Motivation and Study, Not IQ, Are Keys to Kids' Math Success

Now that the school holidays are over, its time for students and parents to prepare for the new school year. This article is good for students especially those interested in improving on their grade in Mathematics. 
 A new study suggests that with motivation and good teaching strategies, even those who are convinced they'll never be facile with figures can succeed in mathematics.
Innate intelligence — as defined by IQ tests — may provide a head start, but it's learning skills and determination that ultimately add up to success, according to the new research.
"The critical determinant of growth in achievement is not how smart you are, but how motivated you are and how you study," said lead study author Kou Murayama, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Intrinsic motivation promotes long-term growth in math achievement."
Math can throw some students off since it is based on symbols and rules that can be hard to conceptualize, Murayama said. "Learning strategies are different in math than they are in other subjects," he said. "Math is a totally different language from what students experience in daily life."
The research, published Dec. 20 in the journal Child Development, is based on six years of data from a long-term German study that assessed math ability in about 3,500 students in grades five to 10. At each grade level, students took a math achievement test near the end of the school year.
Student intelligence and self-reported motivation and learning strategies also were assessed.
The study authors looked at whether student motivation, study skills and intelligence could predict improvement in the mathematical success over time. Intelligence was only correlated with math achievement in the early years. Over time, what mattered most was motivation and study skills.
"Student ability in math involves factors that education can nurture," Murayama said. "Finding ways to motivate students and teaching them study skills may be a critical way to help them progress in math and other subjects."
For many students, the culture in which they're learning makes a big difference, said Paul Goldenberg, distinguished scholar at the Education Development Center, in Waltham, Mass.
"In Romania, the curriculum is pretty dull and there are stereotyped teaching methods, but the kids are committed to learning math because they perceive it as a really useful way to get a good job or be able to leave the country," Goldenberg said. "The whole culture believes it's possible. But in the U.S. we believe not everyone has a mathematical mind."
Goldenberg said it's important to develop a sense of ability in a child early on, especially when it comes to mathematics. "By the time you're in high school, the math ideas are built on earlier concepts and become really complex," he said. "Once you get to 'x + 3 = y,' all of a sudden the notations stand for a whole bunch of numbers."
What's the best way to motivate a child? "Try to help students make connections between what they're learning and what they'll need in the future," Murayama suggested.
http://www.everydayhealth.com/

Surprising Signs You are an Entrepreneur

Some people say that entrepreneurs are born while others believe entrepreneurs are self made. This notwithstanding, some traits have been proven to be common among most of the entrepreneurs.

So, don't believe everything others say about you or how they label you. Maybe your supposed liabilities are really your assets. The following twelve signs many people might consider a liability, but which can actually be indications that you are meant to be an entrepreneur.

1. Hate the Status Quo
 It doesn't make sense to you that something has been done the time-honoured way with no explanation why. You are not someone who wants to just go through the motions or sit by idly. Nor do you like following the pack.

2. Easily Bored
You find yourself easily bored, and others start viewing you as a problem. But nothing is wrong with you except that you are bored with activities that aren't up to your abilities and aren't challenging. That's why you hated most of the classes you ever attended. Think Bill Gates who dropped out of college to become one of the richest men in the world.

3. Fired from Jobs
You're too creative for your own good when it comes to working for others, and you may have some history, as I do, of losing jobs. Being just a cog in wheel is very difficult for you because you want to create something others can be inspired by and contribute to.

4. Labeled a Rebel
You know that greatness resides outside the lines of conformity and don't think that policies, laws and regulations apply to you. You have been described as a rebel and rule breaker and would defy gravity if you could.

5. Resist Authority
You have a lifelong record of resisting authority from your parents, teachers and bosses. You don't go along with the agreed upon norms of the group or community you work and live in.

6. Ready to Improve Everything
You always see how you could do things better. In addition, you are opinionated and freely give your two-cents about your better way of doing things--even when you're not asked.

7. Bad at Making Small Talk 
You have difficulty making the kind of small talk that so many people get comfort from. This social pattern of relationship and rapport building seems like a waste of time to you and makes you uncomfortable.

8. Bullied in Your Youth
You may have been heavily criticized, picked on and even bullied as a child or teenager. This has caused you to be driven to excel and to prove to the world that you are indeed a force to be reckoned with.

9. Obsessive
You may have been labeled obsessive/compulsive because when you get started on something you have difficulty letting go. Don't let anyone convince you that this is a disease or deficiency. All of the great entrepreneurs become completely immersed in their vision. Howard Schultz stuck with Starbucks even when his family tried to persuade him not to.

10. Scared to Go Solo
The entrepreneur in you is scared of going out on your own—and also terrified of not doing so. This fear is so common in our society because we've been conditioned to think that entrepreneurship is much riskier than getting a "good job." The reality is there is instability in both.

11. Unable to Unwind
You can't go to sleep at night because you can't turn your thoughts off. An idea may even manifest itself in your dreams. The next morning you find yourself still consumed with that idea, distracting you from the job you're supposed to be doing.

