Coming to America: Shteyngart writes first memoir

At age 41, Gary Shteyngart seems awfully young to be writing a memoir. But readers of "Little Failure" soon discover that he's been precocious all his life.

The book is Shteyngart's funny, often moving, chronicle of his family's journey from St. Petersburg, Russia, then known as Leningrad, to the U.S. in 1979. It's also a brutally honest record of his personal transformation from fearful, sickly child to angry, self-destructive youth to professional success and mensch.

Part of the wave of Soviet refuseniks, the Shteyngarts settled in Queens, N.Y., when young Igor -- Gary was the English approximation -- was just 7. Soon he was packed off to Hebrew school, where he was bullied by other kids and indoctrinated with religious Zionism. For a while, his father beat him, too.

Then one day, the geeky kid, who dreamed of being a cosmonaut in Russia and inhaled Isaac Asimov almost from the moment his family landed at JFK Airport, was asked to read aloud in class from his schoolboy attempt at a science fiction story.

Classmates were enthralled, his ostracism ended and the budding young writer appeared to be well on his way to the career that would bring him great fortune. But years of turmoil lay ahead: drugs, alcohol, failed romance, bad behavior, unsuitable jobs.

Meanwhile, he was also morphing from Reagan Republican to Obama Democrat, unthinking religious partisan to critic of Israel, drunk and stoned "Scary Gary" to loving husband and son.

Shteyngart gives a big shout out to psychoanalysis -- 12 years, four times a week -- for helping him learn to manage his unexamined sadness and rage.

As he prepared to write this book, he went back to Russia with his parents to try to plumb the depths of their pain. The urge to write a memoir was great, he explains, because of his overwhelming fear that he would die before they did, depriving him of the chance to express his love and gratitude.

The title, "Little Failure," is a nickname his mother bestowed on him soon after they moved to Queens. (His father called him "Snotty.") The mocking nature illustrates what he describes throughout the book -- the "supposedly funny banter with a twist of the knife." It's an ironic title, as well, because Shteyngart, the quintessential overachieving immigrant son, has succeeded beyond any parent's wildest dreams.

@koike_takafumi

Worldfloat social network now offering 5,000 free video tutorials for students

Worldfloat, India's homegrown social networking site with nearly 45 million users, has introduced free video tutorials for schools and university students.

"We have introduced a new feature. We are now offering over 5,000 video courses and tutorials for schools as well as higher education," Worldfloat founder Pushkar Mahatta said.

He said initially the focus is on the courses related to computer science, and that other areas like accounting and law, would gradually be covered.

"This is the first such initiative in India. Nobody else offers such a wide range of video tutorials, and that too free of charge," he said.

Through the tutorials, students can now learn basics of computers as well as advanced languages like Java and PHP.

"Normally these computer languages are very expensive to learn from institutes like NIIT. Some of these courses can cost up to Rs.1 lakh a year. Worldfloat is offering these video tutorials for free," he said.

Mahatta said the free video tutorials were also available for schools from class 1 to class 12 for all subjects of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Indian Council of Secondary Education (ICSE) boards.

Mahatta said the videos were of high quality and the standards were comparable with the top educational institutions offering such courses.

Apart from social networking, Worldfloat also provides a search engine, free online movies and news services.

It recently also launched a comparison engine to predict stock market prices.

Mahatta said the company would soon introduce video tutorials to prepare for entrance examinations like the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for top engineering and medical institutions and the Common Admission Test (CAT) and Management Aptitude Test (MAT) for management institutes.

"Worldfloat is the first social network in the world to create a social network and video learning school and university on the same platform," Mahatta said.

"Internet technology has become very advanced now. Why should parents be still paying tuition fees when technology can get the tuition videos for free," he added.

無料動画

Stem Cells Offer Clues to Reversing Hair Loss

Regenerative medicine may offer ways to banish baldness that don’t involve toupees. The lab of University of Southern California (USC) scientist Krzysztof Kobielak has published a trio of papers in the journals Stem Cells and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that describe some of the factors that determine when hair grows, when it stops growing and when it falls out.

Authored by Kobielak, postdoctoral fellow Eve Kandyba and their colleagues, the three publications focus on stem cells located in hair follicles (hfSCs), which can regenerate hair follicles as well as skin. These hfSCs are governed by the signaling pathways BMP and Wnt— which are groups of molecules that work together to control cell functions, including the cycles of hair growth.

The most recent paper, published in the journal Stem Cells, focuses on how the gene Wnt7b activates hair growth. Without Wnt7b, hair is much shorter.

The Kobielak lab first proposed Wnt7b’s role in a January 2013 PNAS publication. The paper identified a complex network of genes— including the Wnt and BMP signaling pathways— controlling the cycles of hair growth. Reduced BMP signaling and increased Wnt signaling activate hair growth. The inverse— increased BMP signaling and decreased Wnt signaling— keeps the hfSCs in a resting state.

Both papers earned the recommendation of the Faculty of 1000, which rates top articles by leading experts in biology and medicine.

