El Teide is renowned to be one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and our Milky Way, and it is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world’s best observatories.

The purpose of the visit to El Teide was to capture the beautiful Milky Way using time-lapse cameras, of which Mr. Tso has to carry lots of his camera and video gears and hike all the way up the mountain of such high altitudes, with less than 10 hours of sleep in total for the whole week.

During this shoot, Mr. Tso was caught in a large sandstorm that hits the Sahara Desert on the 9th April, and instead of ruining the shots he had painstakingly took, the camera was able to capture the sandstorm which was backlit by Grand Canary Island, making it look like golden clouds. See it at 00:32 in the video below.

Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form.

When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe.

Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.

It is a well-known fact that Antarctica has the coldest weather on earth, so cold that water will freeze at the moment it comes into contact with the cold air. Just wonder how to pee there

As seen from the slides below,  some time long ago, probably in the ice age (I don’t know), even water waves were frozen solid. Anyway, how they were formed and when they were formed is out of my scope here, just wanna share the nice scenary with you Enjoy.

In the Chinese believes, time is always an essence and to be number one, you must get yourselves trained as young as possible. Majority of the Chinese parents are poor, and therefore they pinned very high hopes for their kids, hoping that they will be able to established themselves sooner and then be able to support them in the later stage of their life.

Kids are send to Shaolin Temple as young as 2 years old to learn martial art, and others are sent to gyms to be trained for the next Olympic, and now, this kid is trained to smoke at the age of 2, for the reason unknown!

In the following video, you can see that this toddler was seen lighting and smoking a cigarette with much ease and fluency, and obviously, he’s a very seasoned smoker too.

Normally toddler at this age are very afraid of fire, not to mention lighting a lighter, but for him, it seems that there is no trouble at all. The worst part about this is that while his supposedly parents are chatting among themselves, you can see that he’s enjoying himself puffing the whole cigarette.

When he’s done, he tossed the cigarette onto the ground and was rewarded by another adult with a sweet, and here, you can see that he has yet to learn how to open the wrapper!!

So, he can light a cigarette and smoke it, but yet not able to open a wrapper to eat a sweet?! Oh my, what has the world turn into?

Tell us what you feel and let’s show the parents how sick they are!

For the first time, scientists are able to see molten lava flowing from a deep-ocean seafloor volcano exploding into a 35-foot streams of red and gold, and these lava rises as bubbles as much as 3 feet across.

These scientises are funded by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NSF (National Science Foundation) and the event occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

“The whole ocean floor is created by this process of extruded lava but we’ve never seen it so we don’t know how rapidly this occurs, the volume of rock produced or how these eruptions build lava flows hundreds of meters thick,” says Robert Embly, a seafloor geologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State Univ.’s Hatfield Marine Science Center. Embley, who was co-chief scientist on the expedition, says he’s waited his whole 42-year career for a chance to see this.

Seeing seafloor eruptions might also be a way to better understand eruptions that occur on land because scientists can get so much closer to the ones on the seafloor, Resing says.

To be present and being able to shoot such a spectacular sight is not something granted by luck.

Six months before the eruption, somewhere around Nov 2008, a very high concentration of hydrogen was recorded and scientist have since prepare themselves for this probably once in their life time shot of the century.

Luck does play a part too, for one thing, the recent eruption occurred so deep that water pressures tamped down gas explosions and limited how far molten lava spewed. The streams of lava seen shooting up to 35 feet in the water and volcanic rock fragments thrown 150 to 300 feet from the eruption would have been even more expansive in air. Also, oceanographers have unmanned, remotely operated vehicles that can maneuver near molten magma unlike anything available on land. During the expedition, for instance, the remotely operated vehicle worked within eight feet of the eruption site to insert instruments into billowing water and gases.

Enough said, let’s have a look at the videos taken:-
Video 1:

This is a sequence of explosive degassing events as bubbles of gas- rich magma burst, spewing lava fragments into the water. At same time, lava is being extruded out of the vent and down the slope. The area in view is about 6-10 feet across in an eruptive area approximately 100 yards that runs along the summit. Courtesy of National Science Foundation and NOAA.

Video 2:

This spectacular sequence is a closer view of the eruption with violent magma degassing events producing bright flashes of hot magma. Lava is blown up into the water before settling back to the seafloor, and large plugs of lava flow rapidly down the slope. In the foreground is the front of the Jason remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) with sampling hoses. The area in view is about 6-10 feet across in an eruptive area approximately 100 yards that runs along the summit. Courtesy of National Science Foundation and NOAA.

Want more??  See the photo slides here.

For full news coverage, please visit the NOAA website.

Do you see any link between them?

Don’t worry if you dont, cause this link has just been established by the staffs from the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, USA.

