You have the power to transform your life for the better through self improvement. The following article offers many useful tips that you can use to begin your personal development journey.
Many people struggle with self improvement because their goals are difficult to figure out or just too vague. Make your goals very specific. Goals that are specifically defined will lead to targeted results.
When you are engaging in the personal development process, experiencing failure often deals a damaging blow to your self-concept. Actually, failure is really a learning experience. Failing usually teaches a lesson, but you have to pay attention. It can also tell you more about your weaknesses and strengths. In that sense, every failure should be a point of pride for you, as you have uncovered another piece of your personal puzzle.
TIP! When you feel anger start to boil over, stop before you react and count to ten. Breathe deeply and, as you count, try thinking peaceful thoughts.
Fostering a strict sense of self discipline is a great way to improve yourself. Learn to develop a strong sense of self control. Beat bad habits like gluttony, jealousy, lust or greed. You will not develop any life long addictions that will compromise your health in a physical or mental fashion.
Increasing the positivity in your daily life is truly a matter of personal choice, and what you want for others will often appear in your own life, whether good or bad. Wish others well in life so you feel positive empowerment. If you try to remain positive in all aspects of your life, you will not be as likely to get dragged down by sadness, anger and other negative feelings.
Be prepared to list your ideas wherever you are. Carry paper and a pen around with you. Making quick notes about the inspiration as it strikes you will jog your memory and add to the potential that you will later incorporate into a thoughtful creative process.
Speaking to a therapist or religious official can really help you out. Many of these professionals are both licensed and experienced, meaning they are well-equipped to help you with your personal issues. They?ll listen to you talk and figure out what things you?re struggling with, and how you might be able to solve them. Discussing problems with professionals will help your life be healthier and happier.
TIP! Learn how to listen to others. This truth applies even more to those who are making a concentrated effort to develop themselves on a personal level.
Don?t be a shopaholic like those people on Hoarders. Shopping your stress away, or ?retail therapy? as some people say, is really more of a stress inducer, because it distracts you from the stress for a while but it all comes back with big bills and interest charges when the bills come in.
Remember to practice your core principles. Everyone has beliefs that are central to their sense of self. Following these beliefs will help your sense of self-esteem. It gives your life meaning and a solid structure to build around. This also helps to make you a consistent person. This is an essential character trait.
Always think before you act and when you do act, do so in a modest way. Learn from situations you encounter every day, and make sure that you recognize what you cannot change about circumstances in your life. A touch of modesty makes it much easier to understand your own limitations. Use the wisdom gained from past mistakes to make your future choices more positive and empowering.
One part of depression you may not thought of to look at is your diet and increasing the amount of complex carbohydrates that you consume. If you do not eat enough complex carbohydrates, you will not have enough Serotonin. You can do this by eating more raw veggies, fruits, nuts, brown rice, whole grains and assorted beans.
TIP! Try to make the most out the time you are working. Take breaks regularly to stay focused on what you need to work on.
How healthy your body is, affects how healthy your mind is. Regular exercise and nutritious foods are important to gaining total personal fitness. If you want a healthy mind, make sure it resides in a healthy body.
Keep looking for new challenges you are interested in. New challenges open new possibilities for you. You can learn more and acquire new skills. You may even be lucky enough to do something that has never been done by anyone. Strive to create something new, rather than accomplishing something that?s already been done.
Good leaders have firm rules, but are also honest. Effective leadership requires many qualities, as well as an understanding of servitude. Being virtuous and having integrity is part of being a leader, too, and few people will follow a leader that does not display these traits.
Leadership is the cornerstone of personal development. In this context, consider your sphere of influence to be where your leadership skills are applied. Identify the leadership qualities you possess. What events have you been most impacted by in your life? How have those events changed you, if at all? What skills would you contribute to a group? Being able to answer these questions will help you realize how important you can be to your team.
TIP! Prospective employers will be more concerned as to whether you can do the job well. Some places, such as banks and investment firms, actually do care where you got your degree.
Scrutinize your heart, soul and mind rather than being engrossed with your physical appearance. Some people are blessed with natural good looks or the wealth to purchase designer duds. Your personality and skills are what will get you through life. Try and change the person you are inside rather than focusing on the outside.