A third paper published in Stem Cells in September 2013 further clarified the workings of the BMP signaling pathway by examining the function of two key proteins, called Smad1 and Smad5. These proteins transmit the signals necessary for regulating hair stem cells during new growth.

“Collectively, these new discoveries advance basic science and, more importantly, might translate into novel therapeutics for various human diseases,” said Kobielak. “Since BMP signaling has a key regulatory role in maintaining the stability of different types of adult stem cell populations, the implication for future therapies might be potentially much broader than baldness — and could include skin regeneration for burn patients and skin cancer.”
CHAP UP口コミ

Profollica Review - the Best Hair Loss and Hair Regrowth Treatment for Men

The new hair recovery product Profollica has recently gone through a clinical study which has shown various positive effects of Profollica on hair growth. The product is specially formulated with DHT blockers to combat male pattern baldness. While most of the hair loss products contain prescription drugs which cause serious side effects, Profollica contains only safe ingredients which block the over-production of DHT to combat hair loss. This 2 step formula comes with an Activator gel which is backed by a clinical study that proves its safety. The key ingredient in Activator Gel Trichogen had undergone through a 112 days clinical study which showed significant results.

As found in the clinical study, about 90% of the participants experienced a reduction in overall hair loss, 87% reported a significant hair regrowth, 40% noticed a reduced hair loss after shampooing and combing. According to a research study conducted by the Swedish Medical Products Agency, the use of Propecia for hair growth may result in irreversible sexual dysfunctions. Worst of all, the users of propecia experienced these side effects even after the discontinuation of Propecia.

As Profollica is all natural with no prescription drugs, it is now recommended by doctors and hair experts. Dr. Karen Vieira says about Profollica, “Traditional options for hair loss include drugs and surgery, but both have significant drawbacks. They can cause sexual dysfunctions even after discontinuing. The Profollica system has none of these drawbacks as it uses all natural ingredients that were carefully selected for safety and efficacy. Nutrients in the gel include zinc and vitamin B3, each with research indicating a positive effect on hair growth.”

Since the over-production of DHT is the main reason for hair loss according to research, Profollica helps combat DHT formation by blocking up some special type of enzymes that encourage the production of DHT. In simple words, it reverses up the follicle miniaturization process, strengthening the hair follicle to bring back it to the life. Profollica is backed by a 60 days guarantee to allow users achieve desired results. Find more reviews about the product on the official website.

【若はげ完全解決!!!】若はげだった僕が仲間に紹介したい改善方法と対策

School health program helps kids get active

Investing in a broad school health program could lead to in-school and at-home benefits for students, a new Canadian study hints.


Children increased their daily physical activity on both school days and weekends in the years after schools hired a full-time health facilitator and set healthy living goals, researchers found.


"It shows that if you deliver a school program well, kids not only will be active more during the school hours when they are in the hands of the teachers but they're also being trained and understand that it's important to be physically active at other times," Paul J. Veugelers said.








He worked on the study at the University of Alberta's School of Public Health in Edmonton.


School programs aimed at improving fitness and reducing obesity have produced mixed results. No program had been proven to meaningfully affect how much children exercise outside of school hours, the researchers noted.


They organized an intervention targeted toward elementary schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Edmonton. The program was implemented in 10 schools in the beginning of 2008 and continued through the 2010-2011 school year.


The researchers assessed the needs of each school and designed activities to get kids moving based on those needs. Some schools had activity groups designed especially for girls, for instance, and others hosted yoga or dance classes to get less-competitive students exercising. Each school also had a full-time health facilitator to teach classes and organize activities.


To see how much kids at those schools were actually exercising, Veugelers and his colleagues asked approximately 200 fifth-graders to wear a pedometer for one week in 2009 and another 200 to begin wearing the device in 2011, further into the program.


For comparison, they also had fifth-graders at 20 schools where the program wasn't implemented wear pedometers at the same time. Children at those schools generally came from wealthier families and fewer of them were overweight.


Students from both groups of schools upped their physical activity during the two-year period. But gains were bigger at schools that had implemented the health program. Children's average daily steps during a typical week increased by 21 percent - from about 10,700 to 13,000 steps - at those schools.


At comparison schools, children increased their physical activity by 7 percent - from 12,300 to 13,100 steps per day.


Improvements were seen on both weekdays and weekends, the researchers wrote Monday in Pediatrics.


"One of the big strengths of this study is they objectively measured how much physical activity improved," Dr. Kevin C. Harris said. A pediatric cardiologist at BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, Harris has studied school physical activity programs but wasn't involved in the new research.


"It's very encouraging that this actually increased the level of physical activity," he told Reuters Health.


"The success of the program comes really from connecting everybody," including school staff, teachers, parents and students, Veugelers said.


One downside of the intervention, he said, is that it's "not an inexpensive program." The upside is that it seems to work even in poorer, more challenging schools.





"These were not the easiest schools," Veugelers told Reuters Health. "If we can deliver it in those schools, I think we can deliver it in other schools."


