Author: Wan Kerr

Get ready to spend more time outside for stargazing fun in March. This is shaping up to be the ‘year of the comets.’ The entire astronomy community is waiting for the visit of three amazing comets to our solar system, and it starts next week!

Comet Pan-Starrs is due to pass by and should be visible in early March in the West as it swings around the Sun and re-emerges into our evening twilight. Comets are usually named after their discoverers but in this case, Pan-Starrs was named after the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System which was used to find the visitor.

Well known Australian astronomer and writer for Australian Science magazine Dave Reneke said, “Binoculars should easily show a bright head and swept back tail pointing away from the Sun. Mark your calendar for March 12, there’s a special treat in store. On that date, the thin lunar crescent will join the comet for a rare photogenic pairing.”

Comet LEMMON which is now receding slowing away from Earth on it’s approach to the Sun, but should remain just above the naked eye limit for some time as it continues to approach the Sun. If we’re lucky, Lemmon may still be near the naked eye limit and visible in ordinary binoculars. Look for it around March 24.

Now, the moon could have some serious competition on November 29. Get ready for a fantastic sight as comet ISON approaches the Earth. This ‘dirty snowball’ could produce a dazzling display. Some are predicting it will burn brighter than the moon and even be visible in broad daylight!

“It may prove to be brighter than any comet of the last century – it will literally knock your socks off,” David said. “Comet ISON will be visible low in the east before sunrise in the week or two before closest approach and yes, it’ll be visible all around the world.”

Dave said he’s been getting many enquiries about telescopes leading up to Easter. People are buying telescopes because the nights are getting better and the Aussie skies are so clear this time of year. If you’re thinking of buying, here’s a quick guide to help you make the right decision.

When selecting a telescope, consider which target objects you plan to explore as well as your level of experience. For skygazing you’ll want a telescope with as much ‘aperture’ as possible. Keep in mind that as the size of the glass lens or mirror increases, so does the size of the telescope.

So be sure to select a telescope that isn’t too heavy to manage or too complicated for you to set up, especially if portability is a necessity. Remember, the best way to spot a cheap and nasty scope is if you can pick the whole thing up, tripod included, with one hand. Run!

‘Refractors’ are shaped like a long tube which you look through from one end to the other. They’re perfect for observing the Moon and planets and great for first time novice astronomers. If you’re interested in viewing both land and night sky objects, refractors are equipped for both uses.

‘Reflectors’ are telescopes designed with the eyepiece located at the top of the tube and a glass mirror at the bottom. Reflectors are becoming more popular to use for viewing night sky objects such as nebulae, the Moon, planets and galaxies. Reflectors tend to be heavier and larger than refractors, but cheaper to buy.

If you’re looking for a telescope to suit your needs visit the website at www.davidreneke.com or drop him an email. Dave will help you out with some free advice.

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John McKnight tells an instructive story of a do-it-yourself community which was doing so much better at meeting its own needs than a community whose needs were being met by a team of professionals who provided a range of services to them.

The story goes something like this: ‘In a small, relatively isolated community on Martha’s Vineyard, about every tenth person used to be born without the ability to hear. Everybody in the community, hearing and non-hearing alike, spoke a unique sign language brought from England when they immigrated to Massachusetts in 1690. In the mid-twentieth century with increased mobility, the people ceased to intermarry, and the genetic anomaly disappeared.

‘But before the memory of it died — and the sign language with it — historian Nora Groce studied the community’s history. She compared the experience of the non-hearing people to that of the hearing people. She found that 80 percent of the non-hearing people graduated from high school, as did 80 percent of the hearing. She found that about 90 percent of the non-hearing got married, compared to about 92 percent of the hearing. They had about equal numbers of children. Their income levels were similar, as were the variety and distribution of their occupations.

‘Then Groce did a parallel study on the Massachusetts mainland. At the time, it was considered to have the best services in the nation for non-hearing people. There she found that 50 percent of non-hearing people graduated from high school, compared to 75 percent of the hearing. Non-hearing people married half the time, while hearing people married 90 percent of the time. Forty percent of the non-hearing people had children, while 80 percent of hearing people did. And non-hearing people had fewer children. They also received about one-third the income of hearing people. And their range of occupations was much more limited.

‘How was it, Groce wondered, that on an island with no services, non-hearing people were as much like hearing people as you could possibly measure? Yet thirty miles away, with the most advanced services available, non-hearing people lived much poorer lives than the hearing. The one place in the United States where deafness was not a disability was a place with no services for deaf people. In that community all the people adapted by signing instead of handing the non-hearing people over to professionals and their services. That community wasn’t just doing what was necessary to help or to serve one group. It was doing what was necessary to incorporate everyone.’

