize antibodies for her baby. Handshakes were originally meant to make sure that the person you were meeting wasn’t carrying a concealed weapon. The hand clasp proved that your hand was empty and shaking was meant to dislodge any weapons hiding up the sleeve. The boomslang snake’s venom causes you to bleed from all holes of your body. Women have twice as many pain receptors on their body than men. But a much higher pain tolerance. When getting a new car, choose one that is silver. The color is most visible on the road and is least likely to get into an accident. If you like unusual facts this is a good one: by law, a pregnant woman can pee anywhere she wants to in Britain, even if she chooses, in a police officer’s helmets. The butterflies you get in your stomach when you see someone you like is actually a stress response caused by adrenaline. A small amount of stress helps you to remember things better but a large amount may hinder your memory. Read more: factsd.com/weird-facts-that-are-strange/
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Erika Samoff, Ph.D., M.P.H.
We’re seeing more sexually transmitted infections (STIs) now than ever before. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in August, rates of syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia have climbed in the U.S. for the fourth year in a row. Let’s break down some of the most notable findings from the 2017 STI report (which is the most recent data available): 1,708,569 cases of chlamydia were reported in 2017. The chlamydia rate has gone up 6.9 percent from 2016, making it the most common notifiable STI in the U.S. Almost two-thirds of all cases were in people between the ages of 15-24. Because chlamydia testing is recommended annually for young women, and chlamydia is often asymptomatic and not detected in men, most cases that get reported are among women. 555,608 cases of gonorrhea were reported to the CDC in 2017; the gonorrhea rate is up 18.6 percent from 2016. Gonorrhea is evenly split between men and women. 30,644 cases of infectious syphilis were reported in 2017, a rate increase of 10.5 percent from the previous year. Nearly 90 percent of cases were in men. All of this sounds bad, but does it mean that STIs are out of control? Not necessarily. The dramatic rise in infections is actually a two-pronged issue made up of both increased disease and better detection of disease. As STI experts, we see a few possible contributing factors for each part of the equation that deserve attention. Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking at the rising STI rates: 1. We’re getting better at understanding STIs and providing culturally competent care that identifies these infections in more people. It took a while, but the medical community is starting to acknowledge all the various ways that people have sex and what that means for STI transmission. Recent studies have reported that oral and anal sex is prevalent among sexually active adolescents and adults. Since STIs can absolutely be spread through these sexual acts, there’s been an increasing emphasis on the necessity for culturally competent medical care. In other words, providing comprehensive care (and testing) that addresses all aspects of a patient’s sexual experiences and exposures. In practice, this means that the medical and public health communities are acknowledging that, in addition to traditionally tested sites (urethra for men, cervix for women), the throat and rectum can also be infected with chlamydia and gonorrhea. So, clinicians are doing a better job of asking patients about all their sexual behaviors and testing for STIs at all exposed sites. While not all health care providers offer the full array of testing, the fact that more providers are taking steps beyond just the traditional vaginal/cervical or urethral STI screening means that we’re going to find more STIs. 2. With more options than ever before, it’s possible that more people are actually getting tested and more disease is getting reported. Getting tested for STIs these days is about as easy as it gets. There are home test kits, free or sliding-scale testing at local health clinics, and, of course, testing at your doctor’s office. But even in-office testing has gotten easier in the past decade. For instance, urethral gonorrhea and chlamydia infection testing can be performed using a urine test now instead of having to insert a swab into the penis, which understandably may have been a deterrent to testing. Additionally, self-collected vaginal, oral, and rectal swab specimens have comparable efficacy to clinician collected specimens and allow patients to take control of their sexual health. Plus, because more health and lab records are kept in electronic systems, reporting of STIs to the national disease reporting system is better, leading to overall more reports. 