Day: 05/12/2013

Might Electron Deficiency Be an Underlying Factor in Most Chronic Disease?.

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Story at-a-glance

  • Electron deficiency syndrome is a groundbreaking discovery that could be an underlying factor in all chronic disease.
  • Industrialization and the introduction of plastics and other synthetic materials have disconnected us from the earth, which has interrupted the natural flow of electrons between the earth and you.
  • Electron deficiency has been shown to increase inflammation in your body which is a major risk factor for disease.
  • Bringing yourself back into contact with the earth via a process called “Earthing” can help reverse this deficiency, decreasing inflammation and reducing your risk for all of the diseases that are inflammation-based, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, and many others.

 

For thousands of years, Eastern civilizations have used forms of energy medicine to unblock and regulate energy channels in the body. For example, acupuncture has a long history of success in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

The West has been slow to embrace energy medicine, holding a more biochemical view of the human body, as opposed to “the body electric.”

Hold a stethoscope to your body and you’ll hear a lot of electrical chatter. Your nervous system communicates using electricity (i.e., movement of electrons), receiving and transmitting electrical signals throughout your body. Most of your biological processes are electrical.

Most people in the medical world have no background whatsoever in the electrical world, which is why Clint Ober is so uniquely qualified to offer this fresh perspective, which is brilliantly simple and intuitive, given how our ancestors lived.

Ober spent three decades working in the cable television industry prior to changing course to investigate how Earth’s electrical energy influences health. While struggling to recover from his own healing challenges, he received the following internal whisper:

“Become an opposite charge. Status quo is the enemy.”

This inspiration was the beginning of what could end up being a discovery as groundbreaking as germ theory. What he has discovered could be a major underlying thread in all chronic disease, a phenomenon he calls “electron deficiency syndrome.” The premise is simple. If you are deficient in electrons, your body is unable to effectively combat inflammation.

When inflammation runs rampant, as you probably know, you are vulnerable to a plethora of chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease,rheumatoid arthritis, and many other illnesses that are appearing at alarmingly high rates today.

The Earth is the natural antidote for electron deficiency and can provide you with an infinite flow of electrons through grounding, also known as “Earthing.” And I will spend a large part of this article explaining how this works. But here’s the rub. You can’t benefit from this electron flow unless you are directly connected to the Earth. And today, people in industrialized countries are anything BUT connected.

Humankind’s Disconnect from a Healing Source: Mother Earth

Industrialization and the introduction of plastics and other synthetic materials have disconnected us from the Earth and her energy. Whereas we once walked barefoot across the grass and slept on the cool dirt floors of a cave, we now live ABOVE the ground, separated from the Earth by raised wooden floors, rubber-soled shoes, and sometimes hundreds of feet of air, if you live (or work) in a high-rise building.

We are ungrounded—literally!

Have you ever noticed how good it feels to walk barefoot on a sandy beach, or in a forest? There is a reason for that—it’s called the grounding effect. The reason you feel so good on that sandy beach is you are receiving a surge of healing electrons from the ground. The Earth is a relatively infinite source of electrons, having a slightly negative charge. But the Earth’s electrons are free to move. So, when you stand barefoot on that sand, electrons from the Earth flow into your body, a virtual “transfusion” of healing power. This occurs until you equalize with the Earth. Meaning, you cannot get too much—the process simply stops when your charge (your voltage) returns to zero. It’s completely safe and natural.

The Earth is the biggest electrical object, and we are part of it. When you are grounded (i.e., in contact with the Earth), it’s impossible for your body to carry a charge.

Humans used to be naturally grounded. First, we were barefoot, and then we donned leather-soled shoes, which are stillmoderately conductive. When you wear a shoe with a leather sole, your feet sweat and permeate the leather with moisture and body salts, so the shoe becomes a semiconductor permitting you to receive some electrons.

But, for the past 50 years or so, we’ve added carpets, plastics, synthetic-soled shoes, and athletic sneakers, all serving as non-conductive barriers between the Earth and us. During that same period of time, we’ve seen an explosion of inflammation-based diseases. Our immune systems are struggling.

Pets are designed to be in contact with the Earth as well, but now they live above ground in houses, as we do. Anecdotal evidence shows they are suffering the same effects of electron deficiency as humans. Animals that live in the wild are not bothered with inflammation, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, or even plaque on their teeth. This is why your dog or cat will crawl under the porch and lie on the bare earth if he isn’t feeling well.

What animals have always known, “modern science” is just now figuring out.

Even water is influenced by the Earth’s electrical energy. Water in contact with the Earth has a structure that makes it conducive to healing. When you are grounded to the Earth, it is thought that the negatively charged electrons you are receiving may help increase the structure of the water in your cells—just as water increases in structure when a negative charge is introduced by an electrode. By going outside, barefoot, touching the earth, and allowing the excess positive charge in your body to discharge into the earth, you can alleviate some of the stress on your system. So how does this grounding effect work?

You Are An Earthly Antenna

Your body is a conductor. You are an antenna for the Earth. When you are ungrounded, electric fields are attracted to your body and create a surface charge—a voltage. You know this to be true if you’ve ever shocked yourself after walking across a carpeted floor.

When living above Earth, your charge is positive; when connected to the Earth, your charge is negative—in other words, you become an opposite charge. You accumulate this surface charge any time you’re not grounded. When your charge reaches 3,000 to 5,000 volts and you touch a metal object, ZAP… this is static discharge, the sudden outflow of built-up electrical energy from your body.

This static electricity is the reason workers in microchip factories must be grounded—so they don’t blow the chips. The same goes for operating rooms. Everyone involved in a surgical procedure must be grounded—the patient as well as the medical personnel. Your skin offers some protection from static electricity, but when it’s open (as in surgery), that protection disappears. In fact, in the early days of open-heart surgery, this lesson was learned the hard way when many patients died from static electricity because patients weren’t grounded.

The higher the conductivity between you and the Earth, the more likely you’re going to be grounded. Proximity is key.

