Benefis of BANANA: WHEN YOU EAT 2 BANANAS A DAY

Depression

Many people who suffer from depression experienced significant improvement after eating banana, according to a study conducted by MIND. Bananas are rich in tryptophan which is converted into serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps you relax, boost your mood and can help you overcome depression.

PMS

Bananas are rich source of vitamin B6 which has the ability to regulate blood sugar levels and improve your mood.

Anemia

Regular consumption of bananas can help you fight anemia due to its high iron levels. Iron stimulates the production of red blood cells and therefore it increases hemoglobin levels in the blood.

Blood Pressure

Banana is high in potassium and low in sodium which is the perfect combination for healthy blood pressure. Therefore, US Food and Drug Administration has confirmed the fruit`s ability to lower blood pressure and protect from stroke.

Brain Power

A study conducted on 200 students at a Twickenham school ( England )have found that eating bananas can boost brain power. The participants consumed bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch and the results showed that this fruit improved their learning abilities and helped through their exams due to high potassium levels found in bananas.

Constipation

Bananas are loaded with fiber, which can stimulate regular bowel movements and relieve constipation.

Hangovers

Prepare a banana milkshake with honey to quickly get rid of your hangover. This fruit will soothe your stomach and honey will increase the lowered blood sugar levels, and milk will rehydrate and refresh your body.

Heartburn

Bananas have natural antacid properties which can help you with heartburn. Just one banana can instantly soothe your heartburn symptoms.

Morning Sickness

Having a banana snack will maintain your blood sugars normal and will protect you from morning sickness.

Mosquito Bites

Take the inside of a banana skin and rub it into the affected area. It will reduce swelling and irritation in just a few minutes.

Nerves

Banana is a rich source of B vitamins which have the ability to calm and relax the nervous system.

The Institute of Psychology in Austria conducted several studies examining 5,000 hospital patients. The study results have shown that obesity generally occurred in people with high-pressure jobs. The scientists recommend consuming one banana every two hours in order to control blood sugar levels and avoid food cravings while at work.

Ulcers

The smoothness and soft texture of bananas is the major reason why it is used as a natural remedy for intestinal issues. It has the ability to coat the lining of the stomach and therefore reduce irritation and over-acidity.

Temperature Control

In Thailand and many other cultures around the world, bananas are used to lower the temperature in future mothers due to their natural cooling effect.

When compared to an apple, banana contains:

–          Four times the protein

–          Twice the carbohydrate

–          Three times the phosphorus

–           Five times the vitamin A and iron

–          Twice the other vitamins and minerals

Source: www.fhfn.org 

The dark side of Nobel prizewinning research

October 4, 2015 by Hugues Honore!

The statue representing Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm

The statue representing Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm

Think of the Nobel prizes and you think of groundbreaking research bettering mankind, but the awards have also honoured some quite unhumanitarian inventions such as chemical weapons, DDT and lobotomies.

Numerous Nobel prize controversies have erupted over the years: authors who were overlooked, scientists who claimed their discovery came first, or peace prizes that divided public opinion.

But some of the science prizes appear in hindsight to be embarrassing choices by the committees.

When the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, it was perhaps a way of making up for the Nobel "war prize" it awarded to German chemist Fritz Haber in 1918.

Haber was honoured with the chemistry prize for his work on the synthesis of ammonia, which was crucial for developing fertilizers for food production.

But Haber, known as the "father of chemical warfare", also developed poisonous gases used in trench warfare in World War I at the Battle of Ypres which he supervised himself.

After Germany's defeat in the war, "he didn't expect to win a prize. He was more afraid of a court martial," Swedish chemist Inger Ingmanson, who wrote a book about Haber's prize, told AFP.

"Some saw it as a Germanophile prize. There were people who had wanted Sweden to join the war alongside Germany."

The prize remains one of the most contested Nobels ever awarded—the jury had to be aware of Haber's role in, and the effects of, chlorine gas being used in the trenches. But he had also brought the world revolutionary fertilizers.

French chemist Victor Grignard, who also developed poisonous gases, won a Nobel prize too, but that was in 1912, before the outbreak of World War I and before their uses in warfare.

Odd timing

The 1918 controversy might have encouraged the Stockholm jury to think carefully about the laureates they choose after a conflict.

The 1962 Nobel Prize medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for discovering the structure of DNA

The 1962 Nobel Prize medal awarded to Dr. Francis Crick for discovering the structure of DNA

Yet in November 1945, just three months after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel chemistry prize honoured the discovery of nuclear fission.

The laureate was another German, Otto Hahn, whose 1938 discovery was crucial to the development of atomic bombs.

However, Hahn never worked on the military applications of his discovery and upon learning, while in captivity as a prisoner-of-war in England, that a nuclear bomb had been dropped, he told his fellow captives: "I am thankful we (Germany) didn't succeed" in building the bomb.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' choice is bewildering, especially given its apparent urgency right after the damages just wreaked by the bombs.

Nobel archives reveal that the Academy had wanted to honour Hahn already in 1940. As of 1944, he was considered by his peers as a "secret Nobel laureate" who just needed to wait until the end of the war to collect his prize.

According to a 1995 article in the scientific journal Nature, Hahn's nomination was supported by academics who saw him—the only candidate nominated for the Nobel Chemistry Prize in 1944—as a laureate worthy of the science prize regardless of political considerations. Other jury members would have preferred to wait to find out more about the US' top-secret war-time research on the bomb, but they were in the minority.

Hahn ultimately won the 1944 prize, though it was only awarded to him after the end of the war in 1945.

Scorned laureates

Hahn's discovery as such was not so controversial, only the later application of it.

Portrait taken 3 march 1959 German physical chemist Otto Hahn, decorated with chain of president of Max-Planck-Society, for his 80th birthday

Portrait taken 3 march 1959 German physical chemist Otto Hahn, decorated with chain of president of Max-Planck-Society, for his 80th birthday

The same cannot be said for some other Nobel research, including that of Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, who won the 1949 Nobel Medicine Prize "for his discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses".

Today the brain surgery procedure is known as a lobotomy and is only used in rare circumstances. The Nobel Foundation's website notes soberly that the surgery was "controversial".

Bengt Jansson, a psychiatrist and former member of the medicine prize selection committee, wrote: "I see no reason for indignation at what was done in the 1940s as at that time there were no other alternatives!"

Chemical treatments for mental illnesses were later developed.

And then there are the laureates blasted by environmentalists.

A muslim livestock vendor covers his face, as Indian Municipal corporation workers spray DDT to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne dengue and chikungunya viruses

A muslim livestock vendor covers his face, as Indian Municipal corporation workers spray DDT to prevent the spread of mosquito-borne dengue and chikungunya viruses

One year before Moniz, the medicine prize jury honoured Swiss scientist Paul Mueller for his discovery that DDT could be used to kill insects that spread malaria.

DDT was later banned worldwide, after it was discovered to pose a threat to humans and wildlife.

Nonetheless, pesticides went on to play a role in another Nobel.

In 1970, US biologist Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for introducing modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan and India, including genetic crossbreeding.

 Explore further: Physics prize up next on Nobel schedule

Journal reference: Nature