3. We may be having more sex partners. It has been suggested that the rise of dating apps may lead to people having more sex partners. While that has not been proven for all groups, recent research does demonstrate more sex partners among men reporting sex with men. Logic suggests that the rise of dating apps breaks through some of our old barriers to meeting sex partners (like, you know, leaving your house). Obviously not everyone using dating apps is using them to find casual sex partners, but it does track that they’ve made it a little easier to do just that, if that’s what you’re looking for. 4. People aren’t using condoms as much as they should be. Let’s be honest, a healthy sex life is what we all strive for, and protecting yourself from STIs is critical to achieving that goal. Barrier methods of protection like condoms and dental dams are the only proven way to reduce your risk of getting STIs—outside of just not having sex, of course. There is a pill called HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) which, when taken daily, can reduce your risk of acquiring HIV by more than 90 percent; but PrEP doesn’t protect against other STIs. Studies show that condom use is lackluster among both women and men. According to the 2011-2015 National Survey of Family Growth, which surveyed 11,300 women and 9,321 men in the U.S. between the ages of 15-44, just 24 percent of women and 34 percent of men reported using a condom during their last sexual encounter. Survey questions like this don’t give us all the details (for instance, it’s possible that some of these people had recently been tested together with their partners and were not at risk for STIs, or that they were trying to conceive). While condom use was higher among people reporting sexual risk behaviors (46 percent of single men and 32 percent of single women), it was still much less than optimal. This lack of urgency to wrap it up may come from the knowledge that sex is less dangerous than it used to be. Gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis are all curable and HIV can be prevented by taking daily PrEP. Additionally, the available treatments for HIV infection are so effective that, when the medication regimen is taken as prescribed by their HIV clinician, people living with HIV can live long healthy lives and cannot transmit HIV to others. Under the Affordable Care Act, we also have better access to birth control methods, which could make people feel safer when it comes to the potential implications of unprotected sex. But it’s important to remember that condoms and dental dams are still necessary to stop the spread of STIs (some STIs—like herpes and HPV—can still be spread even while wearing condoms, but they’re the best option we have). If you’re not 100 percent sure of your or your partner’s STI status (which can only be known after testing, since many STIs come with zero symptoms), you should be taking steps to protect each other. So, the good news is that we are better at identifying infections in order to treat them. The bad news is that there is more infection to catch. Ultimately, the resounding message from health providers should be: Enjoy yourself and protect yourself. Everyone has the right to a happy, healthy sex life, and that includes respectful communication and protection using condoms, if appropriate. Protecting yourself from sexually transmitted infections can be an incredibly empowering thing. As STI researchers and sex educators, the following are our three most important tips for staying safe and protected, no matter your sexual habits and preference. Talk to your partner(s). There is absolutely no way to tell someone’s STI status based on appearance or even general trustworthiness—they may not even know they’re infected. Unless they’ve been tested recently and haven’t had sex with anyone else since then, there’s no way of knowing. If there’s ever any doubt about status, that’s okay—that’s what condoms are for! Use condoms and other barrier methods to protect yourself, if appropriate. Consistent condom use requires effort and commitment, but it doesn’t have to be unsexy and awkward. We’re willing to bet that the risk of chlamydia is way more of a downer than wearing a condom. Just saying. Get regular testing for STIs. Again, STIs are often symptomless, so the only way to know your status for sure is by getting tested. If you and your partner are in a mutually monogamous relationship and want to stop using condoms, go get tested together so that you can make that decision with your results in hand. Remember: An STI diagnosis isn’t the end of the world. Most are curable, and all are treatable. You can ask you clinician about getting tested or visit your local health department. The CDC also offers a search box to find local providers and guidelines for testing here. Erika Samoff, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the HIV/STD surveillance manager and Victoria Mobley, M.D., M.P.H., is the HIV/STD medical director at the North Carolina Division of Public Health. By Ali Hale - 6 minute read
Whether you’re writing just for fun, for school, or with professional goals in mind, these exercises can all help you to improve your writing. Some will give you inspiration, others will help you avoid editing as you write, and many of them will help you pay closer attention to your word choices. I hope you’ll enjoy giving them a go! #1: Cover Your Screen While You Write If you find yourself doing more editing than actual writing, then try covering up (or, on a laptop, turning down) your screen while you draft. If, like me, you can touch-type – try closing your eyes instead. I find it surprisingly relaxing! (Though I tend to stop every sentence or two to make sure I’ve hit the keys I thought I was hitting…) At first, it might seem odd not to be able to see the words that you’re typing – but you might well find that you write faster and express your thoughts more freely this way. #2: Set a Daily Writing Goal and Track Your Progress Writing, as most other crafts, only gets better with practice. If you want to improve, therefore, you will need to write pretty much every single day. The best strategy to achieve this objective is to set a goal of how many words you want to write per day, and then to track your progress over time. A simple notebook or spreadsheet should be enough for you to record your daily statistics. The Prolifiko blog has a great piece with more tips to set writing goals and resolutions and to make sure you achieve them. #3: Use a Writing Prompt to Get You Going If you want to write, but you don’t know what you want to write, try using a writing prompt. This could be anything from a story scenario (“write about someone who gets caught in a lie”) to a blog post title (“Ten Things I Wish I Could Tell My 15-Year-Old Self”). Here are a couple of sources of prompts to keep you busy for a while: 25 creative writing prompts, a list of prompts you can use to start writing a simple story or even a novel. 