Health Facts: Vaccines on the Menu

Wouldn't it be great if instead of receiving painful needle-administered shots, we could be immunized simply by eating an antigen-laced chocolate bar?

Well, we aren't quite there yet, but scientists are making progress in developing genetically modified oral vaccines.

In one case, researchers are currently testing a plant based oral vaccine to protect cattle against a disease called pneumonic pasteurellosis, commonly known as "shipping fever" because cattle experience this stress-induced disease while being shipped from cow/calf operations to feedlots. During this respiratory illness, caused by the bacterium Mannheimia haemolytica, diseased cattle experience decreased appetite, fever and nasal discharge. An injectable vaccine against the disease is available, but it is costly and labor intensive and the injection is so stressful for cattle that it may actually contribute to the problem.

Hoping to develop an oral vaccine, researchers have genetically modified white clover so that the plant expresses one of M. haemolytica's proteind. The idea is that when cattle are fed the genetically altered clover, the bacterial protein will trigger a protective immune response. To date, the vaccine has worked successfully in laboratory animals.

source: Microbiolgy with Diseases by Taxonomy 2nd Edition. Robert W. Bauman Ph. D. Amarillo College

Seeing some lines

Nowadays, whenever I looked at the mirror I tend to see more and more wrinkles on my face. And with so much stress in school I think I am getting more lines. Gone are the days of having wrinkle free face. For those who are in their 30's I am sure that you as well are seeing those lines and for many of us who can't actually afford to have botox, we tend to try many different wrinkle serum in the market just to see what the effects and which one will work for us. Much like if you have an acne, you tend to try different products in order to get the right one for you.

Although, personally I think that even though I have the money, I'm not sure if I will even have somebody inject me with toxins (Botox) in my face. But then again, this is me, not having money as of the moment saying this things. I don't know exactly what will I do if I have the money.

But going back to the wrinkles in my face, I guess I just paid a little more closer attention now after seeing the pictures of my older sisters and my mom as well, they are getting old... which means I am getting old too. It just seems that I've lost 3 years of my life in a blink and never even notice it. The reason I said 3 years is because my daughter is 3 almost 4 because honestly I cannot remember what happen for the last 3 years. It seems like it was yesterday and now I can make a conversation with her.

Anybody who has a tip on how to make my wrinkles go away... I need something green and not toxic to try.

How much do you think I'm burning?

Since the weather has changed a bit... something a little bit warmer me and my husband started a walking routine. This time I told myself that I will stick to this so I will see some result.

We started a walking regime and we usually do it twice a week during his day off. I think its a great way to bond with the family as well because its not just me and my husband but my daughter gets to come as well. She usually rides her stroller while we walked. And since its in the park, she can do some sight seeing... she specially loves seeing the ducks and goose.

Last week I did more than 2 days. Since I been getting really bored at home I decided to do an extra walking. So now my question is, do you think I am burning belly fat doing the walking routine. I'm not really sure if I am burning some belly fat but I can definitely feel some improvement on my breathing, which by the way I badly need. And I don't get feel so tired anymore if I walk a lot, I have more energy and I feel more alive by doing the walk.

The only bad thing about starting this routine is that we also started going to a fastfood chain and eating ice cream. So I guess the calorie and fat that we are sweating off, we are getting it back eating.

Do I want to pursue my computer education degree...

So I have been thinking...do I want to expand further my computer education degree or stay with the line of career that I am pursuing right now? I saw this information about MS in Information Security and I thought its a great program that I might look into. Since I already my bachelors in computer science it will be something in my line.

I'v checked some of the classes to take and one class that really made my curiosity was computer forensic. The description was "A hands-on survey of computer investigation tools used by cyber forensics specialists to trace the activity of intruders."

This program is so profound in a sense that once the student finish the program they will have the managerial tools to safeguard businesses and government agencies from the risks and threats to functionality and data privacy. Students can also choose from two majors: Managerial concentration or Technical concentration.

Lewis University Online offers a lot of information to help students that are interested in this field. They also offer online virtual houses to help those who have questions as well as advisor that you can speak with over the phone if you want somebody to provide you with the information your need.

So I think right now my big question really is what career do I want to pursue? It's really difficult to make decisions.

Intellectual Property Rights Email - Did you received one like this?

The other day when I open my email I got this email about my somebody who wants to register my domain to become their domain. So i replied and told them that I don't know these people that wanted to register my domain. So here's the email:

Dear CEO,

We are the domain name registration organization in Asia, which mainly deal with international company's in Asia. We have something important need to confirm with your company.