About 200 staffs including the doctors, nurses, lab techicians, administrators, kitchen and janitorial employees participated in a dance in which all of them donned pink latex gloves and dance to the beat of Jay Sean’s R&B song “Down”.

The purpose? To help raise money in the fight against breast cancer.

The media? Viral marketing via YouTube.

The audience? 2.7 million viewers and climbing up fast.

The commentors? 4,000 souls have been touched by their act and expressed their gratitude and support.

The video was shot at the hospital early last month to help raise money in the fight against breast cancer. A portion of sales from the pink gloves, made by Medline Industries in Illinois, will provide mammograms for uninsured women. The company also produced the video.

Watch the video below and do support breast cancer patients in any way you can.

This news is extracted from FoxNews and on Tuesday, December 8, 2009, about two dozens of the ‘dancers’ will on Fox and Friends.

ABCnews has extensive reporting by john Mckenzie for this video and have even covered the making of the video, which took two days in the medical facility, in which most of the time was spend in the dance choreography for these ‘non-professionally trained dancers’. The dance was inspired and made possible by “great heart and great spirits”, claimed by one staff.

Watch the ABCnews video titled Pink Gloves Go Viral

“Laughter is the best medicine…. you got it!!” cheerfully claimed by one breast cancer victim,

“As a survivor … I smiled, I cried and I was deeply moved …”

Another wrote “… my aunt passed away last night due to cancer. This means the world to me.”

One hospital. One simple act. One heart. One dance. One reason. One world.

Lend your support in any means you can, begin by tweeting and forwarding this page to anybody you know.

According to the latest research, majority of accidents which hit on children and infant happens at home, and the statistic is climbing up high and fast, even though more parents are educated and well-aware of such things to happen.

The most severe injuries are associated with heat-related accidents and falls from height. Older children are more likely to sustain fractures than younger counterparts. Younger children have a higher percentage of burns and scalds as well as poisoning and ingestion accidents. The largest numbers of accidents happen in the living or dining room. However, the most serious accidents happen in the kitchen and on the stairs.

Accidents mostly happen between late afternoon and early evening, during school holidays and at weekends. Factors such as stress, death in the family, chronic illness, homelessness or moving home increase the likelihood of the child having an accident. Some happen when the usual routine is changed or when people are in a hurry.

Distractions and inadequate supervision are often the cause of accidents. Poor housing and overcrowded conditions lead to increased numbers of accidents. Some accidents are caused by lack of familiarity with surroundings, for example, when visiting friends or relatives, or in holiday accommodation.

Boys are more likely to have accidents than girls. Between 0 to 4 years old have the most accidents at home. The worst thing about it all is that childhood injuries are closely linked with social deprivation. Children from poorer backgrounds are 5 times more likely to die as a result of an accident than children from better off families – and the gap is widening.

Children have accidents because they are often absorbed in their own immediate interests and can be oblivious to their surroundings. They only have a limited perception of the environment because of their lack of experience or development. They are not aware of the consequences of the many new situations that they encounter daily. For example, tensions at home and emotional upsets caused by temper, jealousy and over excitement may cause a child to run blindly into danger. Such action may even be deliberate to seek attention.

Here are some general Safety Advices

• Children should be supervised at all times.
• Keep floors free of toys and obstructions that can be tripped over.
• Always use a securely fitted safety harness in a pram, pushchair or highchair.
• Never leave babies unattended on raised surfaces.
• Do not place baby bouncers on raised surfaces (they could fall off with the movement of the baby).
• The use of baby-walkers and table-mounted high chairs is not recommended.

To be fair, it’s just not possible to tail your children or your baby the whole day, even when you and your spouse is running on a rotating shift ! There are many handy products which will help to safeguard your infant from all these hazardous area and ensure a secondary safety net for your baby.

Products such as Lucky Baby 609132 Round Corner Cushion will stick to the corners of your desk and any other corners which will then prevent a nasty cut on your children forehead or worst, their eyes.

Lucky Baby 628812 Outlet Plug will help to cover your wall socket so that your kids will not have the chance to poke something to the wall socket and see how sparks fly! There are just so many Lucky Baby safety products for your kids at home and just not a chance for you to come out any excuses of why your kids are injured… right at home!

To make my point clear, in fact, just in our store alone, we carry close to a hundred different products that caters to the safety of your children. So please, spare a moment of your busy schedule and do something right for your kids, don’t add another statistic to these researches. Remember… parental guidance, supervision and safety products are of great essential when comes to children safety.

Please take the effort to ensure that your home is the safest place on earth.

Recommended Products:-

• Lucky Baby 609132 Round Corner Cushion
• Lucky Baby 628812 Outlet Plug
• Lucky Baby safety products
• All other safety products

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While I was writing for another blog, somehow I just stumbled upon this post from The Daily Telegraph and recall a TV advertisement that has something similar to it. I remembered that I’ve tried to replay that advertisement many times before but just don’t understand what it means.