12. Don't Fit the Norm 
You have always been a bit uncomfortable in your own skin. Until you get used to the idea that you are in fact different from most people, it could prove to be a problem--or exactly the motivation you need to acknowledge the entrepreneur screaming to get out
. . .  . So go out and set free your entrepreneurial spirit!

Born With Two Vaginas: Not So Rare

By Susan Donaldson James

Jan 12, 2012 12:10pm

 

Hazel Jones, 27, was born with double vaginas, cervixes and uteruses.

When British television aired a story about a woman who had been born with double the equipment – two vaginas, two cervixes and two uteruses – Internet commenters piped in and said, “Me, too!”

Hazel Jones, a 27-year-old from High Wycombe, has a rare, but not unheard of condition called uterus didelphys, which is not easily diagnosed until a woman’s sex organs develop as she enters puberty.
“It’s not that crazy at all, even though it sounds like a sci-fi thing,” said Vincenzo Berghella, director of maternal fetal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “We see many couples, maybe one a month or more.”
Jones, who got her diagnosis at 18 after suffering for years from menstrual cramps, shared her story this week with ITV’s show “This Morning.” 
Adapted from:
 http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/01/12/born-with-two-vaginas-not-so-rare/ 
Follow this link for full story

Bibi Can't Lose - By Natan B. Sachs | Foreign Policy

 It's one of Washington's worst kept secrets: President Barack Obama's administration would prefer Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lose the Israeli elections in January 2013. Netanyahu is not only too hawkish on the Palestinian issue and Iran for the White House's comfort, he has the added burden of a fraught personal relationship with Obama -- cemented by his perceived public endorsement of Mitt Romney in the U.S. presidential election.

Bibi Can't Lose - By Natan B. Sachs | Foreign Policy

Gene That Predicts the Time of Death Discovered

A common gene variant separates early birds from night owls, and can even predict someone’s hour of death.

The findings—published in the November issue of the journal Annals of Neurology—could help people schedule anything from work to medical treatments, while offering clues to the conditions of vulnerable patients.

Andrew Lim, M.D., now an assistant professor in the division of neurology at the University of Toronto, noted in a statement that previous work in twins and families had suggested that people may inherit the lateness or earliness of their body clocks, while animal experiments suggested that specific genes affected the lateness or earliness of the biological clock.

Dr. Lim—then a postdoctoral fellow working in the lab of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Chief of Neurology Clifford Saper, M.D., Ph.D.—and lab colleagues were studying why older people have trouble sleeping. He joined a research project based at Rush University in Chicago involving 1,200 people who signed on as healthy 65-year-olds and would receive annual neurological and psychiatric examinations.

The study’s original goal was to identify any precursors to the development of Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease. Subjects were undergoing sleep-wake analyses, and had agreed to donate their brains after they died to provide scientists with information on sleep-wake patterns within a year of death.

But when Dr. Lim learned that the same subjects had also had their DNA genotyped, he joined his colleagues and investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in comparing the sleep-wake behavior of the patients with their genotypes.

The study findings—later verified in a volunteer group—uncovered a single nucleotide near a gene called “Period 1” that varied between two groups that differed in their wake-sleep behavior. At this site in the genome, 60% of individuals have the nucleotide base termed adenine (A) while the other 40% have the nucleotide base termed guanine (G). Since people have two sets of chromosomes, in any given individual there’s about a 36% chance of having two As, a 16% chance of having two Gs, and a 48% chance of having a mixture of A and G.

“People who have the A-A genotype wake up about an hour earlier than the people who have the G-G genotype, and the A-Gs wake up almost exactly in the middle,” Dr. Saper, who is also the James Jackson Putnam Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, said in the statement. He added that expression of the Period 1 gene was lower in the brains and white blood cells of people with the G-G genotype than in people with the A-A, but only in the daytime when the gene is normally expressed.

When investigators re-examined patients who died, they found that this same genotype predicted six hours of the variation in the time of death: those with the A-A or A-G genotype died just before 11 a.m., the average time, while those with the G-G on average died at just before 6 p.m.

Dr. Lim said future studies will look to determine the mechanisms by which this and other gene variants influence the body’s biological clock. The research, he said, could help people optimize their schedules, and yield new therapies against disturbances of this clock such as jet lag or shift work.

