Daily Archives: May 24, 2021

Bees are essential for the health of people and the planet. Honey and other products have medicinal properties, and the role of bees as pollinators makes them vital for food supplies.

There are around 20,000 known bee species worldwide, and over 4,000 are native to the United States. Humans only manage a few of these, and most species are wild.

As well as valuing bees for their honey, people have come to recognize the importance of bees in promoting food security and variety in plants and animals.

However, a rise in factors, such as pesticide use and urbanization, means that bees are currently in decline, negatively affecting many of the Earths ecosystems.

A loss of bees would affect honey supplies, but, more importantly, world food security and biodiversity. Without them, the world could be a very different place.

Bees are significant for many reasons. They have historical importance, contribute to human health, and play a role in maintaining healthy ecosystems.

Not all bees produce honey, but it is one of the main reasons people value them. The substance is a natural sweetener with many potential health qualities.

People have used bees and bee-related products for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Researchers have noted claims that it has antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties.

In traditional medicine, people use honey when treating a wide variety of conditions. While many of these uses do not have scientific backing, they include:

Beeswax is another important product that people have previously used in waterproofing and fuel. It currently has benefits for health and features in a number of skincare products. Additionally, pharmaceutical industries use it in ointments.

Other bee products that can benefit human health include:

In a 2020 study, scientists found evidence that melittin, a component in honeybee venom, could kill cancer cells.

Learn more about the benefits of honey.

In recent years, it has become clear that honey may not be the most important reason to protect bees. This is because bees play a crucial role in pollination, where they use the hairs on their bodies to carry large grains of pollen between plants.

Around 75% of crops produce better yields if animals help them pollinate. Of all animals, bees are the most dominant pollinators of wild and crop plants. They visit over 90% of the worlds top 107 crops.

In other words, bees are essential for the growth of many plants, including food crops.

People have been working with bees around the world for millennia. The significance comes from the direct harvesting of honey and beeswax and cultural beliefs.

For example, the Ancient Greeks thought of bees as a symbol of immortality. In the 19th century, beekeepers in New England would inform their bees of any major events in human society. Meanwhile, native northern Australians used beeswax when producing rock art.

For history experts, bee products are a key aspect of archaeology. This is because beeswax produces a chemical fingerprint that people can assess to identify components in organic residue.

Bees are very intelligent, and people have applied knowledge of their mannerisms and social interactions when creating human initiatives.

For example, researchers have suggested that studying the actions of bees could help experts develop emergency plans to evacuate people from an overcrowded environment.

Observing honeybee dances can also help scientists understand where changes are taking place in the environment.

Farming practices, global warming, and disease are just a few reasons why bee numbers are declining. Experts are concerned about the impact on world food supplies, especially fruits, nuts, and vegetables.

They say that without bees, there will be no more nuts, coffee, cocoa, tomatoes, apples, or almonds, to name a few crops. This could lead to nutritional deficiencies in the human diet, as these products are essential sources of vital nutrients.

Additionally, the emerging medicinal properties of bee venom and other bee products may never be accessible without bees to provide them.

In financial terms, the pollination of fruits and vegetables by wild bees across the United States has a high economic value. One 2020 study found that wild bees were responsible for a significant portion of net income from blueberries. There is a direct link between the economic yield of farmers and the presence of bees.

In 2012, experts estimated that total pollination to be worth $34 billion, with a large portion of this amount due to bees.

Green backyards and gardens can be vital resources for bees. Growing native flowers and leaving weeds to develop can contribute to bee health and numbers by providing food and shelter. Reducing landscaping activities, such as mowing or pruning, can help bees by increasing the amount of vegetation available.

According to a 2019 study, as well as benefitting the bees, increasing rural spaces in urban areas can boost human mental and emotional well-being.

Nonscientists and volunteers can contribute to research through citizen science initiatives, where people report what they see in their local area. This can help experts understand what is happening in a particular area or country.

For example, a citizen-based 2020 study revealed that squash bees occupy a wide geographic range and prefer farms with less soil disturbance.