The more distance there is between you and the Earth, the greater the charge on your body. In fact, this has been precisely calculated. For every meter you are above the ground, 300 volts of charge will build up in your body. (See The Feynman Lectures on Physics) So, if you are in a second story bedroom, your charge would be 1000 volts, on average. Do you think your risk for illness could be higher living on the second floor? How about the 5th floor, or the 25th? Indeed, a study in 2009 from the University of Iowa revealed a 40 percent increase in stroke risk among people living in multistory homes.

Besides living and working above ground, invisible electromagnetic fields from devices such as cellular and cordless phones, computers, tablets and other technology assault us around the clock. You are bathed in background electricity from ordinary household wiring in the walls of your home, which contributes to your positive electrical charge and therefore increases the stress on your immune system. And if you are on the computer several hours a day, combined with several calls on your cell phone followed by an hour or two of television, you are getting several more hefty exposures to these unnatural electrical fields. If you want an in-depth discussion about Earth’s electrical surface potential, read this article by Gaetan Chavalier, PhD.

Playing with a Voltmeter

If you need convincing, you can watch your own body’s electrical charge wax and wane by availing yourself of a voltmeter, as Clint Ober demonstrates in the above interview. What you need is a low voltage field detector; one that reads in millivolts. Play with this, as it will show you that grounding works!

Measure your body’s charge when you are at varying distances from electrical devices, power cords, your computer, your phone, your refrigerator, etc. You will see that moving away from these objects drops the charge—and grounding zeros you out. This way, you can witness firsthand the effect of these devices on your body, in a very concrete way. You will see that you receive far more electrical noise from devices that are plugged in than from those running on battery power. This is why I recommend NOT using electronic devices while they are charging.

If you’re going to experiment with a voltmeter, make sure you do it safely, using conventional cord that has resistors built into it.

Although grounding does not eliminate dangerous exposure to EMFs, your risk for adverse health effects from them is drastically reduced. Still, I don’t recommend holding your cell phone right next to your head, even if you’re grounded. But grounding is the least expensive, most basic strategy that will allow you to resist that type of biological damage and decrease your body’s risk for developing prolonged inflammation.

Electron Deficiency Syndrome and Inflammation

If you Google the word “inflammation,” you’ll come up with more than 62 million links. This is indicative of just how much of a problem inflammation is. Inflammation is the root of virtually ALL of our chronic diseases. So, the question you should ask next is, what’s CAUSING all of this inflammation? It may very well be a deficiency of electrons—at least, this may be one of the most significant factors.

Electricity is as important for powering your body as for powering your computer and household appliances. We are beginning to understand, with the help of scientists like Clint Ober and James Oschman, that the Earth is our greatest source of healing because it supplies us with an unlimited flow of electrons. These electrons act like little antioxidants—cleaning up the free radicals and toxins that are byproducts of everyday human metabolism and environmental exposure.

Free radicals are primarily produced via metabolic processes, although you also get them from the foods you eat, the water you drink and the air you breathe. Your immune system is the main generator of free radicals, and it’s in operation 24 hours a day. In the process of oxidizing invading pathogens and disposing of damaged cells, your immune system generates reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are molecules short an electron or with an electron imbalance—they take away electrons from the cell or pathogen.

This creates the need for a “mop” to absorb or give up electrons so that electrical stability can be maintained within your body. Grounding to the Earth fulfills this role—and it’s nearly instantaneous.

Many of these metabolic/electric processes are occurring at the speed of light, just like the electrical current in a wire flows immediately to a light bulb when you flip the switch. When grounding to the Earth, electrons flow instantly into your body, much faster than waiting for particles to travel around in your bloodstream.

How Earthing Affects Your Blood

An important discovery is that Earthing thins your blood, making it less viscous. This has huge implications for cardiovascular disease because virtually every aspect of that disease has been correlated with elevated blood viscosity.

Dr. Stephen Sinatra, cardiologist and Earthing expert, discussed the zeta potential of RBC’s that decreases blood viscosity, when exposed to an electrical field. Within minutes of grounding to the Earth, your zeta potential quickly rises, meaning your blood cells have a greater charge and actually repel each other. This action causes your blood to flow more easily and your blood pressure to drop. When your zeta potential is lower, your blood cells tend to clump together, which is unfortunately what most people’s blood looks like when they are not grounded.

For a visual aid, the difference between grounded and ungrounded blood is like comparing red wine to catsup—thin and flowing with ease, versus thick and sticky and stagnant. Getting back to the increased risk of stroke for folks living in multilevel dwellings, it makes sense when you consider your blood cells being in a perpetual state of “clumping,” which increases the risk of clot formation.

Earth’s Gift to Athletes

The scientific research related to Earthing is really still in its infancy. Nevertheless, studies so far are very promising for a variety of heath benefits. Clint has been involved in more than 30 Earthing studies over the past decade, which have gradually verified that his inspiration to “become an opposite charge” was right on.

I first met Clint Ober about seven years ago through a chiropractor Jeff Spencer. One of the foundational elements he integrates into his training is Earthing. In fact, 200 to 300 of the world’s most elite athletes have been using Earthing as part of their training regimen for the last five years because they feel it offers them a competitive edge, including many professional football players.

Since the athletes were showing such great benefit, researchers at the University of Oregon conducted a study, referred to as theDOMS study (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). Researchers induced inflammation by repetitive and intensive use of a muscle group, and then measured both subjective pain experience and objective markers of inflammation in study participants. The participants were divided into two groups, one grounded and one not. The muscle soreness was essentially the same as what you experience after your first weekend of yard work in the spring—when you wake up a couple days later extremely sore and barely able to hobble out of bed. The results of this study were remarkable:

  • White blood cell count was extremely elevated in the ungrounded group, but not elevated at all in the grounded group.
  • Bilirubin dropped 40 percent in the ungrounded group but only 5 percent in the grounded. Bilirubin is one of your body’s primary antioxidants.
  • The grounded group experienced less pain than the ungrounded group.