Find out how successful people improved themselves. You can avoid a lot of trial and error by learning what other successful people have done in your situation. Read up on what they did to apply the lessons in your own quest toward positive personal development.
One key to improving your lifestyle through personal development is to set goals that are reasonable. By discovering your weaknesses and working on them, it is possible to evolve into a better person.
Are you having a hard time finding that special someone? Explore your options on the Internet. Forty percent of people find their partner online nowadays. There could be someone out there who is searching for their significant other, and that could be you. There are pros and cons with both of them.
TIP! Find texts and phrases that sooth and encourage you. Some people find inspiration in the Bible, and others find it in self-help books.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding about how to improve your character, mental outlook and personality to help improve your lifestyle. With the tips you just learned you can begin in your efforts towards self improvement, helping you reshape your life for the better so you can begin anew.
President Barack Obama on Friday afternoon closed out his three-state post-State of the Union tour with a unusually personal speech in his hometown of Chicago, Ill., advocating the need for strong families as well successful and safe communities to help create upward mobility for the nation's most impoverished.
Obama, speaking at Chicago's Hyde Park Academy, called for the promotion of marriage and fatherhood, contrasting the two-parent household with his own upbringing.
"Don't get me wrong," he said, "as the son of a single mom who gave everything she had to raise me with the help of my grandparents, you know, I turned out okay." Obama commended the single mothers in the audience, but added "at the same time, I wish I'd had a father who was around and involved."
Obama's father, a central figure in his memoir "Dreams of My Father," and Obama's mother divorced shortly after Barack Obama's birth.
The president on Friday stressed that strong families, along with education opportunities such as his new proposal to offer universal preschool, build strong communities that help promote upward mobility the president has termed "ladders of opportunity."
"Government alone can?t solve these problems of violence and poverty ... everybody has to be involved," Obama said.
The president spoke about the recent gun violence in Chicago where the murder of high school student Hadiya Pendleton, who had performed at Obama's inauguration about one week prior to her death, caught the attention of the nation as well as the White House.
Hadiya had performed at the president's inauguration last month, and she was shot and killed just one week later. First lady Michelle Obama attended Hadiya's funeral, and Hadiya's parents sat with the first lady during the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
Obama said Friday that Chicago's gun violence rate is "the equivalent of a Newtown every four months," referencing the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
But he conceded that in some places in America, there is seeming little opportunity for young men, especially, who feel as if their "future only extends to the next street corner."
Obama suggested that the new initiatives outlined in his State of the Union can help create opportunities for inner-city youth:?raising the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour; universal preschool; and a plan to revitalize neighborhoods?including 20 to be labeled "Promise Zones"?with the help of federal assistance.
Obama's Chicago visit completes his three-state sweep to promote the agenda he laid out in the State of the Union. The president pressed his manufacturing proposals in Asheville, N.C., on Wednesday and advocated for his universal preschool program Thursday in Decatur, Ga.
WASHINGTON ? Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a vote to confirm Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, arguing that they needed more time to consider.
By 58-40, with one abstention, the Associated Press reported that the Senate fell short of the 60-vote threshold required to advance Hagel's nomination to a final, up-or-down vote on his confirmation. Four Republicans voted with Democrats to end the debate and proceed to a final vote: Sens. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Mike Johanns of Nebraska.
Obama reacted immediately, hammering Republicans for an unprecedented filibuster of a defense secretary nominee and insisting that Hagel, a former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska and twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran, will eventually win confirmation. He would succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is stepping down.
?It's just unfortunate that this kind of politics intrudes at a time when I'm still presiding over a war in Afghanistan and I need a secretary of defense who is coordinating with our allies to make sure that our troops are getting the kind of strategy and mission that they deserve,? the president said in an online chat sponsored by Google.
In the final minutes of the tally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched his vote from ?yes? to ?no,? a procedural move that allows him to revive the nomination after the break. He set another vote for Feb. 26.
Republicans said they intended to allow a vote on their former colleague when the Senate returns from a break in 10 days.
?Republicans have made an unfortunate choice to ratchet up the level of obstruction in Washington,? said Sen. Reid.
