Happy New Year ~~2014

Pot Belly

Belly basics

Studies have shown that a pot belly surfaces due to four reasons — genetics, food, stress and hormones. Heredity plays a key role in how easily you will grow one. You may be genetically predisposed to pile on kilos on your upper body (stomach) or lower body (hips, buttocks and legs). Your waist-to-hip ratio and the absolute waist circumference determine the severity of central obesity. Scientists maintain that our bodies weren't ever equipped to handle the calorie-heavy, over processed foods that are commonplace today. While potbellies, also known as beer bellies, are usually believed to be a result of drinking, sugar is also a culprit.

A pot-bellied person may be eating too many simple carbohydrates, such as those found in processed sugary foods, which, when not burnt, turn into fat. Stress from a bad workplace, an unhappy relationship or a difficult academic life triggers our bodies to produce high levels of cortisol, which drives up our appetite and makes us overeat, the fat again seeking shelter in our abs. Indian men have higher concentration of this enzyme in the abdomen and hence are pot-bellied." Besides, with age, a fall in sex hormones also causes men and women to develop a paunch.

Bust it 

There's more bad news. It's next to impossible to actually target and spot-bust fat pockets. Crunches, for instance, tone the back and ab muscles and yet do little to burn the belly fat.

However, the upshot is that since visceral fat is metabolically active, it's the first type to burn off if you exercise regularly. If you can't find the time or inclination to work out, using stairs instead of elevators and getting off the bus one stop earlier and walking it up are simple ways to keep your fat meter in check. Studies show you can lose weight four times quicker by adding light bursts of exercise — up to 30 minutes in total — into your daily schedule.

Food wise

Even a small change can make a big difference in losing, maintaining or gaining weight on the stomach. So ditch the junk for a fruit when you feel like snacking.

Lesser-known foods that fight visceral fat are beans and spinach, as they make you feel full. Adding a dash of turmeric to your food fights fat and so does sprinkling some cinnamon, black pepper and mustard. Stay away from diets as they play havoc with the metabolism and the reduced caloric intake propels it to go into starvation mode.
With men, the first invitation to a pot belly is drinking, especially whiskey and beer which are notorious for storing fat. Eating late or binge-eating with alcohol help the paunch grow.

Also, 80 per cent of Indians have irritable bowel syndrome and many develop stress-related constipation and bloated stomach due to either eating the wrong food or at the wrong time or both. Eat more veggies, fruit and probiotic curds to stay light. Don't overindulge and give the carbs a miss at night. Instead, eat small meals every two hours, six-seven times a day.

Spot reduction or specific exercises can't help you get rid of pot bellies. But for those who can't take time out for work outs, swimming for 30 to 45 minutes helps a lot as do skipping or jogging for 20 minutes. Once the body is warmed up after, say a run, sit-ups, legraises and crunches for at least 50 counts will discipline the belly and the body as well.

Where to read Free Books Online ? (Part 9)

Free Books and Reading Recommendations

• LibraryThing – LibraryThing connects you to other people who are reading what you’re reading and allows you to see which books are popular in various categories of reading.
• Textbook Revolution – Links to free online textbooks and other educational materials.
• Book TV – This is the companion site to Book TV on C-Span2. The site holds some current interviews with authors, many past interviews, opinions, reviews, and featured programs through online video.
• Bookboon – Bookboon provides online textbooks for students in PDF format. The free ebooks can be downloaded without registration. Our books are legal and written exclusively for Bookboon. They are financed by a few in-book ads.
• Scribd – Scribd, the online document sharing site which supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and other popular formats. You can download a document or embed it in your blog or web page.
• BookYards – BookYards is a web portal in which books, education materials, information, and content will be freely to anyone who has an internet connection.
• Planet eBook – Free classic literature to download and share.
• E-Books Directory – Thousands of ebooks on various subjects to download and share.
• Read Print Library – Free online books library for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast.
• GoodReads – Get great book recommendations and keep track of what you want to read.
• The Online Books Page – University of Pennsylvania database with over 30,000 books.
• Public Literature – Thousands of familiar classics, children’s books, plays and poems, as well as books by new authors.
• Full Books – Thousands of full-text nonfiction and fiction books.
• Many Books – Free fiction and nonfiction ebooks for your PDA, iPod or ebook reader.
• Get Free Books – Thousands of free ebooks to download.
• Project Gutenberg – More than 20,000 free books from the first producer of free e-books.
• Bibliomania – Thousands of classic books, poems, short stories and plays.
• Classic Reader – Large collection of free classic books, plays, and short stories from more than 300 authors.
• Bartleby Fiction – Classic anthologies and volumes.
• The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List – MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work.  The Personal MBA features the very best business books available, based on thousands of hours of research.
• Books Should Be Free – Free audio books from the public domain.