Additionally, in the 2007 Great Pollinator Project, a partnership in New York encouraged members of the public to watch bees and record the types of wildflowers they visited.

Such findings help scientists find useful ways to protect bees. However, this depends on people being able to identify species correctly. Therefore, learning about bee species and habits can also help individuals protect them.

Bees have cultural and environmental importance as pollinators and producers of honey and medicinal products. The movement of pollen between plants is necessary for plants to fertilize and reproduce.

Both farmed and wild bees control the growth and quality of vegetation when they thrive, so do crops. Bees are vital when it comes to food security. However, the welfare and number of bees worldwide are in decline, and it is essential to protect them to maintain human well-being.

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Why bees are so important to human life and health - Medical News Today

Photo: Sophie Giraud/ HULU

The Handmaids Tale is, to put it far too lightly, often difficult to watch. Former viewers sometimes send me messages, explaining exactly when they had to call it quits in season two after the forced surgery to remove Emilys clitoris or when Loaves and Fishes was shot up in season three. (Some of you poor souls didnt make it past the first seasons ominous ending.) And right now, in the late spring of 2021, just as large parts of America are reopening and the roses are peeling open outside my window, its somehow harder than ever to tune in. When dark art follows you into lighter times, its former meaning sometimes turns into an affront.

Vows isnt an especially violent episode. Yet it was the most trying 50 minutes of The Handmaids Tale in a while because the shows writers finally keyed back into the original resonance of Margaret Atwoods novel: that the biggest burden of the Gilead regime is the way it entirely sweeps away the past. The women (and men) locked inside Gilead are still in their home country, sometimes their own towns and cities, but their everyday lives are wallpapered over with some alternative reality. They have their memories of neighbors who used to chat over fences, or coffee shops where they met up with colleagues, or the spot of sidewalk where their son first rode his bike but the past and the present are entirely disjointed.

The emotional rigor of Vows feels like a return to form, or at least a hiatus from the catch-and-release tension of this season and the last. Will June get caught? has been replaced by Will June ever find her daughter?, a far more rewarding and fascinating tension, not least because to save herself, June has had to essentially give up on saving her child.

As unlikely as it is that Moira ends up in Chicago on a humanitarian mission at the same time June is in the city, and as even unlikelier as it is that Moira wanders down the exact street where June has just survived a carpet-bombing, Elisabeth Moss and Samira Wiley are so good together the current of love that zips between them is so forceful and apparent that its a joy to watch them. Moira has floundered in Toronto: The writers needed to keep her close to June, so they saddled her with Nichole and Luke, as if Moira wouldnt need to reclaim some of her own identity. But in both the flashbacks and their scenes in Chicago and on the boat, the character came alive again. She got that old zip back.

Its probable that June didnt recognize the urgency of the situation or the divine luck offinding her best friend among the rubble because of her concussion. (June can be dense and stubborn, but lets chalk this one up to the traumatic brain injury.) And her insistence on finding Janine is laudable she might be waiting for help under rubble just a few feet away or dazed herself in a nearby alley. Moira seems certain that Janine is dead, but what she doesnt know is that this is The Handmaids Tale and anyone, anywhere can stay alive if the writers room wills it.

If were meant to be invested in the moral quandary of whether or not to stow away June on the boat or turn her over to Gilead authorities, well, it wasnt much of a question. As the humanitarian workers argue over the merits of either alternative, I just found myself wondering what the hell such a mealymouthed agency believed it was doing inserting itself into such a volatile situation. Oona (whom I have been calling Luna for weeks because closed-captioning doesnt work on screeners sorry, Oona!) makes the valid point that if theyre found out for hustling Gileads most wanted out of the country, there will be no more returns, no more food, medicine for all these people. But she and most of the crew also express no moral ambiguity about turning June over to people who will certainly rip her fingernails out, gut her like a fish and then hang her up on the biggest wall in Gilead. June isnt some common handmaid shes an international symbol so while Gileads blows will be all the heavier when she turns up in Canada, her escape will also provide the Americans in exile with the spokeswoman and mascot they need.