Researchers concluded that all signs point to grounding having the effect of markedly decreasing inflammatory response. And this is HUGE as inflammation is key in just about every chronic disease you can name. Reduce inflammation, and you reduce disease. But Earthing has benefits that reach far beyond preventing sore muscles.

Pain Reduction, Better Adrenal Function and Improved Tolerance to Cold

In addition to decreased inflammation, two studies have shown that grounding can stabilize your autonomic nervous system (ANS). Oftentimes, the inflammatory cycle starts with an illness or injury that fails to heal. Besides pain and inflammation, your body’s inability to “restabilize” results in chronic stress. Why is this important? This ongoing stress can lead to adrenal fatigue, which is epidemic today. If your ANS can be stabilized, your chronic stress level will decrease. Grounding appears to be able to do this.

Grounding was found to regulate cortisol levels, according to one small study involving 12 subjects. The 12 were grounded over the course of eight weeks, during which time their saliva levels were monitored for cortisol, DHEA, and other stress-related hormones. All subjects with abnormal cortisol levels normalized, indicating the grounding reduced the stress in their bodies. This has huge implications for public health since the majority of all visits to healthcare practitioners are for stress related disorders.

The new study by Sokal provides even more good news about Earthing’s effects on inflammation. Researchers attempted to answer the question of whether or not Earthing affects human physiologic processes. So, they grounded people and tested their blood and urine chemistry. Just like the prior study, researchers found a significant reduction of inflammation indicators in the grounded test subjects. Specifically, in the group that slept Earthed, they found the following:

  • Reduced renal excretion of calcium and phosphorus during a 7- to 8-hour period of sleeping grounded (which reflects a reduced risk of osteoporosis)
  • Decreased blood glucose levels (reducing risk for diabetes)
  • Decreased free tri-iodothyronine, and increased free thyroxin and TSH (meaning better thyroid function)
  • Accelerated immune response following vaccination (as evidenced by gamma globulin concentration), which would suggest a more robust immune system

Having a simple, natural way to reduce stress and inflammation would have benefits for a wide array of medical problems, such as cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, as well as for issues like carpal tunnel (repetitive stress syndrome). Grounding also appears to help with Raynaud’s syndrome, which involves cold peripheral extremities. Although it isn’t understood exactly how grounding improves temperature regulation, it may be due to the thinning of your blood and improved circulation. It’s interesting that chickens that are allowed to live outside in the pasture don’t freeze, but those in chicken coops need artificial heat to keep from freezing on cold nights. Perhaps chickens grounded in the pasture share similar thermoregulation benefits with people who have Raynaud’s syndrome.

Unearthing the Fountain of Youth

Earthing may actually slow down the aging process. One of the dominant theories on aging is the free radical theory, which is that aging occurs as a result of cumulative damage to your body by free radicals. While you don’t want to completely eliminate ALL free radicals, you do want to maintain a good balance of antioxidant electrons in your body to ensure the damage from free radicals doesn’t’ get out of hand. Earthing can provide this continuous supply of electrons. According to Dr. James Oschman, biophysicist and coauthor of Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?:

“It looks to me, from my study of biophysics and cell biology, like the body is designed with a semi-conductive fabric that connects everything in the body, including inside of every cell. I refer to this system as the living matrix. Those electrons that enter the bottom of your foot can move anywhere in your body. Any place where a free radical forms, there are electrons nearby that can neutralize that free radical and prevent any of those processes: mitochondrial damage, cross linking of proteins, and mutation or genetic damage. So the whole fabric is basically an antioxidant defense system that is in every part of your body.

We have this material called ground substance, which is part of the connective tissue. It goes everywhere in the body. It’s a gel material and it stores electrons. So that if you go barefoot, you will take in electrons and your body will store them, and they will be available at any point where you might have an injury, or any point where a free radical might form.”

So, to summarize then, Earthing offers many potential health benefits from better sleep, to less pain and inflammation, to reducing your risk for diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg as research in this area is just getting going. So, how do you basically “get grounded”? Let’s take a look at some practical approaches for introducing more Earth energy into your life.

Plugging into the Earth

The best way to gain the benefits of these healing electrons is to simply put your bare feet in contact with the Earth, especially damp Earth, as often as possible. Because water is such a great conductor, seawater is the absolute best. Swimming in seawater, dangling your feet in it, or walking on a sandy beach are all great ways to ground yourself. If you don’t have access to a shoreline, damp grass is a good substitute.

Concrete will work to a degree, but better if it’s got some moisture to it. Sealed or painted concrete, wood, asphalt, and typical insulators like plastic or rubber soles will not allow electrons to pass through.

As I said earlier, the closer you can get to being grounded 24 hours a day, the more benefits you’ll see. Unless you are sleeping in a cave or living on an island somewhere, chances are your domicile isn’t allowing you to be grounded all day every day, and so the most practical alternative is making use of new technology… Which brings me to the grounding mat.

Grounding Mats, Sheets and Patches

Necessity is the mother of invention, and this is certainly true for grounding science. Technology now offers us ways to stay grounded while in buildings, cars, and even airplanes.

There are a variety of mats, pads, sheets and patches that you can put in contact with your bare skin to restore this much-needed connection to the Earth. The grounding device is connected to a cord that plugs into the ground of an ordinary household electrical outlet. The grounding devices have resistors incorporated into them, so they are completely safe to use—you are protected from unexpected electrical currents.

For a grounding mat to work, your outlet must be grounded. In the United States, about 40 percent of houses do not have a ground in the bedroom, particularly homes built before 1970. Even if the outlets have been replaced, they are not necessarily connected to any ground wire, and the only way you can tell is to test them. If your outlet isn’t grounded, then you can have someone install a ground to those outlets. There are a number of ways to do this.

The most important time to be grounded is while you’re sleeping. There are two reasons for this.

First, the average bedroom typically contains more electrical noise than any other room in a house, especially near where your head rests on your bed. You’ve probably got a tangle of wires behind the wall, as well as wires running under the floor if you’re in an upstairs bedroom. Second, you spend a third of your life lying there. This is the time when your body should be repairing and regenerating, and electrical noise interferes with this process, potentially causing chronic stress and inflammation.