Educational Mainstream Broadcast Media

• BBC Learning – Online learning, support, and advice. This site offers internal and offsite links to a vast amount of materials.
• Biography – The site holds videos to past interviews and biographies on people in topics that range from Black history to women’s history.
• Book TV – This is the companion site to Book TV on C-Span2. The site holds some current interviews with authors, many past interviews, opinions, reviews, and featured programs through online video.
• CBC Archives — Relive Canadian history through thousands of available radio and television clips.
• Discovery — This channel is home to several different networks that focus on the military, animals, travel, etc. The Discovery site offers a “Video of the Day” from its home page, a separate online video section, and a Discover Education center where teachers can accumulate materials for K-12 teaching. It’s impossible to list all their offerings here, so go discover!
• History Channel – Visit the Video Gallery for a selection on historical topics. Like the Discovery Channel, this network provides many opportunities for you to gain access to information and reference materials.
• NOVA — Watch current science shows or browse by category. PBS sponsors this channel.
• Research Channel — Speakers, researchers and professors present revolutionary thoughts and discoveries. Use their Webstreams and an extensive video-on-demand library for research.
• Weather Channel – You can learn about weather all over the world, but the Weather Channel also offers dynamic content based upon seasons and special conditions and a special multimedia and education section.

Online Archives

• American Memory – The Library of Congress provides extensive multimedia offerings on various topics through their American Memory Collection, including their outstanding Built in America project that showcases historical buildings through photographs.
• Fathom – This archive, provided by Columbia University, offers access to the complete range of free content developed for Fathom by its member institutions. The archives include online learning resources including lectures, articles, interviews, exhibits and seminars.
• Internet Archive Open Educational Resources – A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form.
• National Archives – Provides primary source materials from NARA along with lesson plans for teaching with those sources.
• National Climatic Data Center – The NCDC, a division of NOAA, maintains climatic archives, including lists of storms in given counties, and records about global extremes, etc.
• The Rosetta Project – A global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers building a publicly accessible online archive of all documented human languages.
• September 11 Digital Archive – This site uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of the 9/11 attacks.
• U.S. Census Bureau – If you think the Census Bureau is all about numbers, you might be surprised to learn about their archived photographs, daily radio features, and more available through theirNewsroom.

Directories of Open Education

• Google Scholar – Provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.
• OpenCourseWare Consortium – This site provides a portal to search through hundreds of free courses or to add new courses you know about to the database.
• iBerry – Check out this site for a huge directory of open courseware organized by school and subject matter that can point you in the right direction for any type of learning.
• Self Made Scholar Directory – Free online directory of web-based classes and courses.

Please add to the resource list via the comments section if you know of a valuable site we left off the list.

Where to learn foreign Languages Online ? (Part 8)

Foreign and Sign Languages

• BBC Languages – Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
• American Sign Language Browser – Teach yourself sign language online.
• Livemocha – Start learning a new language online for free.
• Learn10 – Gives you a language learning habit that’s hard to kick. 10 new words; everywhere, every day.
• One Minute Languages – Learn a new language via podcasts that are updated regularly.
• Mango Languages – Over 100 lessons, shown to you in PowerPoint style with interstitial quizzes, to move you through any language without cracking a book.