All day, a tense standoff played out in the Capitol as one party tried to force the other into a more politically undesirable position.
Republicans, aware that Democrats would not relish calling a vote that could result in an embarrassing setback for the president, had hoped to press Reid to back down and reschedule after the Senate returns from its recess.
Democrats, mindful that Republicans didn't want to be blamed for making what would be seen as an affront to a sitting president, allowed a vote knowing that it might fail and accused their colleagues of hitting a new low of obstructionism.
At 10 a.m. Thursday, after the Republican leadership signaled to Democrats that it intended to seek a further delay, Reid said he would wait no longer and set the vote for this morning. But just after 3 p.m. Thursday, he came to the Senate floor to move that it be called instead at 4:15 p.m.
That forced senators like John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, veterans of the Senate Armed Services Committee who have said that they find the act of filibustering a defense secretary distasteful, to cast a vote that had the same result as a filibuster, even if they refused to call it that.
Republicans said they would not support ending debate until they received more detailed answers to questions about the administration's response to the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Specifically, they want to know whether Obama spoke with anyone in the Libyan government to request assistance during the attack.
S.E.O. in 2013 is more about the syndication?and?distribution of real content than it is about on-site optimization ? which is done mostly by a well-setup modern content management system like WordPress, Ruby-on-Rails, or Drupal these days. ?Therefor, the quality and formatting of the original content itself,?the?strategy?for?the?targeting of the?metadata, and the distribution of the content through groups, content aggregates, blogs and feeds?becomes?the main occupation of a social media marketer.
Our thanks to Mashable for this great?info-graphic:
From [infographics] like the one above, designed to be?redistributed?with links back to the source by bloggers like me with audiences of our own, to well thought out articles like this one, to videos that rank on YouTube search and on Google and other search engines, like this one:
In 2013, the modern social media marketing agency:
Creates a strategy designed to?target?a specific topical or geographical audience,
Collects, arranges and/or manufactures real content of?interest to that audience
And then distributes that well optimized content ?through modern social media channels, building a trail back to the source.
It is more about internet publishing and modern distribution in 2013
A good example to use to?illustrate?the results from this methodology carried out is a domain that we now have for sale from a client ( the third to own this domain with us) who did not renew last spring. ?Sometimes the greatest challenge for us, as technology and publishing professionals, is to get the clients to appreciate and acknowledge what we have?done?for them when we do a great job: for instance http://distressedrealestate.org?was designed to rank for?Washington?distressed real estate?Google search; and it still does. ?Yet our barely computer literate client refused our renewal at only $120 per year for hosting, after spending the $975 to create the blog website and?the?rankings, when all they?would?have needed to do to maintain these rankings at this point?would?simply be to post to the blog to maintain this Feedburner feed that we syndicated: ?http://feeds.feedburner.com/Distressed-Real-Estate.
It seems strange to us that so many clients?would?invest the money needed to hire a professional S.E.O. firm for?competitive?searches in real estate, hospitality, events planning, or?professional?services such as ourselves, who performs; then they give it all up so easily, without even acknowledging or knowing what they had; when all that is needed to maintain it at this point is continue with the obviously sound strategy to begin with (I.E. to simply?continue?to post on topic once in a while to maintain the?presence) ?This is even more strange, knowing what I know, ?that these original Realtor-investor clients (in Bellevue Washington) made $50,000+ per month during that time by?education, financing, buying, and flipping real estate in that as buyers agents offering investment seminars, hard money loans, mortgages, and informational services to buyers and investors in their area. ? They filled a room with 50 prospects weekly!
original article is here:
2013 SEO 101 | The New Search Engine Optimization | Being the Source of Real Content
Video study shows which fish clean up coral reefs, showing importance of biodiversityPublic release date: 13-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology
Coral reef-cam
Using underwater video cameras to record fish feeding on South Pacific coral reefs, scientists have found that herbivorous fish can be picky eaters a trait that could spell trouble for endangered reef systems.
In a study done at the Fiji Islands, the researchers learned that just four species of herbivorous fish were primarily responsible for removing common and potentially harmful seaweeds on reefs and that each type of seaweed is eaten by a different fish species. The research demonstrates that particular species, and certain mixes of species, are potentially critical to the health of reef systems.