We all know there are situations where services provided by professional are absolutely essential. However, if we want to create a healthy community here in West End, there is an important lesson for us to learn from that story, don’t you think?

More info: http://www.daveandrews.com.au/index.html

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Coffee isn’t just warm and energising, it may also be extremely good for you…

In recent years and decades, scientists have studied the effects of coffee on various aspects of health and their results have been nothing short of amazing.

Here are 7 reasons why coffee may actually be one of the healthiest beverages on the planet.

1. Coffee Can Make You Smarter

Coffee doesn’t just keep you awake, it may literally make you smarter as well.

The active ingredient in coffee is caffeine, which is a stimulant and the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance in the world.

Caffeine’s primary mechanism in the brain is blocking the effects of an inhibitory neurotransmitter called Adenosine.

By blocking the inhibitory effects of Adenosine, caffeine actually increases neuronal firing in the brain and the release of other neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine (1, 2).

Many controlled trials have examined the effects of caffeine on the brain, demonstrating that caffeine can improve mood, reaction time, memory, vigilance and general cognitive function (3).

Bottom Line: Caffeine potently blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, leading to a net stimulant effect. Controlled trials show that caffeine improves both mood and brain function.

2. Coffee Can Help You Burn Fat and Improves Physical Performance

There’s a good reason why you will find caffeine in most commercial fat burning supplements.

Caffeine, partly due to its stimulant effect on the central nervous system, both raises metabolism and increases the oxidation of fatty acids (4, 5, 6).

Caffeine can also improve athletic performance by several mechanisms, including by mobilizing fatty acids from the fat tissues (7, 8).

In two separate meta-analyses, caffeine was found to increase exercise performance by 11-12% on average (9, 10).

Bottom Line: Caffeine raises the metabolic rate and helps to mobilize fatty acids from the fat tissues. It can also enhance physical performance.

3. Coffee May Drastically Lower Your Risk of Type II Diabetes

Type II diabetes is a lifestyle-related disease that has reached epidemic proportions, having increased 10-fold in a few decades and now afflicting about 300 million people.

This disease is characterized by high blood glucose levels due to insulin resistance or an inability to produce insulin.

In observational studies, coffee has been repeatedly associated with a lower risk of diabetes. The reduction in risk ranges from 23% all the way up to 67% (11, 12, 13, 14).

A massive review article looked at 18 studies with a total of 457.922 participants. Each additional cup of coffee per day lowered the risk of diabetes by 7%. The more coffee people drank, the lower their risk (15).

Bottom Line: Drinking coffee is associated with a drastically reduced risk of type II diabetes. People who drink several cups per day are the least likely to become diabetic.

4. Coffee May Lower Your Risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

Not only can coffee make you smarter in the short term, it may also protect your brain in old age.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common neurodegenerative disorder in the world and a leading cause of dementia.

In prospective studies, coffee drinkers have up to a 60% lower risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia (16, 17, 18).

Parkinson’s is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, characterized by death of dopamine-generating neurons in the brain. Coffee may lower the risk of Parkinson’s by 32-60% (19, 20, 21, 22).

Bottom Line Coffee is associated with a much lower risk of dementia and the neurodegenerative disorders Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

5. Coffee May be Extremely Good For Your Liver

The liver is a remarkable organ that carries out hundreds of vital functions in the body.

It is very vulnerable to modern insults such as excess consumption of alcohol and fructose.

Cirrhosis is the end stage of liver damage caused by diseases like alcoholism and hepatitis, where liver tissue has been largely replaced by scar tissue.

Multiple studies have shown that coffee can lower the risk of cirrhosis by as much as 80%, the strongest effect for those who drank 4 or more cups per day (23, 24, 25).

Coffee may also lower the risk of liver cancer by around 40% (26, 27).

Bottom Line: Coffee appears to be protective against certain liver disorders, lowering the risk of liver cancer by 40% and cirrhosis by as much as 80%.

6. Coffee May Decrease Your Risk of Dying

Many people still seem to think that coffee is unhealthy.

This isn’t surprising though, since it is very common for conventional wisdom to be at exact odds with what the actual studies say.

In two very large prospective epidemiological studies, drinking coffee was associated with a lower risk of death by all causes (28).

This effect is particularly profound in type II diabetics, one study showing that coffee drinkers had a 30% lower risk of death during a 20 year period (29).

Bottom Line: Coffee consumption has been associated with a lower risk of death in prospective epidemiological studies, especially in type II diabetics.

7. Coffee is Loaded With Nutrients and Antioxidants

Coffee isn’t just black water.

Many of the nutrients in the coffee beans do make it into the final drink, which actually contains a decent amount of vitamins and minerals.

A cup of coffee contains:

6% of the RDA for Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5).
11% of the RDA for Riboflavin (Vitamin B2).