The study was supported by grants from NIH as well the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Bisby Fellowship, an American Academy of Neurology Clinical Research Training Fellowship, and a Dana Foundation Clinical Neuroscience Grant. Adapted from: http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/b-gene-b-b-predicts-b-b-time-b-of-b-death-b/81247651/

Antibodies in cows’ milk protect against HIV

New research from the University of Melbourne could hold the key to developing a cream that can prevent HIV infection. And the secret ingredient is cow’s milk.
Cows cannot contract HIV – the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. But like humans infected with the common cold, their immune systems develop antibodies against the foreign protein. Using this knowledge, Dr. Marit Kramski and her colleagues from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, together with Australian biotechnology company Immuron, have developed cows’ milk containing antibodies that protect human cells from the HIV.
The team did this by vaccinating pregnant cows with an HIV protein and then studying the first milk produced by the cows after giving birth. The first milk, called colustrum, is an ideal choice as it is naturally packed with antibodies to protect the calf from infections. The researchers found that the vaccinated cows produced milk containing HIV antibodies.
The research team then harvested antibodies specific to the HIV surface protein from the milk. Laboratory experiments show that the antibodies bind to HIV and inhibits the virus from entering and infecting human cells. The study’s results were published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in a paper titled “Hyperimmune Bovine Colostrum as a Low-Cost, Large-Scale Source of Antibodies with Broad Neutralizing Activity for HIV-1 Envelope with Potential Use in Microbicides”.
Producing HIV antibodies in cows’ milk to inhibit HIV is cheaper and easier than existing drug-based methods. Up to a kilogram of antibodies can be produced by a single cow. Dr. Kramski hopes to formulate an affordable cream or gel that can be used to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV. Adapted from:http://sciencematters.unimelb.edu.au

Best Management Lesson: Transformation of General Motors Plant in Fremort by Toyota

Fix the machine, not the person

This post is part seven of the series Raw Nerve.
The General Motors plant in Fremont was a disaster. “Everything was a fight,” the head of the union admits. “They spent more time on grievances and on things like that than they did on producing cars. They had strikes all the time. It was just chaos constantly. … It was considered the worst workforce in the automobile industry in the United States.”
“One of the expressions was, you can buy anything you want in the GM plant in Fremont,” adds Jeffrey Liker, a professor who studied the plant. “If you want sex, if you want drugs, if you want alcohol, it’s there. During breaks, during lunch time, if you want to gamble illegally—any illegal activity was available for the asking within that plant.” Absenteeism was so bad that some mornings they didn’t have enough employees to start the assembly line; they had to go across the street and drag people out of the bar.
When management tried to punish workers, workers tried to punish them right back: scratching cars, loosening parts in hard-to-reach places, filing union grievances, sometimes even building cars unsafely. It was war.
In 1982, GM finally closed the plant. But the very next year, when Toyota was planning to start its first plant in the US, it decided to partner with GM to reopen it, hiring back the same old disastrous workers into the very same jobs. And so began the most fascinating experiment in management history.
Toyota flew this rowdy crew to Japan, to see an entirely different way of working: The Toyota Way. At Toyota, labor and management considered themselves on the same team; when workers got stuck, managers didn’t yell at them, but asked how they could help and solicited suggestions. It was a revelation. “You had union workers—grizzled old folks that had worked on the plant floor for 30 years, and they were hugging their Japanese counterparts, just absolutely in tears,” recalls their Toyota trainer. “And it might sound flowery to say 25 years later, but they had had such a powerful emotional experience of learning a new way of working, a way that people could actually work together collaboratively—as a team.”
Three months after they got back to the US and reopened the plant, everything had changed. Grievances and absenteeism fell away and workers started saying they actually enjoyed coming to work. The Fremont factory, once one of the worst in the US, had skyrocketed to become the best. The cars they made got near-perfect quality ratings. And the cost to make them had plummeted. It wasn’t the workers who were the problem; it was the system.¹

---

An organization is not just a pile of people, it’s also a set of structures. It’s almost like a machine made of men and women. Think of an assembly line. If you just took a bunch of people and threw them in a warehouse with a bunch of car parts and a manual, it’d probably be a disaster. Instead, a careful structure has been built: car parts roll down on a conveyor belt, each worker does one step of the process, everything is carefully designed and routinized. Order out of chaos.
And when the system isn’t working, it doesn’t make sense to just yell at the people in it — any more than you’d try to fix a machine by yelling at the gears. True, sometimes you have the wrong gears and need to replace them, but more often you’re just using them in the wrong way. When there’s a problem, you shouldn’t get angry with the gears — you should fix the machine.
If you have goals in life, you’re probably going to need some sort of organization. Even if it’s an organization of just you, it’s still helpful to think of it as a kind of machine. You don’t need to do every part of the process yourself — you just need to set up the machine so that the right outcomes happen.
For example, let’s say you want to build a treehouse in the backyard. You’re great at sawing and hammering, but architecture is not your forte. You build and build, but the treehouses keep falling down. Sure, you can try to get better at architecture, develop a better design, but you can also step back, look at the machine as a whole, and decide to fire yourself as the architect. Instead, you find a friend who loves that sort of thing to design the treehouse for you and you stick to actually building it. After all, your goal was to build a treehouse whose design you like — does it really matter whether you’re the one who actually designed it?²
Or let’s say you really want to get in shape, but never remember to exercise. You can keep beating yourself up for your forgetfulness, or you can put a system in place. Maybe you have your roommate check to see that you exercise before you leave your house in the morning or you set a regular time to consistently go to the gym together. Life isn’t a high school exam; you don’t have to solve your problems on your own.