I recommend using a grounding sheet on your bed. Earthing happens to be very helpful for sleep. In fact, many people fall asleep within 5 to 10 minutes of becoming grounded. Better sleep and less pain are probably the most immediately appreciated benefits when people begin Earthing.

A Few Medical Precautions

Earthing is so effective that some people have had to decrease their medication dosage. Having to make changes in your meds is not a bad thing, but rather a sign that your body is working better. If you are taking any of the following three types of medications when you begin Earthing, you should be especially careful to observe how you feel and be diligent about monitoring your blood levels:

  • Blood Thinners: If you take Coumadin (warfarin) or other blood thinners, your blood is going to get even thinner when you’re grounded, as described previously. You will want to be very diligent about monitoring your blood levels and watching for warning signs, such as bleeding or bruising.
  • Oral Hypoglycemics: Grounding is shown to reduce blood glucose levels. A study of rats showed that grounding decreased their blood glucose levels, as well as lowering their triglycerides and body weight by 10 percent. So if you take oral hypoglycemics, you will want to monitor your blood sugar carefully.
  • Thyroid: Many people who are on thyroid replacement for hypothyroidism started having heart palpitations within the first few days of Earthing, a sign of thyroid excess, which was confirmed by blood tests. These individuals had to decrease their thyroid dose. Lack of free electrons may be the most unrecognized cause of thyroid dysfunction.

 

Source: mercola.com

 

EPA Slapped with Lawsuit over Ongoing Bee Deaths.

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dead-bees

 

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to protect bees from neonicotinoid pesticides, according to a lawsuit against the agency, filed by beekeepers and environmental groups. Said Paul Towers, spokesperson for the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), one of the groups involved in the lawsuit:

“Despite our best efforts to warn the agency about the problems posed by neonicotinoids, the EPA continued to ignore the clear warning signs of an ag system in trouble.”

Lawsuit Maintains the Link Between Neonicotinoids and Bee Die Off Is ‘Crystal Clear’

Neonicotinoid pesticides are a newer class of chemicals that are applied to seeds before planting. This allows the pesticide to be taken up through the plant’s vascular system as it grows, where it is expressed in the pollen and nectar.

These insecticides are highly toxic to bees because they are systemic, water soluble, and pervasive. They get into the soil and groundwater where they can accumulate and remain for many years and present long-term toxicity to the hive as well as to other species, such as songbirds.

Neonicotinoids affect insects’ central nervous systems in ways that are cumulative and irreversible. Even minute amounts can have profound effects over time.

The disappearance of bee colonies began accelerating in the United States shortly after the EPA allowed these new insecticides on the market in the mid-2000s. The lawsuit alleges that the EPA allowed the neonicotinoids to remain on the market despite clear warning signs of a problem.

It also alleges the EPA acted outside of the law by allowing conditional registration of the pesticides, a measure that allows a product to enter the market despite the absence of certain data.

European Food Safety Authority Ruled Neonicotinoids ‘Unacceptable’

The EPA’s continued allowance of neonicotinoids becomes all the more irresponsible in light of recent findings by other government organizations. Earlier this year, for instance, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) released a report that ruled neonicotinoid insecticides are essentially “unacceptable” for many crops.1 The European Commission asked EFSA to assess the risks associated with the use of three common neonicotinoids – clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam – with particular focus on:

  • Their acute and chronic effects on bee colony survival and development
  • Their effects on bee larvae and bee behavior
  • The risks posed by sub-lethal doses of the three chemicals

One of the glaring issues that EFSA came across was a widespread lack of information, with scientists noting that in some cases gaps in data made it impossible to conduct an accurate risk assessment. Still, what they did find was “a number of risks posed to bees” by the three neonicotinoid insecticides. The Authority found that when it comes to neonicotinoid exposure from residues in nectar and pollen in the flowers of treated plants:2

“…only uses on crops not attractive to honeybees were considered acceptable.”

As for exposure from dust produced during the sowing of treated seeds, the Authority ruled “a risk to honeybees was indicated or could not be excluded…” Unfortunately, neonicotinoids have become the fastest growing insecticides in the world. In the US, virtually all genetically engineered Bt corn crops are treated with neonicotinoids.

Serious Risks to Bees Already Established

One of the observed effects of these insecticides is weakening of the bee’s immune system. Forager bees bring pesticide-laden pollen back to the hive, where it’s consumed by all of the bees.

Six months later, their immune systems fail, and they fall prey to secondary, seemingly “natural” bee infections, such as parasites, mites, viruses, fungi and bacteria. Pathogens such as Varroa mites, Nosema, fungal and bacterial infections, and Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) are found in large amounts in honeybee hives on the verge of collapse.

Serious honeybee die-offs have been occurring around the world for the past decade but no one knows exactly why the bees are disappearing.

The phenomenon, dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is thought to be caused by a variety of imbalances in the environment, although agricultural practices such as the use of neonicotinoid pesticides are receiving growing attention as more research comes in. As written in the journal Nature:3

“Social bee colonies depend on the collective performance of many individual workers. Thus, although field-level pesticide concentrations can have subtle or sublethal effects at the individual level, it is not known whether bee societies can buffer such effects or whether it results in a severe cumulative effect at the colony level. Furthermore, widespread agricultural intensification means that bees are exposed to numerous pesticides when foraging, yet the possible combinatorial effects of pesticide exposure have rarely been investigated.”

This is what the Nature study set out to determine, and it was revealed that bees given access to neonicotinoid and pyrethroid pesticides were adversely affected in numerous ways, including:

  • Fewer adult worker bees emerged from larvae
  • A higher proportion of foragers failed to return to the nest
  • A higher death rate among worker bees
  • An increased likelihood of colony failure

The researchers said:

“Here we show that chronic exposure of bumble bees to two pesticides (neonicotinoid and pyrethroid) at concentrations that could approximate field-level exposure impairs natural foraging behavior and increases worker mortality leading to significant reductions in brood development and colony success.