What anti-clockwise and clockwise? I can only see it goes anti-clockwise all the while and nothing else. The problem with that advertisement was that the dancer is actually a real human being so there are a lot of additional movements that keeps distracting me. So, after a few replays, I give up and never bother to look at it anymore.

This time, it really catches my attention because when I look at the comments from others, it seems that everybody can view it differently;

1. some view it turning clockwise,
2. some view it turning anti-clockwise,
3. some even able to see it changes direction without knowing how, and worst,
4. some can even change the direction of the dancer at will JUST by imagining different things !!!

This is really crazy !!

I looked at it hard and still, I can only see it goes anti-clockwise and that’s it, nothing else!! Even when I squeaked my eyes, cross my eyes, semi-open my eyelids, glancing from my left, glancing from my right, even turning my laptop upside down, it is still turning anti-clockwise !!!

At this moment, it happens that my 3 year old son Dylan was coming to me asking for me to carry him and so I did, and I asked him what did he see and how he sees it.

He told me he saw a girl dancing and show me the direction she was dancing with. Eeee…. he motioned a clockwise movement and it starts to creep me out. Why is he viewing it differently?

I got Dylan’s mum, Clara, to come over and ask her what she sees, and she said that she can see her dancing anti-clockwise (ok, good), and then she said “no wait, it changes direction now, she is dancing clockwise now…..wait wait, she’s turning anti-clockwise again….” and she keeps telling me how and when the dancer changes direction??!! “You really can’t see it meh…” that’s what she said, and yes, for the thousandth time, I only see it goes anti-clockwise!!

I decided to take matters into my own hands and forget about what others see. I downloaded the file and fire up my Adobe ImageReady. With this software, I can see the individual frames of a .gif file and in this file, there are a total of 34 frames with each frame running for 0.03 second.

I begin to look at each frame very carefully, and as I do so, I manually animate a few frames at a time and Eureka!!! I see the different directions as what others say. Yes, I can see it turning clockwise also and anti-clockwise again and I can even change the direction at will !!! HAHAHA … I did it…

I look at the article again and it explains the anomaly of why some view it turning clockwise and some view it turning anti-clockwise. The reason is actually very simple;

If you see it turning clockwise, then you are actually using more of your right brain and if see it turning anti-clockwise, you are using more of your left brain. I dived in further and the functions of the brain is as such:-

Function Of Right Brain:

• controls the artistic abilities of a person
• controls the creativity and also the spontaneous of a person
• uses feeling
• more towards a “bigger picture” oriented type
• good with symbols and images
• good imagination and more towards fantasy based

Functions of Left Brain:

• controls  the logical abilities of a person
• very precise and analytical and detail oriented
• great with maths, spelling and computer programming
• believes only in facts and science
• a go-getter rather than a dreamer

HA, so that’s why I only see it turning anti-clockwise. It’s because I have a half-dead right brain!! I do admit I have totally zero artistic flaire and I have great analytical and logical skills. My maths and science scores during my school days were always very high but my art and literature were totally hopeless. And I’m pretty good at computer programming too. Now it seems to explain everything.

I begin to analyse myself (can’t help it) and starts to laugh.

Who will actually open up the file above just to look at how it’s done and explain the anomaly. Only a semi-dead right brain person will do it, that’s who !! So, the verdict is out; I’m a left brain person and my right brain is half-dead (might even be fully dead, though I really hope not, and logically, it can’t be or else I can’t even see any shapes and colours already) – see, I’m still analysing facts.

Anyway, remember I mention above about the 4 types of people seeing it differently?

1. The first type who view it turning clockwise is a right-brainer (artistic and great dreamer)
2. The second type who view it turning anti-clockwise is a left-brainer (logical and analytical)
3. The third type is those who uses both side of their brain quite equally and therefore they can see it turning one direction and changing to another in just a moment, however, they need to train their brain so that they can see it turning into different directions at will.
4. The fourth type of person can be anybody (except me) by just doing this exercise. While looking at the animated image, think of a mathematical sum and probably you will see it turning anti-clockwise (left brain). On the other hand, while looking at the image, think of something like shapes and colours and you will see it turning clockwise (right brain). Try it, you might succeed.

Last but not least, after analysing the individual frames for the image, remember I say that I can change the direction at will? Very simple. While looking at the image, you’ll notice that one leg seems to be rooted on the air while the other leg is raised higher. Just look at the raised leg.

If you view the raised leg as the RIGHT leg, then the image will appear to turn clockwise and if you visualize the raised leg to be the LEFT leg, then the image will appear to turn anti-clockwise. Simple as that!! It is actually an optical illusion and playing with our eyes and visions.