---

In 1967, Edward Jones and Victor Harris gathered a group of college students and asked them to judge another student’s exam (the student was a fictional character, but let’s call him Jim). The exam always had one question, asking Jim to write an essay on Fidel Castro “as if [he] were giving the opening statement in a debate.” But what sort of essay Jim was supposed to write varied: some of them required Jim to write a defense of Castro, others required Jim to write a critique of Castro, the rest left the choice up to Jim. The kids in the experiment were asked to read Jim’s essay and then were asked whether they thought Jim himself was pro- or anti-Castro.
Jones and Harris weren’t expecting any shocking results here; their goal was just to show the obvious: that people would conclude Jim was pro-Castro when he voluntarily chose write to a pro-Castro essay, but not when he was forced to by the teacher. But what they found surprised them: even when the students could easily see the question required Jim to write a pro-Castro essay, they still rated Jim as significantly more pro-Castro. It seemed hard to believe. “Perhaps some of the subjects were inattentive and did not clearly understand the context,” they suspected.
So they tried again. This time they explained the essay was written for a debate tournament, where the student had been randomly assigned to either the for or against side of the debate. They wrote it in big letters on the blackboard, just to make this perfectly clear. But again they got the same results — even more clearly this time. They still couldn’t believe it. Maybe, they figured, students thought Jim’s arguments were so compelling he must really believe them to be able to come up with them.
So they tried a third time — this time recording Jim on tape along with the experimenter giving him the arguments to use. Surely no one would think Jim came up with them on his own now. Again, the same striking results: students were persuaded Jim believed the arguments he said, even when they knew he had no choice in making them.³
This was an extreme case, but we make the same mistake all the time. We see a sloppily-parked car and we think “what a terrible driver,” not “he must have been in a real hurry.” Someone keeps bumping into you at a concert and you think “what a jerk,” not “poor guy, people must keep bumping into him.” A policeman beats up a protestor and we think “what an awful person,” not “what terrible training.” The mistake is so common that in 1977 Lee Ross decided to name it the “fundamental attribution error”: we attribute people’s behavior to their personality, not their situation.⁴

---

Our natural reaction when someone screws up is to get mad at them. This is what happened at the old GM plant: workers would make a mistake and management would yell and scream. If asked to explain the yelling, they’d probably say that since people don’t like getting yelled at, it’d teach them be more careful next time.
But this explanation doesn’t really add up. Do you think the workers liked screwing up? Do you think they enjoyed making crappy cars? Well, we don’t have to speculate: we know the very same workers, when given the chance to do good work, took pride in it and started actually enjoying their jobs.
They’re just like you, when you’re trying to exercise but failing. Would it have helped to have your friend just yell and scream at you for being such a lazy loser? Probably not — it probably would have just made you feel worse. What worked wasn’t yelling, but changing the system around you so that it was easier to do what you already wanted to do.
The same is true for other people. Chances are, they don’t want to annoy you, they don’t like screwing up. So what’s going to work isn’t yelling at them, but figuring out how to change the situation. Sometimes that means changing how you behave. Sometimes that means bringing another person into the mix. And sometimes it just means simple stuff, like changing the way things are laid out or putting up reminders.
At the old GM plant, in Fremont, workers were constantly screwing things up: “cars with engines put in backwards, cars without steering wheels or brakes. Some were so messed up they wouldn’t start, and had to be towed off the line.” Management would yell at the workers, but what could you do? Things were moving so fast. “A car a minute don’t seem like it’s moving that fast,” noted one worker, “but when you don’t get it, you’re in the hole. There’s nobody to pull you out at General Motors, so you’re going to let something go.”
At the Toyota plant, they didn’t just let things go. There was a red cord running above the assembly line, known as an andon cord, and if you ever found yourself in the hole, all you had to do was pull it, and the whole line would stop. Management would come over and ask you how they could help, if there was a way they could fix the problem. And they’d actually listen — and do it!
You saw the results all over the factory: mats and cushions for the workers to kneel on; hanging shelves traveling along with the cars, carrying parts; special tools invented specifically to solve problems the workers had identified. Those little things added up to make a big difference.
When you’re upset with someone, all you want to do is change the way they’re acting. But you can’t control what’s inside a person’s head. Yelling at them isn’t going to make them come around, it’s just going to make them more defiant, like the GM workers who keyed the cars they made.
No, you can’t force other people to change. You can, however, change just about everything else. And usually, that’s enough. 
For more such articles, visit http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/

Kenya's Massive Gas Find at Mbawa Deep-Water Exploration Well, By Australian Firm Pancontinental

Pancontinental Oil & Gas has discovered massive gas deposits at Kenya’s Mbawa prospect well in the Kenyan coast, the Australian joint venture partner has confirmed.

