Soma Purana

I was reading the  14th amendment and was struck by Section 2 of the amendment which limited the right to vote to only male citizens. The  14th amendment was passed by congress in 1866 as part of reconstruction of the battered nation and ratified in 1868. Change takes time. Even though the civil war which was so costly in terms of life and property was fought to restore the rights of negro Americans in slavery, the nation was not enlightened enough to address the sex bias. It required another 50 years to allow right to vote to all citizens. The 19th amendment took care of that - " The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."  The 19th amendment was passed in 1919 and ratified in 1920. 

I would like to dig into the nutritional value of honey that is claimed over the centuries. GloryBee, for instance, states "Honey is a pretty amazing substance and there is a lot more to it than just a sweet tasting treat. Honey plays a crucial role in the life of a honey bee and can also be very beneficial to the human body." BillyBee states "Honey has more nutritious elements than refined sugar. It's a concentrated source of energy - quickly digested and readily absorbed - and contains no fat. Honey is pure because no other ingredients are added. But what puts honey first among sweeteners is its truly unique flavour, its look and natural character." There are many such claims on the Internet. A PubMed paper published in 2007 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17877657) claimed benefits beyond nutrition, in "wound healing and as an alternative treatment for clinical conditions ranging from gastrointestinal tract (GIT) problems to ophthalmic condit

On 2/21 Sat morning (5AM) , I noticed -2 degF on my (outside) thermometer.

These days the temperature never seems to get above freezing even for a short time. When I woke up this morning, I noticed the outside temp was 3 deg F. My heater was struggling to warm the home to 68 degF.

I saw an interesting graph in a research paper "Interaction of Aging and CKD" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771919/). Acronyms CKD=Chronic Kidney Disease eGFR = estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate ESRD=End-Stage Renal Disease "Older patients are less likely than their younger counterparts with similar levels of eGFR to progress to the point of needing renal replacement therapy ." "the relative risk of death associated with a given level of eGFR is attenuated at older ages" "These observations are of more than academic interest because the overwhelming majority of older patients currently classified as having CKD have mild to moderate reductions in eGFR and are no more likely to die than their age peers with “normal” renal function"

The story of Josiah Gibbs absolutely fascinates me. See Wikepedia for the complete story. Gibbs is famous for "Gibbs energy G." He was the first to receive an (from Yale in 1863) engineering PhD in America. Obviously, he was at Yale during the Civil war but he did not volunteer or was conscripted in the war due to his illnesses and poor eyesight. He had astigmatism for which  the optometrists back then didn't know how to solve, so he had to grind his own lenses. He spent three years in Europe after college and then returned to Yale where he spent the rest of his life. He pretty much spent his entire life in the same house. He had sufficient means through inheritance from his father and taught free at Yale. Later, Johns Hopkins offered a professorship to him with a salary of $3000 per year. Yale came to know about this and offered to increase his salary from zero to $2000 per year. Gibbs said fine and stayed at Yale! What amazes me is the versatility of scientists l