However, to be very honest with you, I can only do so when I manually animate them frame by frame, and if for me to change the direction by looking at the above image, I have to really imagine very hard for the raised leg to be either left or right before I can change the direction.

Seems that I am really a left brainer

Why don’t you leave a comment below and tell us which direction do you see.

Recommended Products:-

1. Other educational videos – lots of other goodies for your kids and babies. It’s never too young to start education.

Sunscreens absorb ultraviolet light so that it doesn’t reach your skin.

On the other hand, sunblock physically blocks the sun’s UV rays and prevent your skins from getting sunburn & away from the harsh sun rays. The various form of Sun Block can be lotions, oils, sticks, gels, sprays and creams.

Most sunblock includes titanium dioxide or zinc oxide. Although sunblock work well, they are messy, usually opaque (you can see them), and so are typically only used on small areas of a person’s body, like their nose, ears, or cheeks. Fortunately, newer sunblock are invisible, just like sunscreen. In fact, many products contain both a sunscreen and a sunblock.

Sunblock has the added benefit over sunscreen as it not only block UVA rays, it also block UVB rays. Unfortunately, many products are labeled as being sunblock, but are actually just sunscreen. If you really want a sunblock for your child, look for sunblock ingredients, including titanium dioxide or zinc oxide.

Sun Protection Factor (SPF) is a worldwide standard for measuring the effectiveness of sunscreen. The higher the SPF, the more protection a sunscreen offers against UV-B (the ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburn). The SPF is the amount of UV radiation required to cause sunburn on skin with the sunscreen on, relative to the amount required without the sunscreen. So, wearing a sunscreen with SPF 30, your skin will not burn until it has been exposed to 30 times the amount of solar energy that would normally cause it to burn. The amount of solar energy you are exposed to depends not only on the amount of time you spend in the sun, but also the time of day. This is because, during early morning and late afternoon, the sun’s radiation must pass through more of the Earth’s atmosphere before it gets to you. In practice, the protection from a particular sunscreen depends on factors such as:

• The skin type of the user.
• The amount applied and frequency of re-application.
• Activities in which one engages (for example, swimming leads to a loss of sunscreen from the skin).
• Amount of sunscreen the skin has absorbed.

The SPF is an imperfect measure of skin damage because invisible damage and skin aging is also caused by the very common ultraviolet type A (wavelength 320 to 400 nm) which does not cause reddening or pain. Conventional sunscreen does not block UVA as effectively as it does UVB, and an SPF rating of 30+ may translate to significantly lower levels of UVA protection according to a 2003 study

It is always better to get sunblock or sunscreens with higher SPF, where of course SPF 50+ will be the best. Example: if you normally develop sunburn in 10 minutes without wearing a sunscreen, a sunscreen with an SPF of 15 will protect you for 150 minutes (10 minutes multiplied by the SPF of 15). To prolong the protection, just reapply the sunblock within the 150 minutes.

You can also use Water Resistant Sun for those active individuals or those involved in water sports. It’s important to check the label to ensure they say “water-resistant” or “very water-resistant.”

• Water-Resistant sun block maintains the SPF level after 40 minutes of water immersion
• Very Water-Resistant sun block maintains the SPF level after 80 minutes of water immersion

However, sun block is important for babies because it help to protect baby from UVA/UVB rays without any unwanted side effects. As baby’s skin is different from an adult, you won’t typically use the same products for your baby as you would for yourself or even an older child. Baby’s skin is 10 times more sensitive to the environment and this includes the sun’s rays. No matter where you live or what time of year it is, it’s important to protect your baby’s skin from the harsh sun rays.

Our popular choice for babies’ sunblock includes:-

• Banana Boat Baby Block SPF 50 (with UVA & UVB)
• Banana Boat Kids Dri-Blok SPF 30 Lotion

The main cause of prickly heat is over exposure to the sun and inadequate sun protection gear. Usually when the skin is in contact with harsh UV rays for more than 15 minutes, it leads to prickly heat. Sometimes, prickly heat can manifest itself in the form of tiny blisters spread over the top of the arms, neck and back or at times, it can be a certain type of redness on the skin. In either circumstance, the next step would be to rid yourself of restrictive garments and choose to let your skin breathe out the heat by wearing loose fitting, natural-fiber clothes.

In addition, to prevent prickly heat and protect your babies, reapplication may be necessary if staying outdoor for too long, also babies should not stay under the sun for too long. Wear loose fitting, cotton or natural fiber clothing and a wide brimmed hat to protect your skin from harsh UV rays, drink plenty of water to stay hydrated for yourself and your babies, and do not let perspiration dry on your skin and your baby’s skin as this can lead to further clogging of skin pores; instead wipe away with a clean towel and keep skin dry.