This is the first gas discovery offshore Kenya
The Mbawa-1 well operated by Apache hit 52 net metres of gas pay in the primary Cretaceous sandstone target, the company announced.
Pancontinental Oil & Gas with its strategic partners will drill the well to a planned depth of 3275 metres.
Pancontinental owns 15% of Block L8 in Kenya, and its joint venture partners are operator Apache (50%), Origin Energy (20%) and Tullow Oil (15%).
Apache has been operating the well with drillship Deepsea Metro 1 in a water depth of 860 metres.
Apache which is involved in the primary spudding says there is a secondary target reservoir along the way, meaning a new disovery could be made soon.
Pancontinental chief executive Barry Rushworth said Mbawa is “the first ever substantive hydrocarbon discovery offshore Kenya. We are delighted to prove that there is a working hydrocarbon system offshore Kenya.
“With drilling continuing to a deeper exploration target, these interim results may be the first part of the story in this well, and they are certainly just the beginning of the main story of oil and gas exploration offshore Kenya,” he said
The firms halted trading of their shares in the stock markets so that they could make the announcement.| FOR MORE CLICK: Energy Intelligence

100 orgasms a day: One woman's agonizing and rare medical disorder

A 44-year-old New Jersey woman says that even a slight speed bump can trigger a climax, which makes riding in cars or trains an embarrassing, painful affair

posted on August 29, 2012, at 2:31 PM

Orgasms aren't always welcome, especially when they can be triggered by a gesture as innocent as a pat on the back. Photo: Courtesy Shutterstock

If the idea of an endless stream of orgasms sounds blissful, think again. A New Jersey woman, who climaxes around a 100 times a day, thanks to a rare medical condition, says that even the slightest jostle can trigger an orgasm, effectively making her life a living hell. Here, a concise guide to her bewildering case: http://theweek.com/article/index/232562/100-orgasms-a-day-one-womans-agonizing-and-rare-medical-disorder

KCSE Mock Examinations

We have a big collection of  K.C.S.E. mock examinations that are set by a panel of experienced examiners with Kenya National Examinations Council. Click here to access the download page at:

http://merumoran.wordpress.com/category/kcse-mock-examinations/

Genomics, Evolution, and Pseudoscience: A breakthrough cure for Ebola

Genomics, Evolution, and Pseudoscience: A breakthrough cure for Ebola: Ebola is one of the nastiest, most frightening viruses known to man. Its victims suffer fevers, muscle weakness, and other symptoms that pr...

Hillman Wonders of the World

Hillman Wonders of the World

Man stuck inside a woman in Mpango wa Kando(video)

Funny facts lol. . .Did you know?!

• Buttermilk does not contain any butter

•  Ants never sleep

• The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law that stated you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb

• Church of England has apologized to Charles Darwin 200 years after his birth 

• Chewing gum while peeling onions will reduce your tears

• Dalmatians are born without spots

• Men shirts have the buttons on the right while women shirts have the buttons on the left

• Roosters have to extend their necks in order to crow

• Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room

• If you are right handed, you will tend to chew food on your right side.

• If you are left handed, you likely to chew food on your left side

• The bedroom is the most common place for sex and the car is second

• Humans and Bonobo monkeys (pygmy chimpanzee) are the only species who have face-to-face sex

• A snail can slide over a razor blade without being hurt by producing slime that helps it slide harmlessly

• Worldwide, there are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day

• Women blink nearly twice as much as men

• The human heart beats over 100,000 times a day

• Human fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails

• Studies have proven that it is harder to tell a convincing lie to someone you find sexually attractive

• Onions have no flavor, only a smell

• Red wine will spoil if exposed to light; hence tinted bottles

• The eyes of the chameleon can move independently. It can see in two different directions         

• The world record for time without sleep is 264 hours ( 11 days) by Randy Gardner in 1965

• Cold showers stimulate your sex drive

• Among older men, vanilla is the most erotic smell 

• A kilogram of potato chips costs 200 times more than a kilogram of raw potatoes 

•  After reading this you'll realize that the the brain does' nt notice a second "the"!!

No Sex Required: Women Have Orgasms at the Gym

 Women may not need a guy, a vibrator, or any other direct sexual stimulation to have an orgasm, finds a new study on exercise-induced orgasms and sexual pleasure.
The findings add qualitative and quantitative data to a field that has been largely unstudied, according to researcher Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University.
"Despite attention in the popular media, little is known scientifically about exercise-induced orgasms," the researchers write in a special issue of the journal Sexual and Relationship Therapy released in print this month.

Of the women who had orgasms during exercise, about 45 percent said their first experience was linked to abdominal exercises; 19 percent linked to biking/spinning; 9.3 percent linked to climbing poles or ropes; 7 percent reported a connection with weight lifting; 7 percent running;  the rest of the experiences included various exercises, such as yoga, swimming, elliptical machines, aerobics and others. Exercise-induced sexual pleasure was linked with more types of exercises than the orgasm phenomenon..  .  . .