On the March 16, 2010, we received a formal application from a company called "kuan International Holdings Ltd" who are applying to register "canofthoughts" as domain name and internet keyword.

After our initial examination, we found that the keyword and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company's keyword and trademark.We don't know whether you have any relation with them. These days we are dealing with it.If you do not know this company, we doubt that they have other purposes to buy these domain names.If they are your business partner or distributor in the asia,we will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. Now we have not finished the registration of "kuan International Holdings Ltd" yet, in order to deal with this issue better.Please contact us by email as soon as possible.

Best Regards,
Rambo.Dong

Sponsoring Registrar: sk holdings company ltd
HongKong Office
Tel:+85295660103 / +85295660489
Fax:+862169950106
Email: rambo.dong@skdmrc.org
Web: www.asia-gov.com / www.sk-dns.org
Address: 3A, Units 20/F, Far East Consortium Bldg., 121 Des Voeux Road, Central, Hong Kong

So I replied with this.

Hello,

"canofthoughts" has been my domain for a couple of years now and I dont have any relation with Kuan International company. It cannot be registered with anybody else as I have the copyright and trademark of this keyword and domain name.

Thanks,

And they reply with this:

Dear,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

We knew you have registered the domain name "canofthoughts.com" and own the trademark "canofthoughts", this is why we informed you. But now “kuan company” do not want to register your trademark or domain name "canofthoughts.com", they wanted to apply for other domain names and keyword you have not registered yet. Because domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So “kuan company” has right to register it. As a domain name registrar, we have no right to dispute their application. So required by Asia government to inform your company to protect your interest. As the owner of "canofthoughts.com", you will get the priority to register these domain names and keywords.

If you think their registration will confuse your clients and harm your profits, we can send an application form to you and help you register these within dispute period. This is the only way to prevent domain name grab. Hope get your decision ASAP, so that we can handle the next step.

Good luck all day

Does it sounds like scam to you? I feel like these people are trying to scam me in submitting something to them so nobody can register my domain. Don't you just hate it when other people are trying to scam you? I don't understand about these people who wants to take advantage of other people. It's like big companies hurting small time business owners.

Did you received any similar email like this? If you do, don't forget to share the email so we can help each other stop these scammers.

Testing for household cleaners

One of the many things that I have been learning with my microbiology is how certain bacteria reacts and how they grow. What's really cool is that we do a lot of experiments and checking the result, finding out if they are positive or negative for certain proteins.

But what I really like it is that now I can make my husband stop using hydrogen peroxide in treating bruises, cuts or burn and instead have him use betadine. I just now learn that hydrogen peroxide is not advisable. I never used it and I always use betadine but my husband won't stop using the other one. So last night I told him what the disadvantage of using hydrogen peroxide. Hopefully, he was convince.

We did experiments on some of hospital disinfectant to find out which one works best as well as household disinfectants.

I think doing all those experiments are really cool and in some way an eye opener to some of the chemicals we use in our house.

Wedding Memories

"I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance,
A church filled with family and friends.
I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for,
He said one that would make me his wife."

"I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life." ~Rita Rudner

Don't you just loved wedding? I love weddings, anything to do about weddings. There were times back home that when I passed by a church and there's a wedding ceremony I usually go inside and watch. The part that I really like is when the bride is walking the isle and the groom was waiting... I love to see the reactions of both. I get teary eyes from time to time. It's just so overwhelming to me.

I didn't have the whole elaborate wedding programs. Me and my husband actually just went to the courthouse and it was just the two of us, the judge and a witness from the courthouse. Heck, we didn't even have any picture or video during the ceremony. I would love to see that moment when my husband was crying while he was trying to put the ring on my finger. And I thought I was emotional...it turns out, its the other way around.

Although, I got teary eyed a little bit. The only reason was because he was crying and it made me cried that he was crying. Now that I remember about it, I thought its actually cute.

I still wish that one day we can have the elaborate wedding program. It's a one time deal for me so I really want to have one. I love the idea of a black and white wedding. :)

Hunting for one.

For a while now, we have been enjoying the new flat screen television in our living room. Used to, we have this old television that we bought from a garage sale for $10.00. Yup! You read it right, $10.00. It was a steal... it's totally working. The only issue was that the VHS player on it doesn't work and it didn't have a remote. Well, the remote problem is not really a big issue because we can fix that. The VHS part, we don't really use it.

