ADOPTION

Why you should adopt a child

Each year the percentage of abandoned, orphan and even voluntary relinquished infant is increasing. But there are few couples who want to adopt a child. In fact, when you ask someone, what about adopting a child? The most common answer is: “how can I take care of someone else’s child. “I’m not responsible of that child that is not my fault”. Even once one of my cousins told me: “Never take care of a child that is not yours because you will regret it your entire life”. And I thought “Have you ever taken the place of those children who the only thing they want is to be loved by someone?. If you were alone in this world, what could be the thing you missed most? Your family, right?. So, I would like to give you some reasons why you should give those orphans and abandoned the opportunity to have a family; why YOU should adopt a child.
There are many colored-skin children, children with special needs, older children and children from other countries who are waiting for adoptive families. All those children are growing up without the basic rights that all mankind should have. They are innocent children who were born in unlucky or inappropriate circumstances. Nevertheless, you can change their fate. For you to have an idea about the millions of children who need adoptive families, just in the United States, annually, approximately 14,000 women and a growing number of men place their babies for adoption. Fortunately, in that country there are people who are really concerned about the destiny of those pieces of heaven. However, here in El Salvador, most couples prefer having their own children to adopt one. Before taking that choice, sit for a while and think that adopting a child has two main rewards. First, you achieve your dream of being a parent while at the same time your life will be blessed for your compassion for those children.
Every time a child is adopted, the risk of having a juvenile delinquent on the street is reduced. Most of the institutions that take care of orphan and abandoned children let them go away when they are eighteen. In most of the cases, when a young person does not have someone to take care of him or her, they decide to have an “easy life” that consists of being a delinquent. So, if you do not want this to happen, give those children the opportunity of having a better life in order to become people who will serve to society. In spite of that, according to some psychologists, adopted children tend to be more grateful than own children. In my case, this conviction comes from personal experience. I have met at least four families in which there is an adopted member and for sure they are the ones who take more care of their parents and for the needs of the other members of the family. Adopting a child can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life. Many children with special needs, even brothers or sisters are waiting for your compassion. Are you going to leave them alone or are you going to become a parent of those innocent angels that are eager to receive your love and to show you how much they can love YOU?

JESUS LOVES YOU!!

An unforgettable footprint in history


Very few people have the privilege or better say the courage to form part of those who change the “history”. Notice the word because we normal human beings just form part of a “story”. Whereas, those like mother Teresa of Calcutta, John Paul II, the first president of Africa, and other important people were able to change the history leaving a footprint on it that is still remembered to date. But this time, I would like to talk about someone who did it two thousand years ago. He is still changing lives, families, cities and even countries, his name is Jesus Christ. He came to the world to show us that all human beings can live a better life if they follow the laws of God. And the proof of that is all the actions that he did during his stay in this world.
What did Jesus do to be different from the rest of us? First at all, since the day Jesus conception took place, there were a lot of miracles that marked the beginning of a unique life. As the bible says: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17; Luke 19:10). Jesus showed the world the love of God through miracles-cure illness; multiply wine, bread, oil, etc., take out demons, and defend the poor and defenseless, among other divine signs-. The way Jesus behaved shows us how God blesses the ones who obey Him. Jesus always counts with the support of his father God. He never acts wrongly because he wanted to teach the world that if they are good people they will have a reward at eternity. And the most important thing that makes Jesus different is his sacrifice. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus was an integral man and he never sinned, even though, he came to die for our sins.
Jesus has been the inspiration for some people who have realized that there is no better footprint to follow than the one of His. As soon as someone realizes that Jesus is the truth, he starts to experiment special things that make him change completely. As the bible says “We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true -- even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." (1 John 5:20). The last phrase says that Jesus is eternal life. So when someone comes to Jesus, they acquire the privilege to become a son of God and to become part of the eternity in Heaven. Why that is possible? Well Jesus demonstrated his power when he came and he is still demonstrating it through a lot of miracles that he does nowadays. Moreover, there was and there is nobody who can defeat the death resuscitating at the third day as Jesus did. That is why many people try to follow his footprint. They want to become better people with a clear and real vision toward life.
The changes that Jesus did in history are supported by the narrations and anecdotes that the bible mentions because as the History of the United States is printed in many books. The history of Jesus Christ is printed in a book that has passed from generation to generation to tell everyone that Jesus was the most important man who visited this world to change its history.