We found that worker foraging performance, particularly pollen collecting efficiency, was significantly reduced with observed knock-on effects for forager recruitment, worker losses and overall worker productivity. Moreover, we provide evidence that combinatorial exposure to pesticides increases the propensity of colonies to fail.”

Why the Food Supply Could Be Dependent on Urgent Action by the EPA

The EPA acknowledges that “pesticide poisoning” may be one factor leading to colony collapse disorder,4 yet they have been slow to act to protect bees from this threat. The current lawsuit may help spur them toward more urgent action, which is desperately needed as the food supply hangs in the balance.

There are about 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of food globally. Of these, 71 are pollinated by bees.5 In the US alone, a full one-third of the food supply depends on pollination from bees. Apple orchards, for instance, require one colony of bees per acre to be adequately pollinated. So if bee colonies continue to be devastated, major food shortages could result.

There is also concern that the pesticides could be impacting other pollinators as well, including bumblebees, hoverflies, butterflies, moths and others, which could further impact the environment.

Four Steps to Help Protect the Bees

If you would like to learn more about the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee, check out the documentary film Vanishing of the Bees. If you’d like to get involved, here are four actions you can take to help preserve and protect our honeybees:

  1. Support organic farmers and shop at local farmer’s markets as often as possible. You can “vote with your fork” three times a day. (When you buy organic, you are making a statement by saying “no” to GMOs and toxic pesticides!)
  2. Cut the use of toxic chemicals in your house and on your lawn, and use only organic, all-natural forms of pest control.
  3. Better yet, get rid of your lawn altogether and plant a garden or other natural habitat. Lawns offer very little benefit for the environment. Both flower and vegetable gardens provide excellent natural honeybee habitats.
  4. Become an amateur beekeeper. Having a hive in your garden requires only about an hour of your time per week, benefits your local ecosystem, and you can enjoy your own honey!

Source: mercola.com

 

7 Useful Strategies for Dealing with Difficult People at Work.

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negative-poeple-at-work

What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? What is a bad man but a good man’s job? If you don’t understand this, you will get lost, however intelligent you are. It is the great secret. ~Lao Tzu

I know about difficult people. In fact, I work exclusively with them.

I will never forget the attorney who would literally throw unsatisfactory legal briefs I had written back at me, explode with anger when I made a mistake and regularly told me he was unhappy with my work.

Having worked as an attorney and now in politics, I only deal with people who have strong, demanding and shall we say, difficult personalities.

Well, they seem to be difficult to most but I have been successful in working with and for difficult people. Not because they’re any less difficult to me but because I’ve used the strategies I describe below.

This attorney I used to work for was my ‘guru’ in helping me overcome my apprehension to working with difficult people. He was the most difficult person I’ve ever worked for. I spent countless hours and sleepless nights putting curses on him through a voodoo doll I had purchased in his honor (just kidding boss!)

He was my ‘guru’ because he helped me figure out strategies to work with and survive under the authority of difficult people and today I will  share these useful strategies with you.

1. Hide

Am I really suggesting you keep a low profile from your hard-to-please and hard-to-work-with boss? Yes!

Listen, absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you’re dealing with a difficult personality, stay far away and keep clear whenever you see this person roaming the hallways. Sometimes the less your paths cross, the more successful you’ll be in working with them.

2. They didn’t really mean it like that

There are pleasant, kind and gentle ways of communicating, as well as aggressive, negative and hurting ones. Why does the difficult person always opt for the latter?

There’s a certain kind of language you must understand to interpret the difficult person. You must take out the condescending tone, the sarcastic undertone and the hostility in the way they speak and find the true nature of their sentiments. What are they really trying to say, minus the hostility? Your language interpretation ability must reach a Buddha-like nature.

Try not to personalize or internalize the negativity from the difficult person. It’s not personal as much as you would like to think it is. The difficult person’s personality and behavior is their problem. Not yours.

3. Focus on your own work

To reduce the amount of time and energy you spend on the trying person, focus on your own duties, responsibilities and work. Getting your work done and checking off your daily tasks will allow you to focus minimally on the negative hard-to-please person. By staying focused on the job at hand, you’ll have less reason or time to get tangled with the difficult person.

4. Ask for feedback and improvement

If you’re up for it and reach the divine level of interacting successfully with the difficult person, you’re always welcome to ask them how you can improve or do your work better.

This will encourage the tough-as-nails person you deal with become more of a mentor and soften up a little bit. They’ll start to be kinder in their language and more constructive in their feedback.

5. Do it their way

If the pain in the you-know-what person is a boss or the lead person for the project you’re working on, do this.

Do tasks their way – no questions asked. Don’t try to be clever, creative, or contrary. Just ask them what they want you to do. Or if they tell you, just do what’s being asked of you and they will be ecstatic. You’ll get the job done just as they wished and you’ll be the good soldier who wins points in the long run.

6. Talk about it

These strategies I’m asking you employ are not easy. It requires accessing your inner zen-like nature to counter the nastiness of your boss or colleague.

Create a support system at work and outside of work. Try to blow off steam by talking about how nutty your work situation is. Seek tips on how others would handle similar situations, strategize on how you could handle yourself better and in general, make light of the difficult person. By having a support system to talk about these issues, you’ll be able to vent in a healthy manner and be able to move forward more constructively.

7. Persist

One strategy which I’ve found particularly helpful is trying to outlast the bully or aggressor at work. I’ve tried a variety of ways to stay out of sight, out of their hair and keeping limited interaction with them. I’ve done this in the hopes of outlasting their behavior, their attitude and their dominant personality.

Regularly try to remind yourself, especially when yelled at or attacked that, ‘this too shall pass’.  Think of each unpleasant encounter as a test of your ability to endure unpleasant people and situations and prevail! You can think of endurance of difficult people as building up your muscle for dealing up with even more difficult people in the future. And if you’re able to put up with difficult personalities over a period of time, it actually becomes easier.

