Happy Valentine's Day Lost1982

Sabrina: Finding love for the first time

Years and years ago, as a teenager of the last century, when VHS and not DVD was the format in which films were watched at home, there were some truly great romantic comedies which I now yearn to see again.

Maybe its nostalgia or maybe it's simply the quality of the storyline, the acting and the overall cinematic excellence that was achieved by the film-makers.

The film Sabrina starring Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond and Greg Kinnear in the lead roles, is one such film.

Directed by Sydney Pollack, it is a remake with some adaptations of the 1954 black and white film Sabrina Fair which had Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn in the lead roles, which too I incidentally watched back in the last century on VHS.

The 1995 remake has Julia Ormond playing the beguiling Sabrina Fairchild the young daughter of the chauffeur to the Larrabee.

Sabrina secretly has been in love with David Larrabee (played by Greg Kinnear) the younger of the Larabee brothers, all her life. But David is a playboy, with strings of love affairs that has him flitting form one love to another, and doesn't really notice the chauffeur's daughter.

Internship

But after Sabrina travels to Paris for a fashion internship at the world famous Vogue magazine and returns as an attractive, sophisticated woman, David, after initially not recognising her, is besotted by her.

However, one of the barriers that now confront him is that he is newly engaged to Elizabeth Tyson, a doctor of whose family wealth and status David's elder brother Linus (played by Harrison Ford) approves of.

Linus who is very much the man in charge, running the family business inherited from their father and ensuring that their wealth continuously grows, fears that David's wedding to Elizabeth might be at jeopardised because of Sabrina. If the marriage doesn't take place, a lucrative merger with the bride's family business, Tyson Electronics, is also at risk.

This could cost the Larrabee Corporation, close to a billion dollars fears Linus.

Linus tries to distract Sabrina's affections away from Linus and to himself and it works. Sabrina falls in love with him despite everyone thinking that he is a money minded workaholic with no depth of emotions.

Feelings

However, the tables turn and Linus finds himself falling for Sabrina. Reluctant to admit his feelings for her, Linus confesses his scheme to Sabrina at the last minute and sends her back to Paris.

Before she gets on the plane to Paris, her father reveals to her that during the years of driving the father of David and Linus, he was able to pick up stock market tips from Larrabee senior and has made over two million dollars and assures her that all those years he and her mother ensured for her future.

Linus, however, on realising that he is making a mistake in letting her go and wants to express his true feelings for her is persuaded to follow her to Paris by chiding from his mother and also David.

The story ends with David confirming his nuptials with Elizabeth and steps into take the burden of running the family business off Linus's shoulders allowing him to better enjoy life having for the first time in his life found love.

By Dilshan Boange- Sunday Observer

Researchers identify brain circuit regulating thirst

Scientists have identified a circuit in the brains of mice that regulates thirst. When a subset of cells in the circuit is switched on, mice immediately begin drinking water, even if they are fully hydrated. A second set of cells suppresses the urge to drink.

The thirst-regulating circuit is located in a region of the brain called the subfornical organ (SFO). “We view the SFO as a dedicated circuit that has two elements that likely interact with each other to maintain the perfect balance, so you drink when you have to and you don't drink when you don't need to,” says Charles Zuker, an HHMI investigator at Columbia University who led the research.

By doing so, the circuit ensures animals take in the right amount of fluid to maintain blood pressure, electrolyte balance, and cell volume.

Zuker's lab is primarily interested in the biology of taste.

Their studies have identified the receptors for the five basic tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, uammi and salt) and shown that the nervous system devotes multiple pathways to sensing and responding to salt.

These circuits ensure that salt is appealing to humans at low concentrations, but not at high concentrations.

“This is how the taste system regulates salt intake, which is very important for salt homoeostasis in the body,” says Oka.