EXTINTION

Why some animal species have disappeared?


Throughout the pass of the years a lot of animal species have disappear without leaving a trace to respond the one million question “why some animal species have disappear while others still exist”. Thousands of paleontologist and even archeologists have made numerous researches looking for an answer to this natural or unpredictable phenomenon. The percentage of animals in extinction are alarming, according with most researches 99% of all the species ever on the earth are now extinct. Several times during the history of the earth there have been critical periods in which the rates of extinction increase until the point of the total extinction of many species like in the case of the dinosaurs. Nowadays, there are two main and strong explanations that attempt to clarify the reasons why extinction occurs. One of those hypotheses involves catastrophic changes and the other is concerned on gradual changes such as the climatic changes.
The hypothesis based on the catastrophic changes support the idea that the impact of asteroids and the intense volcanic activity could be the cause of mass extinction. According to this theory, the two events mentioned before destroyed a huge part of the natural recourses where animal used to feed by themselves. The amount of dust that is left into the air result in the reduction of photosynthetic production, and when this happen a lot of plants died that means the food of many animal species. A clear example of this phenomenon was the Cretaceous/Tertiary extinction which occurred thousand of millions years ago. It is known that in this mass extinction was found the element “iridium” in rock strata, and this came to support the catastrophic hypothesis. Iridium is a primarily extraterrestrial element that is deposited during asteroid impact with the earth and also this element may result from volcanic activity. However, there is a contradiction in this hypothesis, it is supposed that catastrophic events must affect at least most of animal groups which was no the case with the Cretaceous/Tertiary extinction because just dinosaurs became extinct but crocodiles, bird and other species did not.
On the other hand, many researchers believe that mass extinction is the result of gradual or selective changes. According to this hypothesis climatic changes are related with mass extinction, and these changes could start with the continental drift. Taking the Cretaceous period as an example, we can see how climatic changes affect the life on the earth. In this period 70% of the present land area was covered by warm, shallow seas. By the end of the Cretaceous period, these seas were reduced to 15% of the present land areas. That means that there was a reduction of the habitat for shallow-water marine organism. Those climatic and habitat changes could have resulted in the extinction over periods of tents of thousands of years.
Even though both hypotheses have some supported evidence, none of them have been accepted as true completely. So each side has looked for more evidence that can prove their hypothesis. Nowadays, the gradualism/catasthophism has led to new, innovative ideas on the origin, evolution and extinction taxa.

CAMELS...

How camels can survive in the desert...

Every animal species is born with the capacity for surviving in a specific habitat. But what are the internal processes that make an animal survive in extreme condition like the coldest or hottest weather? Animals like polar bears, penguins, jackrabbits and camels have developed the capacity for fitting under extreme conditions. There are a series of unbelievable processes that allow those animals to live normally in places where even human beings are not able to live without external aids. Here there are some explanations about the physical constitutions of camels (camelus dromedarius) and how those constitutions help these animals survive in the hottest and driest climate on earth.
Camels are provided with various physiological and behavioral mechanisms that enable it to survive on the Arabian and African desert. It is believed that during the past three years, camels’ physical constitution evolved to the point of permitting this animal to keep the necessary nutrients to not to suffer from dehydration because of the high temperatures (around 140º F [60º C] in the summer) in the places this animal lives. Camels are able to relinquish strict homeothermy and to allow its body temperature to change (be the opposite) with that of the environment. It means that even when the environment in Arabian and African desert is really hot, camels maintain a normal temperature in their body. They achieve this through their adjustable metabolic rate. When the desert temperature increases, the camels’ metabolic rate slows down. This action makes other internal systems to slow down too. For instance, due to slow dehydration, there is a drop in the amount of thyroxine produced by the thyroid gland. So, the camel respiratory rate also slows, resulting in the diminution of water loss via breathing.