So we had that for a while and our big TV was on the media room. So whenever we want to watch different shows, one can use the TV in the living room and the other one on the media room. But, we decided its time to move on and so we bought a bigger one. So now, the TV in the media room is sort of just a display now. We hardly ever used it since most of the time we are in the living room. And since we move the DVD player in the living room, I think the only time that we use the other TV is when my daughter wants to watch her show and we want to watch grown up shows as well.

I'm not complaining though, I think its great that we have upgraded. I was actually thinking of moving the old TV inside our bedroom so we can still watch in the bedroom. But my husband has to run the wiring to the bedroom so we can watch there too.

My problem right now is the TV stand that we are using in the living room looks a little bit out of place with the new TV. Now, I've added another item on my list that needs to be taken care of. I am on a hunt for an entertainment centers that will fit in our living room without taking up a lot of space. So I was thinking that maybe we can just get a TV stand instead of the whole entertainment center. Not to big but not to small either. I found this picture online and I think the size will fit perfectly but I have to do some shopping around in order to find the right price.

Crossing my finger. Hopefully I will find one.

Information on Social Security Disability

I been seeing a lot of commercials about people being turn down for social security benefits as well as social security disability. I don't really know the deal about that, but personally if you have paid your dues when for social security when you were working and now that you need it, I think its unfair that these people are being turn down.

Good to know that there are some entities now that can help people who are being turn down do the appeal in order to get the benefit that they deserved. This is a benefit that people deserved. Most of the places that offer assistance usually don't get paid unless you get the benefit, just like the attorneys that don't get paid unless you win your case. So what happen is they work really hard in your behalf to make sure that you get the well deserved benefit.

So just an advice, if you or someone you know has been turn down for social security disability benefit, you need to take care and let them know that there are help out there.

Custom Corrugated Shipping Boxes

When we started an online store a couple of years ago, I keep wondering how we can further brand and promote our business. Since we ship our products, I was thinking that maybe it will be a good idea to have a custom shipping box, not only that it will look professional to our customers but we can also advertise that way.

However, due to limited resources we have to close that business so we never did tried the customized shipping box. But now, I was actually thinking of maybe starting another business. I've always wanted to have a store since when we were kids we have a small grocery store and even until now my mother and sister have this small grocery store that they manage. But I am not looking at starting a grocery store... I don't think that will really thrive since there are these big companies that can put the small business out of business. I am thinking more in terms of maybe accessories or anything to do with the house.

I found a website that do custom printed boxes and I think it will really work. The prices of the box are affordable so even if you are just starting, it will be something worth trying out.

Who knows about the future?

Have you had any major surgery?

When I was younger, I keep telling my sisters (older) that I am not going to have any scar in my body from any surgery. That time my oldest sister had a cyst remove and the second one had a surgery to remove her appendix and the third one had also undergone a surgery to have a cyst remove. So I was telling myself that I was lucky enough (actually more of like safe enough not to have any) because I didn't have any surgery. However, since we are not really sure of what's going to happen in the future, I end up having a surgery to have a cyst remove from my wrist and of course major one from having a baby. So now all of us actually undergone c-sections and another surgery.

I just now thought about it and that you can't really tell what will happen in the future. Who knows I might end up going to Mexico and accidentally encounter some accidents and end up surgery. I've read that spine surgery Mexico is quite known over there. This is just some hypothetical situations but like I said, I don't know the future.

I was just reading my nutrition book tonight and after reading the chapter, it occur to me that I might not be getting enough Rivoflavin in my diet. My throat has been really scratchy lately and soreness and irritation of the eyes...but it might just be strep problem and I just need to sleep early and cut off from watching television.

Oh, well to much stuff and just stressful times.

The Many Places

One of the many places that I wanted to check out is the Ozark Mountains in Branson, Missouri. I've read on one website that they have some nice tourist spot geared for the family. Nowadays whenever we plan for anything it has to be something family friendly...for moms like me you all know about that. We always to take into consideration that we have children, for my part.. child.

I don't have any complains though. I love being a mom. Though there are times that it gets really exhausting and sometimes you just want to get away for a while, but after a while of being away from my child, you will totally miss them and you would want to hug them to pieces.

But I think that Branson vacation will definitely be on our list for vacations. I need to get away... change of scenery. It's good for the soul. The farther the place the better. The more serene and one with the nature the better. I miss the lakes and seeing the ocean and the mountains.