Read the whole report of the researcher by clicking this link:
No Sex Required: Women Have Orgasms at the Gym

KCSE 2011 RESULTS GUIDE

  CLICK here:      http://www.knec.ac.ke. 
  Then ENTER you Index Number in the box that appears.OR
 

 Send your Index Number to 5052 to get 2011 KCSE Results via SMS OR

Just visit your school and get the result from the school head the traditional way

Scientifically Proven Facts That You are in Love

Valentine's Day is approaching. You have a Valentine…but are you really in love with him or her? With your head spinning from all the heart-shape chocolates and red roses, it can be tough to figure out. Fortunately, scientists have pinned down exactly what it means to "fall in love."

Researchers have found that an in-love brain looks very different from one experiencing mere lust, and it's also unlike a brain of someone in a long-term, committed relationship. Studies led by Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University and one of the leading experts on the biological basis of love, have revealed that the brain's "in love" phase is a unique and well-defined period of time, and there are 13 telltale signs that you're in it.

1. This one's special

When you're in love, you begin to think your beloved is unique. The belief is coupled with an inability to feel romantic passion for anyone else. Fisher and her colleagues believe this single-mindedness results from elevated levels of central dopamine — a chemical involved in attention and focus — in your brain.

2. She's perfect

People who are truly in love tend to focus on the positive qualities of their beloved, while overlooking his or her negative traits. They also focus on trivial events and objects that remind them of their loved one, day-dreaming about these precious little moments and mementos. This focused attention is also thought to result from elevated levels of central dopamine, as well as a spike in central norepinephrine, a chemical associated with increased memory in the presence of new stimuli.

3. I'm a wreck!

As is well known, falling in love often leads to emotional and physiological instability. You bounce between exhilaration, euphoria, increased energy, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, trembling, a racing heart and accelerated breathing, as well as anxiety, panic and feelings of despair when your relationship suffers even the smallest setback. These mood swings parallel the behavior of drug addicts. And indeed, when in-love people are shown pictures of their loved ones, it fires up the same regions of the brain that activate when a drug addict takes a hit. Being in love, researchers say, is a form of addiction.

4. Overcoming the challenge made us closer

Going through some sort of adversity with another person tends to intensify romantic attraction. Central dopamine may be responsible for this reaction, too, because research shows that when a reward is delayed, dopamine-producing neurons in the mid-brain region become more productive.

5. I'm obsessed with him

People who are in love report that they spend, on average, more than 85 percent of their waking hours musing over their "love object." Intrusive thinking, as this form of obsessive behavior is called, may result from decreased levels of central serotonin in the brain, a condition that has been associated with obsessive behavior previously. (Obsessive-compulsive disorder is treated with serotonin-reuptake inhibitors.)

6. I wish we could be together all the time

People in love regularly exhibit signs of emotional dependency on their relationship, including possessiveness, jealousy, fear of rejection, and separation anxiety.

7. I hope we stay together forever

They also long for emotional union with their beloved, seeking out ways to get closer and day-dreaming about their future together.

8. I'd do anything for her

People who are in love generally feel a powerful sense of empathy toward their beloved, feeling the other person's pain as their own and being willing to sacrifice anything for the other person.

9. Would he like this outfit?

Falling in love is marked by a tendency to reorder your daily priorities and/or change your clothing, mannerisms, habits or values in order for them to better align with those of your beloved.

10. Can we be exclusive?

Those who are deeply in love typically experience sexual desire for their beloved, but there are strong emotional strings attached: The longing for sex is coupled with possessiveness, a desire for sexual exclusivity, and extreme jealousy when the partner is suspected of infidelity. This possessiveness is thought to have evolved so that an in-love person will compel his or her partner to spurn other suitors, thereby insuring that the couple's courtship is not interrupted until conception has occurred.

11. It's not about sex

While the desire for sexual union is important to people in love, the craving for emotional union takes precedence.  A study found that 64 percent of people in love (the same percentage for both sexes) disagreed with the statement, “Sex is the most important part of my relationship with [my partner]."

12. I feel out of control

Fisher and her colleagues found that individuals who report being "in love" commonly say their passion is involuntary and uncontrollable.

13. The spark is gone

Unfortunately, being in love usually doesn't last forever. It's an impermanent state that either evolves into a long-term, codependent relationship that psychologists call "attachment," or it dissipates, and the relationship dissolves. If there are physical or social barriers inhibiting partners from seeing one another regularly — for example, if the relationship is long-distance — then the "in love" phase generally lasts longer than it would otherwise.

Sexual satisfaction in women increases with age

Sexual satisfaction in women increases with age

10 interesting facts about gender psychology

1. Men change their minds two to three times more often than women. Most women take longer to make a decision than men do, but once they make a decision they are more likely to stick to it.

2. Based on the total number of people tested since IQ tests were devised, women have a slightly higher average IQ than men

3. Women are better than men at remembering faces, especially of females.

4. Men are more likely to help than women!

5. Women are more pessimistic when predicting their work results.

6. Most women tend to believe that they are only good at certain tasks, but not capable of being good at everything.

7. Women are more fearful and anxious than men.

8. Women are twice more talkative than men! It has been estimated that on average, men speak 12,500 words and women speak about 25,500 words in a day.