Camel’s blood system also plays an important role in the conserving water process. Camel blood is very different from the one of other animals. Firstly, camel blood’s plasma contains more water than that of other animals, and secondly, the oval-shaped red blood cells stay intact even when the plasma surrounding the cells has a high osmolarity (normally, high osmolarity causes water to leave the red blood cells and results in a shrunken appearance). Due to this action, camels are free of any heatstroke. That means that even after a camel has lost more than half of its body water, its blood continues to circulate so heat does not occur.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, camel’s behavioral mechanism has evolved positively. Camels take advantage of the shade cast of other camels sitting close to each other to create a large cool area. Another interesting camels’ behavior is that they face the sun because doing so their hump absorbs most of the direct sunlight. Also the hump is a concentration of body fat that serves as a kind of sun screen, protecting the camels’ vital organs. Camels even take advantage of their urine. Camels urinate on their legs so when the urine evaporates the blood vessels on the legs are cooled. Finally, camels also conserve water by excreting extremely dry feces and recycling water from the kidneys to the stomach and back to the blood.
After know how a camel can survive in the desert without drinking water during weeks. It is also important to know that this animal also has the capacity of drinking forty gallons of water and rehydrate its body in less than an hour.

Un Mensaje a la Conciencia

18 sep 07

MORIR DE LETARGO

por el Hermano Pablo

El problema de Garayev era el sueño. Solía dormirse con sueño profundo, apacible, prolongado. Hubo veces en que durmió un mes y medio, sin parar. Algo en su cerebro no funcionaba bien. Y cuando en uno de esos raros ataques se quedaba bien dormido, el mundo se acababa para él.
Un día de un mes de julio, salió para la fábrica donde trabajaba en un suburbio de Moscú, como siempre solía hacerlo. Pero nunca regresó a la casa. En el mes de noviembre, cuatro meses después, lo encontraron dormido —pero dormido para siempre— en un sótano oscuro de la fábrica. Alexander Garayev había pasado de un sueño al otro, sin que nadie lo advirtiera.
«Letargo cataléptico» decía el informe del médico forense.
Si bien era poco común la enfermedad de este hombre, no era desconocida en los anales médicos. Se acostaba a dormir, como toda persona normal, y se despertaba a las siete u ocho horas de sueño, como toda persona normal. Pero a veces no funcionaba el mecanismo para despertarse, y Garayev seguía durmiendo, varios días y hasta semanas enteras, sin acordarse que debía despertar y levantarse para seguir la lucha diaria por la vida.
Así como Garayev, hay muchos en esta vida. Se están muriendo de letargo. Un día no despertarán más, al menos no en este mundo, y entonces se darán cuenta de que han perdido lo mejor de su existencia.
Pero en el caso de estas personas, el letargo es moral. Son personas que tienen dormida la conciencia, aletargada el alma. Viven en el pecado, haciendo el mal. Le hacen daño hasta a sus seres queridos. Y no despiertan. Les falla el mecanismo que les haría abrir los ojos del espíritu. Y siguen en la muerte espiritual.
La Biblia tiene un toque de clarín para esos dormilones de la conciencia: «Despiértate, tú que duermes, y levántate de los muertos, y te alumbrará Cristo» (Efesios 5:14).
Este versículo está escrito para llamar la atención de todos los que viven en letargo moral, ciegos y sordos a sus responsabilidades como seres humanos, e indiferentes al llamado de Cristo y a la voz divina.
Morir físicamente en estas condiciones de letargo espiritual es perderse para siempre. Debemos sacudir ese sueño mortal de la conciencia y buscar a Cristo. Porque sólo Cristo salva, levantándonos de la muerte espiritual y ofreciéndonos vida eterna.