You know what else? The difficult person actually starts warming up to you and starts trusting you. You’re one of the few people (maybe only person) they’re able to get along with and tolerate. You could become their confidante, favorite colleague and who knows – even friend!

In the workplace, your ability to tolerate strong and difficult personalities can be proportional to your success at work. The higher up you climb the officer ladder or the corporate ladder, the stronger personalities you’re going to find. The more you find strategies to manage these personalities, the more valuable you’ll be to them and the more success you’ll find in your own career.

Source: http://www.purposefairy.com

 

Valproate Anti-Seizure Products: Drug Safety Communication – Contraindicated for Pregnant Women for Prevention of Migraine Headaches

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Including valproate sodium (Depacon), divalproex sodium (Depakote, Depakote CP, and Depakote ER), valproic acid (Depakene and Stavzor), and their generics

 

 

ISSUE: FDA is advising health care professionals and women that the anti-seizure medication valproate sodium and related products, valproic acid and divalproex sodium, are contraindicated and should not be taken by pregnant women for the prevention of migraine headaches. Based on information from a recent study, there is evidence that these medications can cause decreased IQ scores in children whose mothers took them while pregnant. Stronger warnings about use during pregnancy will be added to the drug labels, and valproate’s pregnancy category for migraine use will be changed from “D” (the potential benefit of the drug in pregnant women may be acceptable despite its potential risks) to “X” (the risk of use in pregnant women clearly outweighs any possible benefit of the drug).

Valproate products will remain in pregnancy category D for treating epilepsy and manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder.

BACKGROUND: Valproate products are approved for the treatment of certain types of epilepsy, the treatment of manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder, and the prevention of migraine headaches. They are also used off-label (for uses not approved by FDA) for other conditions, particularly other psychiatric conditions.

This alert is based on the final results of the Neurodevelopmental Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs (NEAD) study showing that children exposed to valproate products while their mothers were pregnant had decreased IQs at age 6 compared to children exposed to other anti-epileptic drugs. For additional details, see the Drug Safety Communication Data Summary section.

RECOMMENDATION: Valproate products should not be used in pregnant women for prevention of migraine headaches and should be used in pregnant women with epilepsy or bipolar disorder only if other treatments have failed to provide adequate symptom control or are otherwise unacceptable.

Women who are pregnant and taking a valproate medication should not stop their medication but should talk to their health care professionals immediately. Stopping valproate treatment suddenly can cause serious and life-threatening medical problems to the woman or her baby.

Healthcare professionals and patients are encouraged to report adverse events or side effects related to the use of these products to the FDA’s MedWatch Safety Information and Adverse Event Reporting Program.

Source: FDA

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.

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Wishing all my blog readers. blog followers and subscribers a very HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.

 

Raspberry Pi will roll with Android 4.0.

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Broadcom developer Naren Sankar is porting Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) over to the little $35 computer from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and so far the two coexist nicely, though with more work ahead. To demonstrate how far along the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich port has come for the Raspberry Pi platform, Sankar has published a YouTube video that demonstrates all the action. The Foundation credits him with having made “great progress.” (The chip at the heart of the Raspberry Pi is the Broadcom BCM2835.)

Up to now, the device, which functions as a computer with Ethernet, HDMI, and USB ports and SD card slot, has hosted Linux as the choice OS: “We recommend Debian as our default distribution,” according to the FAQ sheet on the Foundation site, along with the recently announced. optimized Debian port called Raspbian. Released in mid-July. Raspbian, specifically optimized for the Pi computer’s hardware specs, was crafted in order to bring faster performance to the device.

While Raspbian is a beef-up, Android 4.0, say Pi fans, could make the device even more of a draw with wider audiences. The original vision of the Raspberry Pi foundation was to see the Pi off as a tool for students to explore the fundamentals of computer science; the Android ICS would appeal to users excited about hooking up their devices to TVs and home networks for Android-run content.

The Android port has support for hardware-accelerated graphics and video playback; work remains, though, to add AudioFlinger. Reports say developers are working on other issues too. The port uses its own customized Linux kernel and not the Linux kernel version maintained by the Pi Foundation. Raspberry Pi ‘s work ahead is to converge the two before publishing the source code.

“This implementation uses a different kernel and VideoCore binary image from the one available on GitHub, which is why we’ve been keeping quiet about it so far,” said a Foundation post. “We’re investigating the feasibility of converging the two code lines to produce a single common platform as soon as we can, at which point we hope to release the sources for you to play with.”

Images and video playback seem adequate, but those watching the demo video of the ICS port in action would no doubt agree with a comment on Ars Technica: Android’s performance and responsiveness on the Raspberry Pi are obviously not as good as they would be on a higher-end device, though it appears to work relatively well.

Watch the video:http://phys.org/news/2012-08-raspberry-pi-android.html#inlRlv

Source: physics.org

Gaining Clarity: Are You a Woman Who Forgot to Dream?

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Are you a woman who doesn’t have a clear vision of what you want your life to be like?

So many women have no idea how to take a dream or desire, set an intention, then craft a plan to accomplish that dream.

Girls are told they can get an education, dream about the future, but as they make that happen; family, religious and societal norms pressure them into service to their jobs, to their families, partners and children. Yes participation in all those areas of life is important, but many times women don’t know how to balance other’s needs with needs of their own. Guilt ensues and your own needs are long forgotten.

It took me a long time to acknowledge that the situation was a crutch so I wouldn’t have to acknowledge that I let go of my dreams and I wasn’t living up to my potential nor meeting my needs.

Women are taught throughout their lives that their dreams aren’t as important as meeting everyone else’s needs and in fact it is selfish to put themselves first. It’s so tragic because when a woman is fulfilled she reaches her true potential and everyone’s needs are exponentially met.

Here are some small steps to start understanding your needs and reigniting your dreams: (Don’t worry we are just trying to bring your needs, dreams and desires to the surface and to the present … baby steps here.)

1. List your excuses

List what you put off because you; don’t have the money, don’t have the time, can’t find someone to watch the kids, etc. Don’t put anything on your list that benefits anyone else, this list is about YOU; your wants, your desires, your dreams. This is about you being selfish. Yes, selfish.