Not to mention the fact that a simple solution of passing June off as one of the crew has existed all along! When Oona turned to her shipmate and blurted out, Print her an ID, I thought my ears must be deceiving me. Certainly, if the solution is so simple no need to scramble manifestos or rip up floorboards or keep June hanging on a rope over the side of the ship while inspectors came onboard someone would have brought it up earlier. Oona, why dont we just print her an ID with the handy-dandy ID-maker onboard and give her one of these official vests? And yet here they were, ready to offer her to butchers! (Tack on the fact that Moira is also pretending to be Canadian to work on this mission and we have ourselves one seriously creatively devoid group of aid workers.)

June and Moiras second confrontation, the one by the side of the lifeboat, would have made more of an impact if not for the virtually identical conversation they had hours earlier. Junes hesitation makes sense for the character sweet God, absolutely nothing could convince that woman to save her own skin until now, and if she had immediately hightailed it for that little cargo ship in Chicago, I might have lost my grip on reality. But the acting! Oh, the acting! Moss and Wiley perfectly execute on the stakes here. The fury, the shouting, Junes shifting blame its all exquisite.

And it brings home the reality of how hard it is for June to show up in Canada without Hannah. After torture (and more torture), rape (and more rape), and escape attempts (and more escape attempts), she is about to step onto Canadian soil and immediately reap the benefit of that safety. And she didnt, couldnt, bring along her innocent child, even though she saved the lives of so many others. If I dont go back now, she shouts at Moira, Hannah is gone forever. And shell have to explain to Luke why she failed at that which we expect of all mothers: to put her child first, to die for her child, to take on superhuman capabilities.

The flashbacks with Moira were sweet touches, reminders of their fierce love and complicated friendship. But it was the scene in which June tells Luke shes pregnant that hit me like a brick. Her rush to tell him the news, even at the expense of her plan, just rang true. And it restored June as a wounded being, not an unstoppable force able to take on anything to keep her child alive and well in her arms. The Indestructible Mother is a dangerous trope that insists women can and should absorb any blow for their babies. Giving birth or adopting or sheltering a child doesnt bestow some cloak of immortality on parents. June smashed through every barrier for far too long its far more gripping when she finally comes up against one she cant surmount. And at its heart, this is what The Handmaids Tale can be: the story of a mothers imperfect but buoyant love.

So when Luke bangs through that door and sees his wife for the first time in years, it makes sense that her first words are an apology. Im sorry I dont have her Im sorry its just me.

Now June needs to work her magic from across the border.

Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!

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The Handmaids Tale Recap: Were Gonna Need a Bigger Boat - Vulture

Whether you call it a puchka, pani puri, or golgappa, but this savory snack is intrinsic to India's rich history of street foods.

But, have you ever wondered who actually invented this street food?

Well, people on two different Quora threads (one aboutpani puriand one aboutgolgappa), shared a few theories. And here are the most popular ones:

1. Draupadi

One of the most popular theories states that in the Mahabharata, Draupadi invented the pani puri in response to a test set by her mother-in-law, Kunti. During the Pandavas' period of exile, Kunti asked Draupadi to create a dish for all the 5 brothers using leftover aaloo sabzi and a small quantity of dough.

Apparently, the idea was to see which brother would Draupadi favour the most. Draupadi, however, created pani puris. Impressed by her creativity, Kunti blessed the dish with immortality.

2. The Kingdom of Magadha

Yet another popular theory states golgappas originated in the Kingdom of Magadha. Originally called "phulki" (a name still used in Madhya Pradesh),they were crispier and smaller than the pani puris we consume today, and supposedly filled with potatoes.

3. By a team of doctors forNawab Wajid of Lucknow.

Another theory states that golgappas or pani puri actually came into being as a way to administer medicine for an upset stomach to theNawab Wajid of Lucknow. Apparently, the Nawab didn't want to take the medicines and thus, they were one of the "spices" added into the water and the filling.

*From curing an upset stomach to causing an upset stomach, what a journey!*

While these are the most popular theories, a user also suggests the Western-coast region of India as its place of origin, because "basic set of things required are all native to this region, and probably NOT native to anywhere else in India."