Korean Alphabet

Korean Alphabet (Hangul)

Most English speakers think Korean has thousands of characters, like Chinese, but it actually has a very simple and logical alphabet, which you can learn in a few minutes. The alphabet was invented in 1443 during the reign of the Great King Sejong. There are 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels. Letters that have similar sounds also have similar shapes, so it is easy to learn.
The letters are grouped into syllable blocks containing an initial consonant (which may be silent or double), one or two vowels (below or to the right), and sometimes a final consonant (below).

Try to write your name in Korean. Then look up your name here:
English Names in Korean
You can find a lot more Korean on the web. Even if you are like me and don't know any Korean words, you can have still have fun "decoding" some words in a Korean text, such as words borrowed from English, the names of famous people, place names, and product brand names.

Extreme Sports a good way to lose stress...

Extreme sports are often associated with various youth subcultures. Extreme sports are no more "extreme" than traditional activities played at a high level. The few generalizations that can be made about extreme sports is that they are almost always individual instead of team activities and that they often focus on performing tricks or stunts.

Some who enjoy extreme sports repudiate the stereotypical "adrenaline junkie" tag. The practitioners would claim they enjoy developing their physical and/or mental skills, seek mastery of inhospitable environments, look to escape from the mundane rigors of day-to-day existence, or simply love the wilderness environment in which many of these sports take place. Bob Drury, a paraglider pilot says, "We do these things not to escape life, but to prevent life escaping us"—even though accidents in these sports could be fatal. Many participants also don't think of their activities as either extreme or sports at all. To the most passionate purists, the sport label doesn't fit because they aren't competing to win anything. Worse, the extreme label has frequently been blamed for stereotyping participants in these activities as stupid, reckless, and even suicidal. Eric Brymer PhD (2005) also found that the potential of various extraordinary human experiences, many of which parallel those found in activities such as meditation, was an important part of the extreme sport experience.
Some of the sports have existed for decades and their proponents span generations, some going on to become well known personalities. Rock climbing and ice climbing have spawned publicly recognizable names such as Edmund Hillary, Chris Bonington, Wolfgang Gullich and more recently Joe Simpson. Another example is surfing, which was originally invented centuries ago by the native inhabitants of Hawaii.

Try a extreme sport and let me know if you like it.

My favorite extreme sport is Motocross, i really love it...

Motocross (often shortened to MX or MotoX) is a form of motorcycle sport or all-terrain vehicle racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. Motocross is derived from the French, and traces its origins to British Scrambling competitions. The name "motocross" is a contraction derived from the words "Motorcycle" and "Cross Country".

FREESTYLE:

Freestyle motocross (Freestyle Motocross), a relatively new sport, is not racing and instead concentrates on performing acrobatic stunts while jumping motocross bikes. The winner is chosen by a group of judges. The riders are scored on style, level of trick difficulty, best use of the course, and frequently crowd reactions as well.
One stunt performed is the backflip, which was disputedly completed on a 250cc motorcycle by Carey Hart using a specially designed dirt ramp. Soon after this, Mike Metzger completed this stunt using a standard freestyle ramp and dirt landing . More recently Mike Metzger actually did a Backflip over the Caesar's Palace Fountains. Some consider the body varial 360 as the most difficult stunt being performed at this time. This stunt, also called the Carolla, was first performed by Chuck Carothers at the 2004 X Games. Prior to this, the backflip 360, or off-axis backflip, was widely considered the most challenging stunt. Another rider taking freestyle to a new level is Travis Pastrana. In 2006 he did the world's first double backflip, at the 2006 X Games Travis performed the world's first double backflip (in competition). It earned him the gold for best trick, that is now considered the most difficult trick. No other rider has yet done the trick.