2. Write

Write down some of your old dreams or the dreams that are lingering in your recent memories. These would be the “that would be so nice…” kind of dreams or the “I would love to do that…” kind of dreams. Don’t forget the “I could never do that…” dreams that you toss aside as well.

3. Choose one thing

Just choose one thing that you want to do. Start making some notes on what it will take to reach that goal. For example, we will use “lose 15 pounds” as a quick example. How would you go about doing that?

Keep a food journal, log what you eat and how you feel physically and emotionally afterwards.

Increase your physical activity (not beating yourself up about what you don’t do now).

Learn about different foods; what to minimize and what to include in your diet.

Learn about chemicals and toxins in your environment and how they might be sabotaging your efforts.

Incorporating new habits to manage chronic stress.

Journal every day about the things that emotionally weigh you down.

Keep moving – take breaks in the day to move your body in enjoyable ways.

Break down your larger goal of 15 pounds into smaller increments.

Realize that the 15 pounds isn’t a destination; your focus is on the journey to reach the goal. This keeps you present in the Right Now.

Start building your support network of like-minded cheerleaders.

Give yourself the gift of time. You need to ditch the “I need it done now” mentality.

The point here is to take any dream, desire or task and start breaking it down into actionable steps. You can apply this same formula to increasing your income, starting your dream job, getting off the pharmaceuticals, or ditching a detrimental habit.

4. Brainstorm

Start brainstorming and writing notes about how you are going to make those dreams a reality. The words “no way”, “can’t”, “shouldn’t”, “if” have no place in your journaling.

These are some of the first steps to help you awaken what you have left dormant in your in your heart and life. You don’t need to see the whole staircase, you just need to make that first step up.

Source: http://www.purposefairy.com

 

 

Linux Foundation Training Prepares the International Space Station for Linux Migration.

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It’s hard to get tech support 400 kilometers away from the Earth, which is why Keith Chuvala of United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor deeply involved in Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) operations, decided to migrate to Linux. As leader of the Laptops and Network Integration Teams, Chuvala oversees the developers in charge of writing and integrating software for the Station’s “OpsLAN” – a network of laptops that provide the ISS crew with vital capabilities for day-to-day operations, from telling the astronauts where they are, to inventory control of the equipment used, to interfacing with the cameras that capture photos and videos.

“We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable – one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.” With the transition to Linux looming, Chuvala turned to the Linux Foundation’s Linux training program for help.

Expert training produces seamless Linux migration
With a goal of getting his team up to speed on developing applications in Linux, Chuvala was looking for solid training that would address various skill levels. The Linux Foundation’s training staff arranged two courses geared specifically for the USA/NASA team’s needs: Introduction to Linux for Developers and Developing Applications For Linux. Both training sessions were adapted to provide tailored instruction for the diverse group.

Dominic Duval, the Director of Enterprise Training, was able to leverage the group’s mixed backgrounds, augment their existing knowledge with Linux-specific skills, and prepare them for developing apps related specifically to the needs of the ISS. Chuvala was extremely pleased with the expertise and flexibility Duval provided the team.“Initially, I was worried about some of our real techie guys getting ‘bored,’” said Chuvala. “But that was not the case at all. Likewise, the new people were sufficiently challenged.”

Flexible, distribution-flexible training delivers excellent value
When searching for a Linux training resource, Chuvala performed a trade study and identified a primary goal of securing a training partner who could speak with authority, provide a strong curriculum, and offer flexibility in how to deliver the class. “Linux Foundation had it all, and provided the trainer on-site at our headquarters, which was a huge plus,” remarks Cuvala. “On top of that, the cost was very good, so it was overall a great value.”

Duval also espouses the benefits of Linux Training’s value proposition. “USA/NASA is as heterogeneous as it gets. They had a heavy Debian Linux deployment but also various versions of RHEL/Centos. Because our training is flexible to a variety of distributions, we’re able to address all those different environments in a single training session. No other training organization can provide that.”

Mastering Linux to support laptops and the world’s first “Robonaut”
The dozens of laptops under Chuvala‘s care have extensive development needs—for a very small number of users. “At the ISS, our constellation of users maxes out at six, all with very specific requirements and duties.” To manage all of the astronaut’s needs Chuvala was looking for newer, more robust enterprise support, which was achieved by moving from a Scientific Linux distribution to Debian 6.

Along with the ongoing laptop support, a new challenge for Chuvala’s team is headed to the ISS – Robonaut (R2). Designed to take over some of the astronaut’s responsibilities, R2 will be the first humanoid robot in space. Running on Linux, the robot can be manipulated by onboard astronauts with ground controllers commanding it into position and performing operations. The Linux training from the Linux Foundation will help NASA developers ensure that R2 can be a productive addition to the ISS. Still in the fine-tuning phase, R2 will eventually carry out tasks too dangerous or mundane for astronauts in microgravity.

Not surprisingly, coming from someone whose customers are in outer space, Chuvala believes that one of the greatest lessons learned during training came when Duval presented Linux from a global perspective. “Things really clicked after we came to understand how Linux views the world, the interconnectedness of how one thing affects another. You need that worldview. I have quite a bit of Linux experience, but to see others who were really getting it, that was exciting.”

About LF312 Developing Applications For Linux

Learn how to develop for and port applications to the Linux environment. Get up to speed quickly with the necessary tools for Linux application development and learn about special features offered by Linux. View the complete Developing Applications For Linux course overview.

About LF202 Introduction to Linux

Acquire a practical understanding of how Linux works, quickly get up to speed using the Linux graphical interface and leverage efficiencies by using the command line tools. View the complete Introduction to Linux course overview.

Source: NASA

Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears.

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SUB-CLIMATE-articleLarge

The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.

Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering.

The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea.

“It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading.

Ralph Keeling, who runs another monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said a continuing rise could be catastrophic. “It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were possibly tolerable thresholds,” he said.