Related research also showed that even small marine protected areas locations where fishing is forbidden can encourage reef recovery.
"Of the nearly 30 species of bigger herbivores on the reef, there were four that were doing almost all of the feeding on the seven species of seaweeds that we studied," said Mark Hay, a professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We did not see much overlap in the types of seaweed that each herbivore ate. Therefore, if any one of these four species was removed, that would potentially allow some macroalgae to proliferate."
The research has been published online ahead of print by the journal Ecology and will be included in a future print edition. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Teasley Endowment to Georgia Tech.
Macroalgae known as seaweeds pose a major threat to endangered coral reefs. Some seaweeds emit chemicals that are toxic to corals, while others smother or abrade corals. If seaweed growth is not kept in check by herbivorous fish, the reefs can experience rapid decline. Overfishing of coral reef ecosystems has decimated fish populations in many areas, contributing to overgrowth by seaweed, along with the loss of corals and their ability to recover from disturbance.
To determine which fish were most important information potentially useful for protecting them Hay and Georgia Tech graduate student Douglas Rasher moved samples of seven species of seaweed into healthy reef systems that had large populations of fish.
They set up three video cameras to watch the reef areas, then left the area to allow the fish to feed. They repeated the experiment over a period of five days in three different marine protected areas located off the Fiji Islands. In all, Rasher watched more than 45 hours of video to carefully record which species of fish ate which species of seaweed.
"The patterns were remarkably consistent among the reefs in terms of which fish were responsible for removing the seaweed," said Rasher. "Because different seaweeds use different defense strategies to deter herbivores from eating them, a particular mix of fish each adapted to a particular type of seaweed is needed to keep seaweeds off the reef."
Among the most important were two species of unicornfish, which removed numerous types of brown algae. A species of parrotfish consumed red seaweeds, while a rabbitfish ate a type of green seaweed that is particularly toxic to coral. Those four fish species were responsible for 97 percent of the bites taken from all the seaweeds.
"It's not enough to have herbivorous fish on the reef," said Hay, who holds the Harry and Linda Teasley Chair in Environmental Biology at Georgia Tech. "We need to have the right mix of herbivores."
While just four fish species consumed the large seaweeds, Rasher observed a different set of species involved in what he termed "maintenance" the removal of small algal growths before they have a chance to grow.
"Through our videos, we were able to observe both groups in action," he said. "There was not only little overlap in which fishes ate the large seaweeds, but there was also little overlap between fishes that comprised the two groups."
To help determine why certain fish ate certain seaweed, the researchers played a trick on the unicornfish. They removed chemicals from each seaweed species that the unicornfish avoided and coated them individually on a species of seaweed that the unicornfish were accustomed to eating. That caused the fish to stop eating the chemical-laced seaweed, suggesting that chemical defenses kept them from consuming some seaweeds.
The researchers also compared the quality of coral reefs in marine protected areas to those in areas where fishing has been allowed. There are an estimated 300 marine protected areas in the Fiji Islands, most governed by local villages that have considerable autonomy over reef management.
Surveying these larger areas, the researchers found strong negative associations between the abundance or diversity of seaweed on the reef and diversity of herbivorous fishes at the sites they studied.
They found that strict rules against fishing in certain protected areas had led to a regeneration of corals, and that the contrast to fished areas nearby some just 500 meters apart was dramatic. The protected reefs supported as much as 11 times more live coral cover, 17 times more herbivorous fish biomass and three times more species diversity among herbivorous fishes as the unprotected areas.
"What we noted in Fiji is that where reefs are fished, they look like the devastated reefs in the Caribbean," said Hay. "There's a lot of seaweed, there's almost no coral and there aren't many fish in these flattened areas. But right next to them, where fishing hasn't been allowed for the past eight or ten years, the reefs have recovered and have high coral cover, almost no seaweed and lots of fish."
Although both fished and protected areas had only seven percent coral cover ten years ago, today the protected areas have recovered.
"This really demonstrates the value of reef protection, even on small scales," Rasher said. "There is a lot of debate about whether or not small reserves work. This seems to be a nice example of an instance where they do."
Ultimately, the researchers hope to provide information to village leaders that could help them manage their reefs to ensure long-term health while helping feed the local human population.
