Panda Tea for Health and Fitness: World's most expensive tea from Panda Dung

‘Panda Tea’ is what might be the upcoming craze for the health and fitness conscious people around the globe; but behold it will not be available for a those who can’t afford to spend almost 220,000 yuan ($35,000) for 500 grams (18 ounces).

An Yanshi with his experimental plants of world's most expensive tea

According to details; a Chinese citizen An Yanshi believed that panda poo is the key ingredient to produce the world’s most expensive tea, what he called ‘Panda Tea’ whose logo features a smiling panda wearing a bow tie and holding a steaming glass of green tea.

An Yanshi, 41, has purchased 11 tonnes of Panda dung from a panda breeding centre to fertilize a tea crop in the mountains of Sichuan province in southwestern China, home to the black and white bears.

An Yanshi - a calligraphy teacher at Sichuan University – has left his job to dedicate himself for this project for which he has planted the tea crop on just over a hectare (2.5 acres) of land. An no only hopes to make money from the tea but he aims to convince the world to protect the environment and replace chemical fertilizers with animal extracts, before it is too late.

The passionate former university professor dressed in a panda suit for his interview with AFP “Panda dung is rich in nutrition… and should be much better than chemical fertilizers,” An told AFP, as he sat at a traditional Chinese tea table drinking tea grown with cow manure.

The tea addict An got the idea to use panda faeces as fertilizer after attending a seminar last year where he came to know that the bears normally absorb less than 30 percent of the bamboo they consume, excreting the remaining 70 percent.

"World Diabetes Day" (Nov. 14) -- Raise Awareness as Diabetes Kills One Person Every Eight Seconds

"World Diabetes Day" is being observed today (Monday, Nov. 14) across the globe to raise public awareness about harmful effects of diabetes. The increased awareness will lead to more resources to fight the causes of diabetes and help fund research into improved treatment options.

Raise Awareness: Diabetes Kills One Person Every Eight Seconds

Started by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and World Health Organization (WHO), the Day is celebrated on 14 November to mark the birthday of Frederick Banting who, along with Charles Best, was instrumental in the discovery of insulin in 1922, a life-saving treatment for diabetes patients.

‘World Diabetes Day’ will be observed in Pakistan, like in other parts of the world, on Monday (today) in a bid to raise public awareness about harmful effects of diabetes and its complications so that the goal of healthy society can be achieved.

Diabetes kills one person every eight seconds, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said in his message on World Diabetes Day, adding that the cost of treatment amounts to a staggering $465 billion in the neighbourhood.

In context to this Day; a record has also been entered in the Guinness Book of World Records on Sunday when 3,573 people tested their blood glucose levels within just eight hours.

The even was organized by the Novo Nordisk Education Foundation (NNEF) in Bangalore, India based on the theme “Act on Diabetes Now”.

Managing trustee of Novo Nordisk Education Foundation Melvin D’Souza received the certificate from the official from the Guinness Book of Records, UK who monitored the event.

Giving Birth to a Baby Can Brighten You! - - New Study Findings

New mothers often grumble that their brain has turned into mush.

But having a baby may actually make you brighter, a study has found.

Research shows that a woman’s grey matter grows in the weeks and months after she has given birth.

And it’s the most doting mothers who experience the biggest burst of brain cells.

t is thought that the hormonal changes associated with having a baby ‘supercharge’ the brain, helping prepare women for the challenges ahead.

And the memory lapses that plague new mothers may be explained by a simpler cause – sleep deprivation.

The finding, from a small study published by the American Psychological Association, contradicts the long-held notion that motherhood addles a woman’s brain.

Neuroscientists from the respected Yale University in the U.S. scanned the brains of 19 new mothers in the weeks after they had given birth.

The results showed that the amount of grey matter – brain cells that crunch information – had increased by a small but significant amount by the time the women were three to four months into motherhood.

Such changes usually only occur after intense periods of learning or a brain injury or illness.

The areas that grew involve motivation, reasoning, judgement, the processing of emotions and feelings of satisfaction, and are key to the mother-child relationship.

Expansion in the brain’s ‘motivation area’, said the researchers, could lead to more nurturing, which would help babies survive and thrive physically, emotionally and cognitively.

The mothers who gushed most about their newborns tended to experience the biggest amounts of growth, the journal Behavioral Neuroscience reports.

It is unclear to what extent the changes are due to rises in hormones such as oestrogen and oxytocin that occur when a woman gives birth, and how much they are caused by chemical changes brought on by cuddling and playing with their babies.

Studies of adoptive mothers could help separate the two.

Siobhan Freegard, founder of the Netmums website, said that ‘supercharging’ made sense.

She added: ‘Nature has an amazing way of giving us things that we need. Having a baby is a momentous occasion, so it is not surprising the brain gets that little bit extra to equip us for the challenge.’

She suggested that any ‘baby brain’ memory lapses could be due to changing priorities, with the newborn being deemed more important than most other matters.

The results of the study echo research from last year which concluded that, contrary to popular belief, pregnancy does nothing to dim brainpower.

Professor Helen Christensen, of the Australian National University in Canberra, showed that women did as well on tests of memory and logic when pregnant as they had in previous years.

She said: ‘It really leaves the question open as to why women – and often their partners – think they have poor memories, when the best evidence we have is that they don’t.

‘Perhaps women notice minor lapses in mental ability and then attribute it to being pregnant because that is the most significant thing in their mind at the time.

‘Or sleep deprivation could mask the positive cognitive effect.’