Virtually every automobile ride, every plane trip and, in most places, every flip of a light switch adds carbon dioxide to the air, and relatively little money is being spent to find and deploy alternative technologies.

China is now the largest emitter, but Americans have been consuming fossil fuels extensively for far longer, and experts say the United States is more responsible than any other nation for the high level.

The new measurement came from analyzers atop Mauna Loa, the volcano on the big island of Hawaii that has long been ground zero for monitoring the worldwide trend on carbon dioxide, or CO2. Devices there sample clean, crisp air that has blown thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, producing a record of rising carbon dioxide levels that has been closely tracked for half a century.

Carbon dioxide above 400 parts per million was first seen in the Arctic last year, and had also spiked above that level in hourly readings at Mauna Loa.

But the average reading for an entire day surpassed that level at Mauna Loa for the first time in the 24 hours that ended at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday. The two monitoring programs use slightly different protocols; NOAA reported an average for the period of 400.03 parts per million, while Scripps reported 400.08.

Carbon dioxide rises and falls on a seasonal cycle, and the level will dip below 400 this summer as leaf growth in the Northern Hemisphere pulls about 10 billion tons of carbon out of the air. But experts say that will be a brief reprieve — the moment is approaching when no measurement of the ambient air anywhere on earth, in any season, will produce a reading below 400.

“It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster,” said Maureen E. Raymo, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a unit of Columbia University.

From studying air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists know that going back 800,000 years, the carbon dioxide level oscillated in a tight band, from about 180 parts per million in the depths of ice ages to about 280 during the warm periods between. The evidence shows that global temperatures and CO2 levels are tightly linked.

For the entire period of human civilization, roughly 8,000 years, the carbon dioxide level was relatively stable near that upper bound. But the burning of fossil fuels has caused a 41 percent increase in the heat-trapping gas since the Industrial Revolution, a mere geological instant, and scientists say the climate is beginning to react, though they expect far larger changes in the future.

Indirect measurements suggest that the last time the carbon dioxide level was this high was at least three million years ago, during an epoch called the Pliocene. Geological research shows that the climate then was far warmer than today, the world’s ice caps were smaller, and the sea level might have been as much as 60 or 80 feet higher.

Experts fear that humanity may be precipitating a return to such conditions — except this time, billions of people are in harm’s way.

“It takes a long time to melt ice, but we’re doing it,” Dr. Keeling said. “It’s scary.”

Dr. Keeling’s father, Charles David Keeling, began carbon dioxide measurements on Mauna Loa and at other locations in the late 1950s. The elder Dr. Keeling found a level in the air then of about 315 parts per million — meaning that if a person had filled a million quart jars with air, about 315 quart jars of carbon dioxide would have been mixed in.

His analysis revealed a relentless, long-term increase superimposed on the seasonal cycle, a trend that was dubbed the Keeling Curve.

Countries have adopted an official target to limit the damage from global warming, with 450 parts per million seen as the maximum level compatible with that goal. “Unless things slow down, we’ll probably get there in well under 25 years,” Ralph Keeling said.

Yet many countries, including China and the United States, have refused to adopt binding national targets. Scientists say that unless far greater efforts are made soon, the goal of limiting the warming will become impossible without severe economic disruption.

“If you start turning the Titanic long before you hit the iceberg, you can go clear without even spilling a drink of a passenger on deck,” said Richard B. Alley, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “If you wait until you’re really close, spilling a lot of drinks is the best you can hope for.”

Climate-change contrarians, who have little scientific credibility but are politically influential in Washington, point out that carbon dioxide represents only a tiny fraction of the air — as of Thursday’s reading, exactly 0.04 percent. “The CO2 levels in the atmosphere are rather undramatic,” a Republican congressman from California, Dana Rohrabacher, said in a Congressional hearing several years ago.

But climate scientists reject that argument, saying it is like claiming that a tiny bit of arsenic or cobra venom cannot have much effect. Research shows that even at such low levels, carbon dioxide is potent at trapping heat near the surface of the earth.

“If you’re looking to stave off climate perturbations that I don’t believe our culture is ready to adapt to, then significant reductions in CO2 emissions have to occur right away,” said Mark Pagani, a Yale geochemist who studies climates of the past. “I feel like the time to do something was yesterday.”

Source: NY Times

International Space Station making laptop migration from Windows XP to Debian 6.

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The International Space Station has decided to switch dozens of laptops running Windows XP over to Debian. What Linux fans have been saying for years—that Linux delivers greater stability and reliability for public and private computing environments—resonated with Keith Chuvala, the United Space Alliance contractor manager involved in the switch. The change at the International Space Station is all about the replacement of dozens of laptops with XP being switched over to Debian 6. Chuvala said, “We needed an operating system that was stable and reliable – one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.”
Although Linux machines, like Windows, are not malware-proof, the fact that Linux is an open source operating system means that a community overseeing a Linux distribution can issue quick notices and quick patches. Debian’s site claims that mails sent over to the mailing lists get answers in 15 minutes or less and by the people who developed it. They also note that their bug tracking system is open and encourages users to submit their bug reports; users are notified when the bug was closed. “We don’t try to hide the fact that software doesn’t always work the way users want,” according to the Debian site.

An incident in 2008 apparently made space-station personnel more aware than ever of a computer virus‘ ability to disrupt operations in the absence of support from an open source community. That was the year the station computers were infected by the Gammina.AG. Virus after an astronaut brought an infected USB or flash drive into orbit. The virus infected other computers on board.

Chuvala and NASA selected Debian, a system that uses Linux or the FreeBSD kernel. Debian can run on almost all personal computers. Ubuntu, which is a popular Linux-based operating system, said on its site that “Debian is the rock upon which Ubuntu is built.” Debian began in August 1993 by Ian Murdock, as a new distribution to be made openly in the spirit of Linux and GNU.

The ISS adopted Debian 6. The Linux Foundation stepped in to assist with tailored training in the form of two courses, Introduction to Linux for Developers and Developing Applications For Linux. The courses prepared them for developing apps related specifically to the needs of the ISS.

Source: physics.org