入学式や卒業式の子供服は人気ショップで晴れ舞台をコーディネート

Variety The Children’s Charity helps autistic child

VANCOUVER -- When Anna Kouhpayeh describes her life attempting to cope with her son Omid’s autism she is describing a nightmare.

Diagnosed with severe autism at the age of two, Omid had neurological and sensory disorders that by the age of seven — he is now 11 — had brought his mother to the edge of collapse.

He needed 24-hour supervision, was afraid of noises, suffered from high anxiety, was afraid to go out in public, wouldn’t wear clothes, would defecate where and whenever, was non-verbal, couldn’t follow direction, wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat sitting down but ran around with food in his mouth risking choking, walked on his toes, had tantrums and screaming fits that went on for hours.

The list goes on and is stupefying.

“Everyday I would take him to school when he was five and I’d just sit outside in the car and wait,” said Kouhpayeh.

It would usually take just half an hour before she was summoned to come back in and remove him.

“Once they were about to call 911 because he was on the floor screaming so much that they thought he needed medical help,” she said.

It was a life spent weeping.

“He was my first child. I didn’t know what to do with him. I couldn’t speak to him. It was like talking to the wall,” she said.

Kouhpayeh was left with home-schooling as the public system was unable to handle Omid.

For two years she tried but it was beyond her powers to help him and his need for constant attention had prevented her from working and reduced her to despair.

An online search for help led her to PALS Autism School Society at 2409 East Pender that uses applied behaviour analysis to help autistic children learn but as she wasn’t working she couldn’t afford the fees.

That would have been that but she applied to Variety The Children’s Charity for help and in 2010, when he was seven, Omid entered PALS as the result a $1,500 Variety grant which has been renewed each year.

And the result?

A miracle, said his mother.

“It’s been amazing. Without this school I don’t think I could have lasted. It saved my life, saved us both,” she said.

“Omid can now follow direction and he’s listening. He’s still non-verbal but he uses signs to communicate. Now he’s like a normal person. When you see him you wouldn’t recognize that he’s got autism.

“He goes to school, keeps his clothes on, goes to the bathroom, and he loves music. Before I had no life and he had no life.

“I am just so grateful for what Variety has done for us. He is at school now so I can work full-time and support my family a little bit,” said Kouhpayeh who works as an interior designer.

As an indication of how far Omid has come in four years, he was able to join his class at Playland last year — perhaps the noisiest most visually stimulating environment available — where he was able to enjoy the rides and have fun like other children.

“Omid is learning so much. He might even become a little bit independent,” said his mother.

In addition to helping the family with yearly fees, Variety The Children’s Charity also supports PALS summer program and summer camp which Omid has also attended.

【現役ママモデルが選ぶ!!】オシャレで可愛い子供服・ベビー服通販

Socially Conscious Sprouts of Change Launches Delivering Children’s Clothing, Philanthropy, and Cultural Education

Sprouts of Change, a new children’s clothing company based outside of Boston, officially launched this week offering unique value for parents and their children. The company provides quality children’s clothing and donates a gift to improve the lives of children around the world. Once a purchase is made, customers receive a code enabling parents and their children to explore information on the company website about the location where their donation was made.


Sprouts of Change set out to produce quality clothing that can make a tangible difference in people’s lives. “At the core, our focus is to improve the lives of our children,” states Sprouts of Change Founder and CEO, Jeff Morton. “We wanted to create a company rooted in this principle, using commerce to positively impact children’s lives, while providing real and meaningful learning.”


Utility, philanthropy, and education stand as the three core components of the company enabling the intended positive impact to be experienced by purchasing parents, their children, and child beneficiaries.


For utility, the company strives for high quality, comfortable clothes that children can wear every day. Currently, the company is offering their first line; polo shirts. Privately designed and produced, the 100% cotton shirts feature a unique, tagless cut. Available in sizes 3T to 7, each shirt has the low-profile Sprouts of Change logo.


The philanthropic donation takes shape in two primary ways. Through partnership with San Francisco-based Project Night Night, a nonprofit providing childhood essentials to homeless youth, Sprouts of Change is able to provide for a Night Night package with comforting stuffed animals, blankets, and books to children in homeless shelters. Through a similar collaboration with Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, an organization assisting victims of child slavery and human trafficking in Vietnam, Sprouts of Change donates school uniforms to children to help provide the gift of education. “We are lucky to work with such great organizations,” commented Morton, “the amount of positive impact they have brought thus far inspires us to continue to fully support them improving the lives of the most vulnerable.”


Sprouts of Change aims to add the educational component to the traditional “buy one, give one” model, to allow for lessons in sharing and the importance of caring for others. The company’s goal is to enable children to participate in this sharing and provide an opportunity for meaningful learning to occur not just with the value of giving but regarding other areas and people of the world. The purchase enables parents and children to enter into a rewarding experience together, promoting this learning to take place through time spent together.


Sprouts of Change products are currently sold on their website and will feature in boutique children’s clothing stores throughout the country starting in the spring of 2014.


【人気の子供服】ベビー服|貰って嬉しい1位子供服通販.com