“But this is just one side of the coin. Salt intake has to be balanced by water intake.” The scientists knew a different mechanism must be responsible for controlling an animal's water intake. “There are no concentration changes for water - water is water,” Oka says. “But when you're thirsty, water is really attractive.” Zuker and Oka set out to determine how the brain regulated the motivation to drink. They began their search in the brain region known as the SFO, which shows increased activity in dehydrated animals. The SFO is one of the few regions of the brain located outside the blood-brain barrier, meaning it has direct contact with body fluids.

“These cells might then have the opportunity to directly sense electrolyte balance in body fluids,” Zuker points out.

- MNT

Weight loss and gain linked to increased fracture risk

Both weight gain and weight loss in older (postmenopausal) women are associated with increased incidence of fracture, but at different anatomical sites, finds a study published in The BMJ.

The findings also challenge the traditional view that weight gain protects against fractures.

The influence of body weight on the risk of fracture is complex. Low body weight is a well recognised risk factor for fracture, but obesity also increases the risk of fracture at some sites. How fracture patterns differ after intentional and unintentional weight loss in postmenopausal women is also unknown.

So a team of US researchers investigated associations between postmenopausal change in body weight and incidence of fracture - and associations between voluntary and involuntary weight loss with risk of fracture.

They analysed data on over 120,000 healthy postmenopausal women who were taking part in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study and Clincial Trials. Women were aged 50-79 at the start of the study (1993-98) and were followed for an average of 11 years.

Information such as age, ethnicity, body mass index (BMI), smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity levels, calcium and vitamin D intake was recorded at the start of the study.

Each year, participants were weighed and asked to report fractures of the upper limb (hand, wrist, elbow, upper arm, shoulder), lower limb (foot, knee, upper leg except hip, ankle), and central body (hip, pelvis and spine). Change in body weight was categorised as stable (a change of less than five percent from initial weight), weight loss (a decrease of five percent or more since initial examination), and weight gain (an increase of five percent or more since initial examination). Results at the third annual visit show that, during an average of 11 years of follow-up, compared with stable weight, weight loss was associated with a 65 percent increase in hip fracture, a nine percent increase in upper limb fracture, and a 30 percent increase in central body fracture. Also, compared with women who had stable weight, weight gain was associated with a 10% increase in upper limb fractures and an 18% increase in lower limb fractures, but no difference in central body fractures. Compared with stable weight, unintentional weight loss was associated with an increased risk of hip and spine fractures, whereas intentional weight loss was associated with an increased risk of lower limb fractures, but a decreased risk of hip fractures.

This study is the first to focus specifically on how weight change can differentially influence upper limb, lower limb, and central body fractures among postmenopausal women in the US, say the authors. The findings “have clinical and research implications and challenge the traditional clinical paradigm of weight gain protecting against fractures,” they add. “Clinicians should be aware that even intentional weight loss is associated with increased rates of lower limb fractures.”

An accompanying editorial discusses the implications for clinical practice. Juliet Compston, emeritus professor of bone medicine at Cambridge University, says unintentional weight loss of five percent or more in postmenopausal women “should be regarded as a risk factor for fracture, particularly hip fracture.”

The finding of an increased risk of fracture with intentional weight loss and with weight gain, albeit small, however, “emphasises the need for measures to prevent bone loss during interventions to reduce weight,” she said.

MNT

Get organised, be positive

From now on, there will be no missed appointments, no lost emails, and no mislaid pieces of paper. My office room will be clean and orderly. I will always have my keys when I need them. Every scrap of information will be classified according to a complex code so that I can find my receipts at tax time, have my travel information in hand before I leave for the airport, and have the address of every facility that I need to visit in my cell phone (no lost papers for me).”

This is the New Year’s resolution for 2014 of a senior business executive known to me personally. But somehow it never worked that way. What happened instead was that he lost time reading the productivity blogs and organising and labelling everything in his office.

He estimated that he would have lost at least eight hours of work every month during the first three months of the year as he went on with the indexing and organising binge. “There has to be a middle ground,” he used to tell me.