365 Creative Writing Prompts, from Think Written – a mixed bag of prompts, with some for stories and some for poems; many would also work for blogging. Even if you’re working on a longer piece, like a novel, prompts can be helpful. A line of dialogue, for instance, might give you just the inspiration you need for your next scene. #4: Don’t Start at the Beginning … Start at the End There’s no writing rule that says you need to begin at the beginning. In fact, many writers find it more effective to start at the end. You can do this in a couple of different ways: Start your story (or blog post, etc) close to the chronological end – e.g. you might begin with “As I stared down the mountain, I couldn’t believe I was actually here…” You can then jump back in time and narrate the events that led up to that point. Write the end of your blog post (or story, etc) first. Once you’ve written your concluding paragraphs or final scenes, you’ll know what you’re leading up to. If you prefer not to write it out in full, you could make notes. #5: Rewrite a Masterpiece or a Famous Story Choose a famous masterpiece or classic novel (like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) and write your own version. This is a great exercise because you can do it at almost any level: you could write a short story for children, or you could write a whole novel or screenplay. (Bridget Jones’s Diary, for instance, borrowed heavily from Pride and Prejudice; the children’s movie Gnomeo and Juliet is based, as you might guess, on Romeo and Juliet.) You can do this with fairytales, too, like the story of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood. You might decide to bring the stories into the modern world – or you might switch to a completely different genre, like a Western version of Little Red Riding Hood or a sci-fi version of Cinderella. Hopefully, you’ll think of some interesting ways to present an old story in a new way – great practice for avoiding clichés and stereotypes in your own writing. #6: Create a Found Poem from Your Spam Folder A “found poem” is one created from text that already exists – and some writers enjoy repurposing spam emails for this! Check your spam folder. I’m sure that, like mine, it’s full of emails with some strange wording and dubious promises like: I did not need to find a winning product. he gave it to me… Just drinking 1 cup of this delicious hot beverage in the morning sets you up to burn more fat than 45 exhausting minutes on the treadmill. Hello %E-mail_address%, I know your very love Engineer Jobs and want have T-Shirt for Engineer Jobs. It is vital to have a telephone system that has all the specific functions (All of these are taken verbatim from my own spam folder…) Could you pick out a few lines (they don’t have to be consecutive ones) to create your own found poem? Feel free to add some words if needed. There are some wonderfully odd examples here. #7: Write Something Inspired By a Piece of Writing, Music or Art Inspiration can come in all sorts of ways – but if you’re struggling to find an idea, try turning to other people’s creative works. In my blogging, I’ve often been inspired by other people’s post structures, by an idea of theirs that I want to take further – or even by something they’ve written that I disagree with. You can use music and art in a similar way: they can be particularly potent sources of ideas for stories. If you have a favourite song or artist, what in their work speaks to you? How could you craft a story using some of those themes or thoughts? Alternatively, look through some photos of artworks, and choose one or more to use as the basis for a story. #8: Interview Your Novel’s Characters This is a fun exercise that a lot of writers use to dig into who their characters are: the character interview. You can work through a pre-set list of questions, or you can come up with your own in advance, or you can just start typing and go with the flow! You might do this essentially like a character questionnaire or checklist, or you might want to write it more like a mini-story, with you as the author inviting your character to sit down and talk. Depending on the sort of fiction you write, the setting for your interview could be almost anything – perhaps you’re enjoying a casual chat over coffee and cake with your character, or maybe you’re interviewing them as a journalist, or even in court. Or, if you’re into rather darker fiction, you might be conducting an interrogation… However you do this, it’s a great exercise to have fun with, and you might discover a whole backstory to your character that you’d never thought about before. #9: Use the Alphabet This is a fun exercise that can work for almost any type of writing: craft a piece where each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. Here’s the start of one to show you what I mean: At six o’clock, Josie woke up. Before she’d even opened her eyes, she knew what had woken her: she could hear