HEALTH AND WELLNESS

                                                      The most common cell in your bloodstream gives blood its red color and is thus called a red blood cell. Just one drop of your blood contains hundreds of millions of such cells.   When viewed through a microscope, they look like doughnuts with a depressed center instead of a hole. Each cell is packed with hundreds of millions of hemoglobin molecules is, in turn, a beautiful spherical structure made of about 10,000 hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur iron, which give the blood its oxygen-carrying ability.   Hemoglobin facilitates the transport of carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs, where it is exhaled.     Another vital part of your ...

Scientists and economists recently collaborated in a study of five natural habitats converted for human use and commercial profit. A tropical forest in Malaysia was razed for intensive logging , a tropical forest in Cameroun was converted to oil palm and rubber plantations, a mangrove swamp in Thailand was turned over to shrimp farming, a freshwater marsh in Canada was drained for agriculture, and a coral reef in the Philippines was dynamited for fishing.          The researchers came up with some surprising results. Had those five natural habitats been left in their wild state, their long-term economic value to the community would have been from 14 to 75 percent more than after conversion. In fact, an ecosystem loses, on average, half its value as a result of human interference, and each year, environmental conversion costs $250 billion . By contrast, preserving natural systems would cost $45 billion . The researchers say that goods and...

                                [1]       HIDDEN DANGERS IN FRANCE       An estimated 1.3 million tons of lethal devices from world wars one and two remained buried in France. The former front line is littered with old bombs and chemical shells that continue to pose a threat to people and the environment. Since many formerly vacant lots are now residential or industrial areas, bomb-removal squads receive thousands of call each year. Still, hundreds of accidents have occurred, and over 600 experts have been killed in the line of duty between 1945 and 1985. At the present rate, according to specialists, it could 700 years to dispose of this arsenal!                      ...

                                Robert Frost, in the last verse of “The Road Not Taken”                                          “I shall be telling this with a sigh                                            Somewhere ages and ages hence:                                ...