"Not fishing is really not an option for people in these communities," Rasher said. "Giving the village leadership an idea of which species are essential to reef health and what they can do to manage fisheries effectively is something we can do to help them maintain a sustainable reef food system."
###
Beyond the researchers already mentioned, the research also included Andrew Hoey from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grants OCE 0929119 and DGE 0114400, and by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under grant U01-TW007401. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF or NIH.
CITATION: Rasher, D.B. et al., Consumer diversity interacts with prey defenses to drive ecosystem function," Ecology (2013): http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/12-0389.1.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Video study shows which fish clean up coral reefs, showing importance of biodiversityPublic release date: 13-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: John Toon jtoon@gatech.edu 404-894-6986 Georgia Institute of Technology
Coral reef-cam
Using underwater video cameras to record fish feeding on South Pacific coral reefs, scientists have found that herbivorous fish can be picky eaters a trait that could spell trouble for endangered reef systems.
In a study done at the Fiji Islands, the researchers learned that just four species of herbivorous fish were primarily responsible for removing common and potentially harmful seaweeds on reefs and that each type of seaweed is eaten by a different fish species. The research demonstrates that particular species, and certain mixes of species, are potentially critical to the health of reef systems.
Related research also showed that even small marine protected areas locations where fishing is forbidden can encourage reef recovery.
"Of the nearly 30 species of bigger herbivores on the reef, there were four that were doing almost all of the feeding on the seven species of seaweeds that we studied," said Mark Hay, a professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "We did not see much overlap in the types of seaweed that each herbivore ate. Therefore, if any one of these four species was removed, that would potentially allow some macroalgae to proliferate."
The research has been published online ahead of print by the journal Ecology and will be included in a future print edition. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Teasley Endowment to Georgia Tech.
Macroalgae known as seaweeds pose a major threat to endangered coral reefs. Some seaweeds emit chemicals that are toxic to corals, while others smother or abrade corals. If seaweed growth is not kept in check by herbivorous fish, the reefs can experience rapid decline. Overfishing of coral reef ecosystems has decimated fish populations in many areas, contributing to overgrowth by seaweed, along with the loss of corals and their ability to recover from disturbance.
To determine which fish were most important information potentially useful for protecting them Hay and Georgia Tech graduate student Douglas Rasher moved samples of seven species of seaweed into healthy reef systems that had large populations of fish.
They set up three video cameras to watch the reef areas, then left the area to allow the fish to feed. They repeated the experiment over a period of five days in three different marine protected areas located off the Fiji Islands. In all, Rasher watched more than 45 hours of video to carefully record which species of fish ate which species of seaweed.
"The patterns were remarkably consistent among the reefs in terms of which fish were responsible for removing the seaweed," said Rasher. "Because different seaweeds use different defense strategies to deter herbivores from eating them, a particular mix of fish each adapted to a particular type of seaweed is needed to keep seaweeds off the reef."
Among the most important were two species of unicornfish, which removed numerous types of brown algae. A species of parrotfish consumed red seaweeds, while a rabbitfish ate a type of green seaweed that is particularly toxic to coral. Those four fish species were responsible for 97 percent of the bites taken from all the seaweeds.
"It's not enough to have herbivorous fish on the reef," said Hay, who holds the Harry and Linda Teasley Chair in Environmental Biology at Georgia Tech. "We need to have the right mix of herbivores."
While just four fish species consumed the large seaweeds, Rasher observed a different set of species involved in what he termed "maintenance" the removal of small algal growths before they have a chance to grow.
"Through our videos, we were able to observe both groups in action," he said. "There was not only little overlap in which fishes ate the large seaweeds, but there was also little overlap between fishes that comprised the two groups."
To help determine why certain fish ate certain seaweed, the researchers played a trick on the unicornfish. They removed chemicals from each seaweed species that the unicornfish avoided and coated them individually on a species of seaweed that the unicornfish were accustomed to eating. That caused the fish to stop eating the chemical-laced seaweed, suggesting that chemical defenses kept them from consuming some seaweeds.