it, just like she’d heard it every Friday morning for months. Cliff, her neighbour, was out in his garden. Despite all the times she’d gone round and asked him, through gritted teeth, to please wait until at least seven, he was mowing the blasted lawn again. “Excuse me!” she called, over the fence. For a moment, she thought he hadn’t heard her over the sound of the mower. (Yes, it’s tricky once you get to X! You might find this list helpful, or you might choose to use a sentence-starting word that merely contains an X.) #10: Write with a Sentence Length Limit in Place Can you limit every sentence you write to ten words? (Or fewer!) This might be tricky. It’s a great exercise for bloggers and online marketers, though. Short snappy sentences and paragraphs work well online. You might want to draft as normal, then edit ruthlessly. Or you could count the words as you type. Whatever works for you! (Yes, the sentences in this section are ten words max…) #11: Write Without Using Any Adverbs This is a common exercise advised for fiction writers: write a whole scene without using a single adverb. Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives and adverbs. They often (though not always) end with –ly. Here are a few sentences with the adverbs indicated in bold: The girl walked quickly to school. (“Quickly” is modifying the verb “walked”.) Slowly, the fairly tall man stood. (“Slowly” is modifying the verb “stood”, and “fairly” is modifying the adjective “tall”) On the bus, the baby cried dismayingly loudly. (“Dismayingly” is modifying the adverb “loudly”, and “loudly” is modifying the verb “cried”.) Writing without adverbs forces you to write crisper, clearer (and shorter!) sentences, which often have more impact. In particular, you’ll find yourself choosing stronger verbs. All of these sentences could replace “The girl walked quickly to school” – and each has a slightly different nuance: The girl strode to school. The girl hurried to school. The girl power-walked to school. Of course, adverbs aren’t bad in themselves – so I don’t recommend avoiding them in all your writing! This exercise can help you, though, to be more aware of when you’re using adverbs unnecessarily. -- Pick one of the above exercises to try out during your writing time this week. (If you’re feeling up for it, pick two and combine them – how about rewriting a classic without using any adverbs?) Have fun! How to write a novel: 25 rules
by Matt Haig 1. Never be in awe of your own style. 2. Writer's block = writer's indecision. 3. Write anything at first. Francois Sagan said 'I have to write to begin to think.' So do you. 4. Right now, forget about money. It eats imagination. 5. The first page of your first novel is the most important thing you will ever write. 6. Know that you won't win the Booker Prize. Fact: no-one has ever won the Booker Prize apart from Hilary Mantel, and you are not Hilary Mantel. 7. A first draft is the beginning of the end. But the end lasts for ever. 8. It isn't the words you choose to use. It's the words you choose not to use. 9. Adverbs dilute. 10. Raise your effort. Lower your expectations. 11. Ignore discouragement. You'll never know real negativity until you tell people you are writing a novel. The last thing a human who spends their day selling home insurance in an office that smells of egg sandwiches and despair wants to hear is that their old school-friend is going to be an international bestselling author. So ignore them. All of them. Well, except that latter-day Malcolm Bradbury, Katy Perry: 'Make 'em go, oh, oh, oh/ As you shoot across the sky.' 12. The 'track changes' function is the greatest miracle since the wheel. 13. Write as though your mother will never read it. 14. Forget about what you want the book to achieve. Think about what you want the words to achieve. 15. Be ship-shape. An ocean liner might be big, but all the screws need to be tight. Or you end up drowning. So, y'know, observe each sentence as if it was the only one. 16. It's OK to write about people you know if you change the names. 17. If you write about a dog, and the dog dies, you are in trouble. 18. Jeanette Winterson once told me to change the phrase 'epiphanic moment' to 'moment of epiphany'. That is the single greatest piece of advice anyone has ever given me. 19. Write the book you most want to read. That will be the best book you can write. 20. If you write in the first person people will think that the views of that person are your own views. Don't let that stop you writing Hitler's fictional autobiography. I just thought you should know. 21. Read Graham Greene. He infects you with greatness. 22. The hardest bit of writing always comes at the 30,000 word mark. Keep going. After 50,000 the hill slopes in your favour. 23. Read it aloud. You'll notice more mistakes that way. 24. Love is the most important ingredient. Love of words. Of your characters and their flaws. Of truth. You are playing God, but it has to be a loving God. 25. Enjoy it. There is nothing as exciting in this world as roaming the beautiful wilds of the human imagination. There really isn't. These are cartoons are funny and unfortunately I found some of them to be almost true. True or not, we all have felt this way. Check them out here: www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/humor/16-doctor-cartoons-that-will-make-you-laugh-through-the-pain/ss-BBR65qW?li=BBnb2gh
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AuthorKeith Kelly currently lives in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Archives
October 2020
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