Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Rio de Janeiro, I love you!

People of Rio de Janeiro were considered the happiest on Earth, in a recent research. The beauty of our beaches, mountains and the symbol of the city must count for it, I'm pretty sure. How can you be sad if you raise your eyes and see Jesus with His arms opened to you? The Christ Redeemer statue reminds us that we are loved and must love in return.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

What Sort of Exercise Can Make You Smarter?

By Gretchen Reynolds


Allow a laboratory mouse to run as much as it likes, and its brainpower improves. Force it to run harder than it otherwise might, and its thinking improves even more. This is the finding of an experiment led by researchers at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan and placed online in May.

(...) For some time, researchers have known that exercise changes the structure of the brain and affects thinking. Ten years ago scientists at the Salk Institute in California published the groundbreaking finding that exercise stimulates the creation of new brain cells. But fundamental questions remain, like whether exercise must be strenuous to be beneficial. Should it be aerobic? What about weight lifting? And are the cognitive improvements permanent or fleeting?

(...) Why should exercise need to be aerobic to affect the brain? “It appears that various growth factors must be carried from the periphery of the body into the brain to start a molecular cascade there,” creating new neurons and brain connections, says Henriette van Praag, an investigator in the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. For that to happen, “you need a fairly dramatic change in blood flow,” like the one that occurs when you run or cycle or swim. Weight lifting, on the other hand, stimulates the production of “growth factors in the muscles that stay in the muscles and aren’t transported to the brain,” van Praag says.

(...) “It would be fair to say that any form of regular exercise,” Chauying J. Jen says, if it is aerobic, “should be able to maintain or even increase our brain functions.”

Complete details at the NYT site:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/what-sort-of-exercise-can-make-you-smarter/?emc=eta1

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Paraty



Paraty is one of the most beautiful cities at Rio de Janeiro. Even if you don't care about colonial architecture or the wonderful beaches around the village, you still can eat well at different restaurants, or taste a delicious icecream at "Miracolo".

The Land of Might-Have-Been - Novello/Marsh

The Land of might-have-been, such a beautiful music, sung by Jeremy Northam, disappeared from Deezer! But we still can find it at YouTube. &...