9. Men, on average, think about sex every 7 seconds.

10. The female brain is much more adept at reading subtle facial and verbal emotional expressions.  Some woman say that only when men see actual tears they realize that something is wrong. This is why women have to cry four times more than men do, to signal distress.

Radiation from Wireless Internet Connections Might Damage Sperm Cells

A computer with a wireless Internet connection hurts sperm, but not because the machine can heat up your lap, a new study suggests.

The findings showed that sperm cells collected in lab dishes and placed beneath a laptop with a wireless Internet connection for four hours had less motility and more DNA damage than sperm placed in another room, away from electronic devices but kept at the same temperature.

"It is well-known that increased temperature may decrease sperm quality, and the use of portable computers on the lap increases scrotal temperature," the researchers wrote in their study. 

But the findings suggested it wasn't the temperature beneath the laptop that was affecting sperm; instead, the radiation from the laptop was slowing the swimmers, according to the study.  

Laptops emit radiation

The researchers in Argentina and Virginia used semen samples from 29 healthy men, whose average age was 34. The laptop was set to download and upload information over the course of the experiment, so the wireless connection was actively being used. The temperature under the laptop was held constant at 25 degrees Celsius by an air-conditioning system.  

Wireless Internet connections use radio-frequency electromagnetic waves. When the researchers measured the radiation coming from a laptop wirelessly connected to the Internet, they found it was at least three times higher than an unconnected laptop, and seven to 15 times higher than radiation in a general setting, according to the study, though the levels varied over the course of the experiment, depending on the flow of information coming to or from the computer.

There was no difference between the sperm samples held under the laptop and those kept away from it in terms of the percentage of sperm that were dead at the end of the experiment, according to the study.

Still, sperm motility and having undamaged DNA are important for fertilizing an egg.

"We speculate that keeping a laptop connected wirelessly to the Internet on the lap near the testes may result in decreased male fertility," the researchers wrote in their conclusion.

Why sperm cells are vulnerable

Sperm cells are different from other cells in the body — their DNA is highly condensed into a small area, the researchers noted. This could make them more vulnerable to the effects of such radiation.

It's plausible that the magnetic and electromagnetic fields produced by the radio waves damage molecules in sperm called phospholipids, which are a needed to keep membranes within a sperm cell intact, the study researchers wrote.

It is not known whether all laptop computers might have the same effects as those seen in this study, nor is it known what other factors might heighten or lessen the damage, the researchers wrote in their conclusion.

"However, we cannot discard the possibility that damage to sperm is caused by the low radiation produced by the computer without Internet connection," they wrote, and this possibility should be studied further.

The study was published online Nov. 23 in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

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Eating Chicken May Lead to a Smaller Organ for men!

According to the best available science, three quarters of women find the size of a man’s penis to be either “somewhat important” or “very important.”

What does this have to do with chicken?:Phthalates.

 Phthalates are chemical compounds used in a wide range of consumer products, including pesticides, paints and PVC plastic. However, the contribution of dietary intake to phthalate exposure was not well defined until a landmark study was published last year in the journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. 

Pthalates had been known to affect the genital development of lab rats, but recent human studies have also shown adverse effects on sexual health and development.

The most important findings to date have come from the Study for Future Families, a multicenter study of prenatal clinics in California, Minnesota, and Missouri.

Researchers measured the levels of phthalates flowing through the bodies of pregnant women, and then later measured the size and characteristics of their infant sons’ genitalia between the ages of two months and three years.

Women who had the most phthalate exposure had up to ten times the odds of giving birth to sons with one or both testicles incompletely descended, their scrotum categorized as small and/or “not distinct from surrounding tissue” and a significantly smaller penile volume, a measure of penis size taking into account both length and girth.

 In other words, the more phthalates pregnant women are exposed to, the “increased likelihood of testicular mal-descent, a small and indistinct scrotum and smaller penis size.”

The team of researchers conclude: “These changes in male infants, associated with prenatal exposure to some of the same phthalate metabolites that cause similar alterations in male rodents, suggest that commonly used phthalates may undervirilize humans as well.”

So what foods should pregnant women stay away from in order to avoid the “phthalate-related syndrome of incomplete virilization” in their sons?

In a study published last year, the level of phthalate in the urine of thousands of Americans were measured, along with their diets to find out which food was most significantly associated with phthalate body burden.

They looked at dairy, eggs, fish, fruit, poultry, potatoes, tomatoes, vegetables in general and red meat. The most significant correlation in poultry consumption.

The data suggested that, “an increase of one ounce of poultry per day is associated with an increase in [phthalate] DHEP levels of approximately 5.7 percent.” A single chicken breast can weigh 8 ounces(0.227kgs).

Perhaps the phthalates were leaching into the meat from the plastic packaging. Probably not, the researchers concluded, “the finding that egg consumption is significantly associated with levels of MHEP [phthalates] too, suggests that chickens themselves may be contaminated with phthalates and that food is not being contaminated just through packaging and processing.”

