Is Your Child Eating This In School?

It has often been thought that home-packed food eaten in school during lunches were the most nutritious and healthiest, given the care with which the lunches were packed so carefully by the parents for their darling children. Canteen lunches have the image of being unhealthy, stuffed with fat and salt, with profit in mind and no care for hygiene.

Well, it appears that we may have been wrong. A new study of pre-schoolers lunches where the food was packed at home found that more than 90 percent of these lunches had been exposed to unsafe temperatures for quite a while before the children started eating them. The USDAs recommendations are that the food must be kept at temperatures below 40 degrees Fahrenheit (about 4.5 degrees Celcius) in order to prevent stray bacteria in the food from multiplying and causing food poisoning. More than 90 percent of these lunches had been noted to be at room temperature. USDA guidelines are that the food should not be at room temperatures for more than 2 hours. The pre-schoolers were thus at a higher risk of getting food poisoning or food-borne illnesses from the food at home.

Even food that is kept in the refrigerator in school to try to maintain the temperature below 40 degrees Fahrenheit may not necessarily be at that level, given the tendency for children to keep opening the refrigerator doors and leaving them open.

The answer appears to be to keep the food in ice packs to slow down bacterial growth.

Borneo Rainbow Toad -New Hope For The Ecosystem

It is not unusual for previously thought extinct or near-extinct species to be suddenly rediscovered after a long hiatus of non-sightings. An example is the Borneo Rainbow Toad, also known as the Sambas Stream Toad. Once thought to have been lost forever, having been last seen in 1924 in Borneo, and then only by 3 persons, an international team led by Malaysian researcher Indraneil Das had to search for months after dark in the mountainous slopes of the jungles of Sarawak in Borneo before finally seeing this small rare specimen of Borneo Rainbow Toad up a tree. Subsequently the team found 2 more Rainbow Toads in different trees.

The Borneo Rainbow Toad is listed as one of the Top 10 Most Wanted Lost Frogs by CI (the Virginia-based Conservational International). CI said in a statement that this discovery gave hope that more endangered and rare species that had not been seen in a decade could be refound and at the very least confirmed not to be extinct.

Toads are amphibians. Amphibians are thought to be of great significance to the ecosystem because of their place in the food chain, being both prey to vertebrates and invertebrates as well as consumers in the food chain especially when they are young, and being consumers as adults as well in the food chain. Adult amphibians are thought to be the best biological pest controllers. Because of this importance in the ecosystem, any decline or extinction of the amphibians is thought to impact the survival of other living creatures around them. Any slight change in the environment may also affect the survival of amphibians such as toads.

Till 2004 when one of her spurned suitors was upset with her attitude enough to pour a bucket of sulfuric acid over her head, leaving her blind and disfigured.  It was only in November last year that the courts agreed with her demand for retribution by ordering the man be blinded according to Islamic law.  An eye for an eye.  So the Islamic principle states.  The punishment was to be meted out by way of placing 5 drops of sulfuric acid on each eye.  This has not been carried out yet.

A barbaric punishment?

You think so?

Amaneh Bahrani before acid attack

Ameneh Bahrami after acid attack

Take a look at photos of the woman.  See how her life, her hopes for a bright future, have totally been destroyed.  All because she did not want to marry somebody who demanded for her hand.  This animal who deliberately scarred and blinded her for life, so nobody else could or would ever want her.

Sometimes we wonder whether the question is not whether the punishment was barbaric.  It should be whether the punishment was enough.

And yet, to quote Mahatma Ghandi: ” An eye for an eye will make us all blind”

Killer Blow Hole

Photo by Rocco Piganelli, showing the victim standing next to the blow hole, moments before he was sucked in.

Blow holes are created by strong waves which cut into the rock and create sea caves that grow landwards and upwards into vertical shafts, opening into the surface of the rock.  The waves push air and water into the hole and these erupt upward causing an effect like a geyser.

Oahu blow hole

Blow hole in Punakaiki, New Zealand