2% of the RDA for Niacin (B3) and Thiamine (B1).
3% of the RDA for Potassium and Manganese.

May not seem like much, but if you drink several cups of coffee per day then this quickly adds up.

But this isn’t all. Coffee also contains a massive amount of antioxidants.

In fact, coffee is the biggest source of antioxidants in the western diet, outranking both fruits and vegetables combined.

Bottom Line: Coffee contains a decent amount of several vitamins and minerals. It is also the biggest source of antioxidants in the modern diet.

Take Home Message

Even though coffee in moderate amounts is good for you, drinking way too much of it can still be harmful.I’d also like to point out that many of the studies above were epidemiological in nature. Such studies can only show association, they can not prove that coffee caused the effects.

To make sure to preserve the health benefits, don’t put sugar or anything nasty in your coffee! If it tends to affect your sleep, then don’t drink it after 2pm.

At the end of the day, it does seem quite clear that coffee is NOT the villain it was made out to be.

If anything, coffee may literally be the healthiest beverage on the planet.

This article was republished with permission from Authority Nutrition.

http://authoritynutrition.com/

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It was Mahatma Gandhi who said that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

It is tempting to alter that quote to suggest that the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its citizens with mental health disabilities are treated.

In either situation, we sometimes forget to recognise those in our society who are trying to make a difference, who have a passion for social justice and who wish everyone could have a ‘fair go’ in life.

“There is so much injustice in the world.”

That simple observation has been the driving force for Malcolm Campbell to accomplish what he has done so far in his life, fighting for justice of the downtrodden in society.

“The most disadvantaged in the [West End] community are the Murris,” he says. He notices, however, that they have their own network they can reach out to, which makes it easier for them to help each other when someone in their mob is in need. He finds it a bit dubious when white people try to tell the Murris how to live their lives.

Malcolm did, however, notice another group that were without such a great network, but were also in dire need of help and support in the community.

“The next most disadvantaged people in the community were those with mental health issues, begging for money in the streets, and those in desperate need of help are all too often exploited because of their fragile situation,” he pointed out.

Malcolm Campbell has received several awards throughout his career. He shared the Madeline Cottee Award in 2005 for helping those part of his People Surviving Psychiatry group to produce art, and also received the Earl Duus Award in 1999 for helping people with disabilities. Furthermore, he was one of four people who received the Disability Queensland Award in 2008.

Malcolm was involved with founding the Bayside Adolescent Boarding Incorporated (BABI) in Wynnum in 1983 when was working for the Department of Child Services. BABI was recognised as one of the top eleven community organisations in Australia in the Burdekin Report.

In 1991, Malcolm was the deputy manager of adoptions in Queensland, responsible for managing the opening of the records. “It was very important to do this, and to do it right, without any mistakes,” he said.

Driven by his passion, Malcolm has undoubtedly accomplished a lot in his career. Having a huge positive impact on society and those he has helped, yet he is still a bit humble when he talks about it. “I don’t know wether what I did was real community work, because people have different ideas of what community work is,” he said in usual, self-deprecating style.

Born with a disability himself (Cerebral Palsy), and destined to help those who were less fortunate in society, Malcolm found himself in the situation of being the one asking for help.

He said people often assumed he had an intellectual disability as well, while police and security guards sometimes thought he was drunk.

Malcolm met his wife Beryl when they were both studying to become social workers in 1970. He also completed an arts degree part-time, which he started in 1968.

“Beryl used to accuse me of being married to my job, but I said she didn’t know about my mistress, which was social justice – I couldn’t get enough of it.”

His humbleness is also something his family has experienced, especially when he gave his speech after receiving his Disability Queensland Award in 2008.

“I think it’s very hard for kids to have a father with a disability.”

This shows that his family believed in what he wanted to get done for the community, sharing the same driving force and reasoning to help those less fortunate in society.

“We can help all these people,” he said.

Malcolm has worked at West End Community House (1996-2009), Logan and Near-districts Disability Services (2009-2011) and Micah Projects (2011-2012). He started the DARTS drama group, which has 15 productions behind it.

People Surviving Psychiatry, an organisation which he started in 2000, is still active and very successful.

Malcolm Campbell’s personal mantra is “small and slow”, an approach that emphasises the importance to focus on the exact need of the person that needs help. Malcolm rejects the idea of one size fits all, which he says usually results in nobody being fitted.

Malcolm points out that in our day of age everything is fast and huge, something that obviously does not work when we take a look at our society.

His accomplishments, however, are far from small and slow. That might be his approach, and the key to his success, but the effects of such an approach have been far-reaching in his community.

The Westender wishes Malcolm all the best for the future, and imagines that his retirement will be just as busy as his working life.

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