So to protect their son’s normal development, pregnant women may be wise to avoid poultry

47Weird Facts About Humans

1.While sitting at your desk make clockwise circles with your right foot. (go ahead no one will see you) While doing this, draw the number “6″ in the air with your right hand.

Your foot will change direction – that is a fact. Pretty interesting, huh?

Keep on reading..

2. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.

3. Grapefruit scent will make middle aged women appear six  years younger to men. The perception is not reciprocal and the grapefruit scent on men has no effect on women’s perception.

4. The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.

5. The colder the room you sleep in, the better the chances are that you’ll have a bad dream.

6. There are more people alive today than have ever died.

7. Women’s hair is about half the diameter of men’s hair

8. Women blink twice as many times as men do.

9. The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

10. Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

11. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

12. The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 9metres(30feet)!

13. The brain operates on the same amount of power as 10-watt light bulb. The cartoon image of a light bulb over your head when a great thought occurs isn’t too far off the mark. Your brain generates as much energy as a small light bulb even when you’re sleeping.

14. The brain is much more active at night than during the day.

15. The brain itself cannot feel pain. While the brain might be the pain center when you cut your finger or burn yourself, the brain itself does not have pain receptors and cannot feel pain.

16. The fastest growing nail is on the middle finger. And the nail on the middle finger of your dominant hand will grow the fastest of all. Why is not entirely known, but nail growth is related to the length of the finger, with the longest fingers growing nails the fastest and shortest the slowest.

17. The lifespan of a human hair is 3 to 7 years on average.

18. Human hair is virtually indestructible. Aside from it’s flammability, human hair decays at such a slow rate that it is practically non-disintegrative. Hair cannot be destroyed by cold, change of climate, water, or other natural forces and it is resistant to many kinds of acids and corrosive chemicals.

19. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razorblades. Hydrochloric acid, the type found in your stomach, is not only good at dissolving the pizza you had for dinner but can also eat through many types of metal.

20. The surface area of a human lung is equal to a tennis court.

21. Sneezes regularly exceed 100 mph.

22. Approximately 75% of human waste is made of water.

23. The average person expels flatulence 14 times each day. Even if you’d like to think you’re too dignified to pass gas, the reality is that almost everyone will at least a few times a day.

24. Earwax production is necessary for good ear health. While many people find earwax to be disgusting, it’s actually a very important part of your ear’s defense system. It protects the delicate inner ear from bacteria, fungus, dirt and even insects. It also cleans and lubricates the ear canal.

25. Babies are always born with blue eyes.  The melanin in a newborn’s eyes often needs time after birth to be fully deposited or to be darkened by exposure to ultraviolet light, later revealing the baby’s true eye color.

26. Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.

27. After eating too much, your hearing is less sharp.

28. Women are born better smellers than men and remain better smellers over life.

29. Your nose can remember 50,000 different scents.

30. Nails and hair do not continue to grow after we die. They do appear longer when we die, however, as the skin dehydrates and pulls back from the nail beds and scalp.

31. By the age of 60, most people will have lost about half their taste buds. Perhaps you shouldn’t trust your grandma’s cooking as much as you do.

32. Your eyes are always the same size from birth but your nose and ears never stop growing.

33. By 60 years of age, 60-percent of men and 40-percent of women will snore.

34. Monday is the day of the week when the risk of heart attack is greatest.  A ten year study in Scotland found that 20% more people die of heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. Researchers theorize that it’s a combination of too much fun over the weekend with the stress of going back to work that causes the increase.

35. Provided there is water, the average human could survive a month to two months without food depending on their body fat and other factors.

36. Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress.

37. A human head remains conscious for about 15 to 20 seconds after it is been decapitated. While it might be gross to think about, the blood in the head may be enough to keep someone alive and conscious for a few seconds after the head has been separated from the body, though reports as to the accuracy of this are widely varying.

38. Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood the number is reduced to 206.

39. We are about 1 cm taller in the morning than in the evening.

40. It takes twice as long to lose new muscle if you stop working out than it did to gain it. Lazy people out there shouldn’t use this as motivation to not work out, however. It’s relatively easy to build new muscle tissue and get your muscles in shape, so if anything, this fact should be motivation to get off the couch and get moving.

41. Tears and mucus contain an enzyme (lysozyme) that breaks down the cell wall of many bacteria.

42. It is not possible to tickle yourself. Even the most ticklish among us do not have the ability to tickle ourselves.

43. The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body. While not exact down to the last millimeter, your armspan is a pretty good estimator of your height.

44. Humans are the only animals to produce emotional tears.

45. Women burn fat more slowly than men, by a rate of about 50 calories a day. Most men have a much easier time burning fat than women. Women, because of their reproductive role, generally require a higher basic body fat proportion than men, and as a result their bodies don’t get rid of excess fat at the same rate as men.

47. Koalas and primates are the only animals with unique fingerprints. Humans, apes and koalas are unique in the animal kingdom due to the tiny prints on the fingers of their hands

Amazing power of human mind

Cna yuo raed tihs? I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. 

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. 

Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. 

Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it