However, Mahabharata is still considered a mythological tale. And while "phulki" may have originated in the Kingdom of Magadh, the ingredients were bound to be different because potatoes were introduced to India in the 17th century, long after the Magadha empire came to an end.

Reportedly, food historian Pushpesh Pant believes that the dish originated over 100 years ago, in either Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. According to him, Raj Kachori was actually the precursor of golgappas, and the dish came into existence when someone created a small "puri".

Well, whosoever invented the dish, we have nothing but gratitude for them.

Follow this link:
This Quora Thread On Who Invented Golgappas Has More Theories Than There Are Golgappa Flavours - ScoopWhoop

Like Vol. 1 of Love Death and Robots, each Vol. 2 clip opens with a flashing title card and displays three symbols. The icons reflect the style of the series logo, but are always unique and often herald critical events or plot twists for each chapter.

The stylistic similarities between the icons create a direct line for a series without strong connections between episodes. As an anthology, Love, Death and Robots includes a wide variety of animation styles and stories. The icons before each episode make it clear that they are all part of a larger creative project. However, since no symbol appears twice, each icon also creates a different connection to each story. (You may also be interested in titles, synopsis and duration of Vol. 2).

Not all Love, Death and Robots icons are static. Many of them change during the few seconds they are shown on screen, reflecting the importance of animation in the series. In Vol. 2, three episodes have symbols that do not change: Snow in the Desert, Pop Squad, and The Drowned Giant.

Snow in the desert icons are a strawberry, a symbol of the fertile land that Snow reminds of (and the strawberry he eats); a large X identical to the death symbol in the shows logo, heralding the multiple deaths in the episode; and an upside-down heart with a colon, perhaps indicating the unexpected romantic connection between Snow and Hirald.

The Pop Squad icons are more specific. The dilated eye is an image that appears in the episode, a visual representation of the immortality that most of the characters achieve through advanced medicine. The hat is a reference to Detective Briggs and, more specifically, to his role as a rogue detective. The style is reminiscent of film noir, a genre in which tough and dysfunctional detectives often rebel against a corrupt law enforcement system to do the right thing, as Briggs does in Pop Squad. His death wish and ending also fit the genre. The last icon shows a stuffed dinosaur which, in short, is a recurring symbol of the childlike innocence that haunts Briggs.

The icons that appear before The Drowned Giant are a bit simpler. The skull with x for the eyes represents the death of the giant, while the bones appear literally in the episode after the giant has decomposed and are later literally part of the urban setting of the small town that finds the remains. The short ends with the image of a gigantic phallus in a circus tent.

Before Automated Customer Service, a robot icon vacuums the sunglasses from the iconographic head next to him, heralding Vacuubots quest to purge a house of all living things. A cactus represents the western retirement community in which the short is set.

The three icons in Throughout the House include a Christmas tree with ornaments that rearrange on one face, hinting at the surprising and horrible creature that meets the two children after they sneak down the stairs to surprise Santa Claus. . The image of a wrapped gift represents the reward for the good girls and boys the short focuses on, while a drop of sweat or possibly blood adds an element of horror.

Vida Hutchs icons provide a greater number of clues to the shorts events, with one hand starting whole and ending with two broken fingers, warning of the bloody fight that awaits a pilot on the ground. An asteroid represents intergalactic space warfare that acts as the backdrop for the short, and a flashlight represents the basic tool that eventually becomes critical to the pilots survival.

In an unusual title card, the three icons for The Tall Grass are all the same (similar to the icons used for the Vol. 1 short, Zima Blue): patches of tall grass animated for swaying. The identical icons are a fitting representation of the Love, death and Robots short, where tall grass is prominently featured as a setting, symbol of rurality, and home to hidden horrors. Ice is the one with the icons most loosely related to the story: a hand making a comb, one of the final images of the short, an ice cube and a pipe from which smoke comes out, the preferred drug of modified teenagers.

You have the first two full seasons available on Netflix.

Link:
Explanation of the icons of each episode Explica .co - Explica