Multiple Subjects and Miscellaneous

• OpenLearn – The OpenLearn website gives free access to Open University course materials.  Multiple subjects are covered.
• Capilano University OpenCourseWare – The Capilano University OpenCourseWare site is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• University of Southern Queensland’s OpenCourseWare – Provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• YouTube EDU – Educational videos on YouTube organized by subject matter.
• LearnHub Test Prep – Raise your test scores with free practice tests & counseling on various subjects.
• iTunes U – Hundreds of universities — including Stanford, Yale and MIT — distribute lectures, slide shows, PDFs, films, exhibit tours and audio books through iTunes U.  The Science section alone contains content on topics including agriculture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and geography.
• United Nations University OpenCourseWare – Showcases the training and educational programs implemented by the University in a wide range of areas relevant to the work of the United Nations.
• Brigham Young Independent Study – BYU Independent Study now offers free courses in different areas of study.  These areas include Family History, Family Life, and Religious Scripture Study, Personal Dev elopement, etc.  Use these courses as a starting point for your personal studies or just to add insight to an area of interest.
• University of Utah OpenCourseWare – Provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
• United States Nation Archives – The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation’s record keeper.  Valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching an historical topic that interests you.
• Wikiversity – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
• UMass Boston OpenCourseWare – Various online classes provided free by UMass Boston.
• About U – A collection of free online educational courses from About.com.
• Academic Earth – Online degrees and video courses from leading universities.
• Free-Ed – Clusters of courses that support your preparation for today’s fastest-growing careers and critical academic disciplines.
• Connexions – A place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute.
• TED – Motivational and educational lectures from noteworthy professionals around the world.
• Intute – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorised by subject specialists based at UK universities.
• Boston College Front Row – Boston College Front Row is a Web site that offers free access through streaming media to tapes of cultural and scholarly events at Boston College.

Where to study English Online ? (Part 7)

English and Communications

• Open Yale Courses (English) – Open Yale Courses provides lectures and other materials from selected Yale College courses to the public free of charge via the internet.
• Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students – These guidelines for engineering writing and scientific writing are designed to help students communicate their technical work.
• MIT Writing and Humanistic Studies – The MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies gives students the opportunity to learn the techniques, forms, and traditions of several kinds of writing, from basic expository prose to more advanced forms of non-fictional prose, fiction and poetry, science writing, scientific and technical communication and digital media.
• Merriam-Webster Online – In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill.  And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.
• National Novel Writing Month – Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
• Lifewriting – A complete text of the 9-week writing class a professor taught for years at UCLA.
• Guide to Grammar and Writing – Grammar and writing techniques, lessons and quizzes.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab – Over 200 free resources including lessons on: writing, research, grammar, and style guides.

Stay safe in flooded streets

Porotta Special

Acidity

We have all suffered from acidity at some point in our lives. With our busy work schedules, we sometimes fail to eat anything throughout the day. Sometimes we only eat two meals a day, and at other times we simply skip these meals. But, our bad eating habits can cause acidity.

Your stomach normally secretes acid that is essential for the digestive process. This acid helps in breaking down the food during digestion. Your stomach keeps secreting juices to digest food and when it does not get any food to act on it acts on the stomach lining, which causes acidity.


Some common causes of acidity are: 

1. Eating fast food regularly
2. Addiction to caffeine
3. Smoking
4. Too much alcohol consumption
5. Leaving too much of a gap in-between meals

Some Symptoms of acidity are:

Some easy remedies: 

√ Have a glass of lukewarm water every day.
√ Jaggery (gur), lemon, banana, almonds and yogurt (curd) are all known to give you instant relief 
√ Coconut Water is known to soothe the system if you suffer from acidity.
√ Boil some mint or basil (tulsi) leaves in water and have a glass of this after meals.
√ Include bananas, watermelons and cucumbers in your daily diet.
√ Sucking on a piece of clove is another effective remedy.
√ Besides, trying to correct the cause, avoid excessive intake of caffeine and alcohol.

For bones

Henna

Liver Cleansers

Oil pulling

Knife Skills

Stress

Where to study Maths Online ? (Part 6)

Mathematics

• Oxford University Mathematics OpenCourseWare – Various online mathematics classes provided free by Oxford University.
• UMass Boston Mathematics – Various online mathematics classes provided free by UMass Boston.
• Whatcom Online Math Center – Various math lessons provided free by Whatcom Community College.
• VideoLectures.NET (Mathematics) – A free and open access educational video lectures repository. The lectures are given by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science.
• Wikiversity School of Mathematics – Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project devoted to learning resources, learning projects, and research for use in all levels, types, and styles of education from pre-school to university, including professional training and informal learning.
• AMSER Mathematics – AMSER (the Applied Math and Science Education Repository) is a portal of educational resources and services built specifically for use by those in Community and Technical Colleges but free for anyone to use.
• Math.com – Math.com is dedicated to providing revolutionary ways for students, parents, teachers, and everyone to learn math.
• Intute Mathematics – Provides free access to high quality resources on the Internet. Each resource has been evaluated and categorized by subject specialists based at UK universities.
• Free-Ed College Mathematics – Offers a wide range of free online math courses and study programs.