The researchers also compared the quality of coral reefs in marine protected areas to those in areas where fishing has been allowed. There are an estimated 300 marine protected areas in the Fiji Islands, most governed by local villages that have considerable autonomy over reef management.
Surveying these larger areas, the researchers found strong negative associations between the abundance or diversity of seaweed on the reef and diversity of herbivorous fishes at the sites they studied.
They found that strict rules against fishing in certain protected areas had led to a regeneration of corals, and that the contrast to fished areas nearby some just 500 meters apart was dramatic. The protected reefs supported as much as 11 times more live coral cover, 17 times more herbivorous fish biomass and three times more species diversity among herbivorous fishes as the unprotected areas.
"What we noted in Fiji is that where reefs are fished, they look like the devastated reefs in the Caribbean," said Hay. "There's a lot of seaweed, there's almost no coral and there aren't many fish in these flattened areas. But right next to them, where fishing hasn't been allowed for the past eight or ten years, the reefs have recovered and have high coral cover, almost no seaweed and lots of fish."
Although both fished and protected areas had only seven percent coral cover ten years ago, today the protected areas have recovered.
"This really demonstrates the value of reef protection, even on small scales," Rasher said. "There is a lot of debate about whether or not small reserves work. This seems to be a nice example of an instance where they do."
Ultimately, the researchers hope to provide information to village leaders that could help them manage their reefs to ensure long-term health while helping feed the local human population.
"Not fishing is really not an option for people in these communities," Rasher said. "Giving the village leadership an idea of which species are essential to reef health and what they can do to manage fisheries effectively is something we can do to help them maintain a sustainable reef food system."
###
Beyond the researchers already mentioned, the research also included Andrew Hoey from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia.
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grants OCE 0929119 and DGE 0114400, and by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under grant U01-TW007401. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF or NIH.
CITATION: Rasher, D.B. et al., Consumer diversity interacts with prey defenses to drive ecosystem function," Ecology (2013): http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/12-0389.1.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Feb. 12, 2013 ? Notorious among athletes and trainers as career killers, Achilles tendon injuries are among the most devastating. Now, by carbon testing tissues exposed to nuclear fallout in post WWII tests, scientists have learned why: Like our teeth and the lenses in our eyes, the Achilles tendon is a tissue that does not repair itself.
This discovery was published online in The FASEB Journal.
"Tendon injury is a very common disease, which hinders many people from enjoying the numerous benefits of sports and recreational activities," said Katja Heinemeier, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Institute of Sport Medicine and Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. "We hope that these new results will provide the essential knowledge necessary for the development of effective treatments of tendon diseases."
Heinemeier and colleagues made this discovery by taking advantage of carbon-14 spikes resulting from post WWII nuclear bomb tests. Because of these tests, there was there was a large release of the radioactive carbon-14 (radiocarbon) to the atmosphere between 1955 and 1963. This sudden rise in carbon-14 -- called the "bomb pulse" -- reached a maximum of twice the natural atmospheric level in 1963, and then gradually dropped to the lower levels over time. This variation is reflected in all human tissue, because humans eat plants (and animals fed on plants) that take up carbon-14 from the atmosphere. Researchers studied the Achilles tendons from people who had lived during the carbon-14 bomb pulse peak, and found that the high carbon-14 levels of this period had remained in the tendon tissue for decades after. This persistence of radiocarbon can only be explained by the fact that the rate of tissue renewal is extremely slow in the tendon, if it exists at all. In fact, the results showed that the Achilles tendon stays the same after growing ends. In comparison, muscle tissue from the same persons had been constantly renewed and contained no "memory" of the radiocarbon.
"While the nation waits to see if another Olympic skier or NFL rookie recovers from serious tendon or ligament damage, this report serves as a cautionary tale to temper expectations," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "When it comes to our tendons, what we have may be all we have. Like our teeth, it's far better and less painful in the long term to protect them throughout your lifetime than it is to count on a successful recovery."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Journal Reference:
K. M. Heinemeier, P. Schjerling, J. Heinemeier, S. P. Magnusson, M. Kjaer. Lack of tissue renewal in human adult Achilles tendon is revealed by nuclear bomb 14C. The FASEB Journal, 2013; DOI: 10.1096/fj.12-225599
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Public release date: 13-Feb-2013
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