Imagine you are running a marathon and, within the first mile, you suddenly get that feeling that a small stone has got inside your running shoe. Do you continue to run, with that small jagged pain hampering your every step? Or do you stop, take off the shoe, shake out the pebble, put the shoe back on and continue running at full capacity? Of course, you do the latter. Otherwise you end up running the remaining 10 miles in pain, and at a lower level of performance. It takes only a matter of moments to remove the pebble. And yet, in their lives in general, I see so many people who think they are ‘too busy’ to do the equivalent in terms of getting organised, of setting up enabling structures.

This is not about being organised for the sake of it. It’s about being in control, free to function effortlessly and effectively, maintaining focus on the actions that create the results.

Suggestions

It is easy for anyone to take a self-inventory. Watch your habits and routines carefully for a day or two - at home with your personal belongings, at your desk, in your kitchen. Do systems and routines lubricate the workings of your day? Do they keep you going – or merely going in circles?

On the other hand, do you find that a lack of system makes each simple job a new ordeal? Could you get more mileage by organising your time and talents? If you think that your routines could be improved, here are some suggestions to speed you on your way:

Make tidiness a continuous process - (not an Olympian campaign every few months when disorder flood you). You’ll save more time that way. Put things back in their places, for example. The seconds you save tossing some item haphazardly into a drawer may cost you hours of rummaging later.

Plan efficient routines. Most people yearn for that extra hour in the day, yet many lose it simply by failing to plan their moves. For any busy person, a little time devoted to planning jobs can pay back hours.

Do not be rigid. Leave room for your inspiration. Your systems and routines are not the job. They only help you do the job. When you are going well, forget the systems. Let inspiration take over. You can straighten up those papers later.

Leave it neat. Don’t conclude one day’s job until the groundwork is laid for the next. Look at your desk, your kitchen, your workshop, and ask yourself, “How am I going to like this staring me in the face tomorrow?” if your response is a shudder, you know the cure, tidy up.

Use Appropriate Tools. Whether you’re hi-tech or old-school, there are an abundance of tools out there to help you stay organised. Day planners, diaries, digital personal assistants, and calendars- the choice can be overwhelming. For me, I like to keep it relatively simple, sticking to Google Calendar for appointments and deadlines, the ever-popular Evernote for all manner of lists and note-taking, and as iPad for on-the-go jotting. Any more than that and my tools start to manage me, instead of the other way around. The trick is, find the tools that work for you, and leave the rest.

If your life is in chaos, I don’t recommend trying to get organised all in one shot. Instead, start with the first habit, and work your way down. Do it a little at a time, one area of your life at a time, one area of your home or office at a time. Work on a habit for a month or so, then move on to the next one. Or adopt two or three if you think you can handle it, but don’t do them all at once. I also recommend you set aside some time each day (about 30 minutes) for organising, at least in the beginning, until you are fairly organised and have your system down. Then, you might need 10 minutes a day, just to keep things running smoothly, and every now and then you might need to have a purge session (every six months or so) to get rid of accumulated buildup.

Secret

So what’s the secret in getting organised? In truth, there aren’t any secrets. There are simple habits, systems and routines that you can develop over time that will get you to where you want to be. These are what you can apply to your work, your home, in your children, your hobbies, and your life.

When you become organised and productive, you reduce needless overworking. You will have more time for your family. You will be able maintain happy, healthy and deeply fulfilling relationships. Because you will have enough energy left and be able to spend high-quality time with your spouse, your intimate relationship will flourish. If you have kids, you will be able to spend more high-quality time with them as well.

A musician should certainly strive towards perfection in his music. But if he wants to be an equally perfectionist about polishing his shoes, he is simply dissipating his energies.

Likewise, your systems and plans are designed to keep the routine chores of life moving. But when the distant whistle of the express train is heard, be ready to get those goods trains off the track. Always keep the main line open for opportunity - the new job, the business advancement, the fresh idea. Remember, successful living - not the system - is your goal.

By Lionel Wijesiri - Sunday Observer