Writing Feedback / An Article Summary: A Scottish Noblewoman and Her Palace [3]

This is a story (based on an article, The Good Duchess, written by Jane Dismore) about a Scottish noblewoman named Anne, the 3rd Duchess of Hamilton relatives who kept preserving her legendary family's heritage called Hamilton Palace in South Lanarkshire which constructed in 1591. Well-known locally as 'Good Duchess Anne' for her generosity, she was a remarkable lady in her era that bravely made essential decision on her own. She became the head of family in the age of 19 in a tricky political time.

In the beginning of Civil War in 1642, Anne obtained academic tuition and learnt estate management, including dealing with tenants, keeping accounts and supervising the chamberlains. This path then led her to acquire such expertise to maintain the palace for future generations. She initiated the renovation by hiring around 30 and 50 workers, mostly men, arranged hierarchically, with a secretary and a lawyer at the top. Since she had a great taste, the furniture was well-selected, mostly came from London, Scotland and sometimes Holland. Artwork as well as furniture was appropriately inventoried. Around 1684 to 1694, a foremost work, either for interior or exterior, called 'Great Design' was began. Three other sides of the palace were demolished and two new wings were built, while the interior was modified by a prominent carver named William Morgan. The innovative palace was accomplished around 1701 but Anne continued landscaping its grounds until her death in the age of 84.

The Hamilton palace had been sold after mining subsidence was discovered before its demolition, but part of it remains in Scotland. It is now displayed in the National Museum in Edinburgh as a tribute to Anne's 300 years of death. Recently, it provides valuable information about life in a noble household.

Source: historytoday

Writing Feedback / TED Summary: The Truth about Lying [2]

Speaking of trust, Pamela Meyer, an author of a book entitled Lie Spotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception, presented some truth about lying. According to her, truth number oneis lying is a cooperative act, that a liar has no power towards the utterance, this might affect someone when he/she agrees to believe. People are willing to give everything for whatever they are eager to. Thus, the best way to avoid deception is by recognizing the blind side and establishing appropriate preventions due to the fact that a good liar knows exactly how to trap the victims.

Truth number twois people are against lying but covertly for it, since lying is a part of humans' history. A person starts lying in a very early age. Babies tend to fake a cry only for looking attention, while a one-year old learns to conceal a bluff. Then, a five-year old is able to manipulate the situation by flattering whereas a nineteen-year old can be a master of cover-up. This is continuously happened until the end of the world because everyone makes mistakes and utilizes almost the same techniques for covering. As a quote by Donald Rumsfeld, a former Secretary of Defense of the United States says: "There are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know, but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we do not know we do not know."

Writing Feedback / An Article Summary: Your Boobs Start to Eat Themselves after Breastfeeding is Over By: Linda Geddes [3]

Women's breasts consist of a network of tube, wrapped by a layer of fatty tissue. Throughout the pregnancy, hormonal signals cause epithelial cells lining the ducts to proliferate and form ball-like structures namely alveoli, where milk is produced when the baby is born. However, once women stop breastfeeding, these structures perform a self-destructing process that involves immense cellular suicide and the elimination of the debris.

"One of the least understood aspects of this process is how the excess milk and large numbers of dead cells are removed from the mammary gland without substantial activation of the immune system," said a cancer biologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, named Matthew Naylor.

After lactation, the epithelial cells tend to eat their dead neighbors. Since a protein called Rac1 is vital for normal milk-making, as well as phagocytosis in immune cells, it might also be engaged in this breast remodeling. To examine, Nasreen Akhtar at the University of Sheffield and her partners conducted an experiment on female mice whose Rac1 gene was removed. This revealed that without Rac1, chronic inflammations were activated as well as swelling. Hence, although extended breastfeeding reduces overall cancer risk, women still have the threat of developing aggressive breast cancer for the first 5 to 10 years following pregnancy due to the inflammation during breast remodeling.

Writing Feedback / TED Summary: How to Stay Calm When You Know You'll be Stressed By Daniel Levitin [3]

Daniel Levitin, the speaker of TED Talk, also known as a neuroscientist by training, commenced his presentation by sharing his stressful moments such as loosing home keys in the middle of a frozen night and forgetting his passport in the rush hour of his important business trip. Those happened consecutively and made him panic as hell. At the moment when he met one of his friends, he was given a precious insight about confronting a hard circumstance, namely prevention. This is when someone is able to figure out what might go wrong and minimize the further risk.

When performing under a nerve-racking situation, the brain releases cortisol, a powerful hormone involved in the regulation of metabolism in the cells and helps people regulate stress within the body. Cortisol tends to raise the heart beat, boost adrenaline and create cloudy notion. As a result, someone is unable to think clearly. This is the right time to pause for a while and reconsider the possible impacts that might be occurred and how to prevent them. Prevention is effective to avoid foolish actions as well as for the decision-making.

Writing Feedback / TED Summary: A Rich Life with Less Stuff: The Minimalists [3]

"Happiness is just around the corner" was a perfect sentence to describe the luxurious life of Ryan Nicodemus, the moment when he had a bright career, sophisticated cars, and a fancy house. Unfortunately, the joyful he wished for had never been there. In contrary, he felt stressful, anxious, stagnant, and depressed. He started questioning the meaning of happiness and success. Luckily, Joshua Fields Millburn, whom then becomes his partner in running a website named theminimalists.com, did him a favor by introducing the concept of 'simplifying life', meaning that living with less stuff, less stress, fewer distraction, more time, more meaningful relationships, more growth and contributions. Not a perfect life as defined by the most of people as making much more money, purchasing more stuff, driving a bigger car and wearing a top designer's outfit, but an intentional life.

Furthermore, he began his life's reformation with a 'packing party' by putting his belongings which he managed to have over the last decades, into some huge boxes, then unpacked later only some items he needs for daily purposes. This finally woke him up, that how useless the rest of goods which supposed to make him happier.

Realizing the importance of his life experiences, he then decided to start writing on a blog with Joshua. Their first visitors were 52 people, and then turned into 500 users, and now over two million readers. From an ordinary blog to an extraordinary website which is intentionally designed to discover people who are rich in different ways, the ones who are willing to contribute to their communities, to encourage everyone to make life's priorities such as health, relationship, growth, and contribution to public rather than checking social media or shopping online, simply to buy worthless items.

Source: ...
By Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn

Writing Feedback / An Article Summary: Climate Change Could Destroy Wild Relatives of Cereals By 2070 [3]

A future study led by John Wiens, from the University of Arizona in the US, has been examining the capability of grasses including wild relatives of staple foods such as wheat and rice which provide half of all the calories burnt up by humans, to survive from the impact of global warming, especially rapid climate change. The researchers then initiate a 2070-prediction called 'troubling implications' since they have not able to make certain statement regarding the future of world food supplies.

In point of fact, 236 grass species are able to adapt to new climatic niches, the restricted areas where they can continue to exist, thus moving them to more appropriate weather condition might be helpful. However, this option becomes improper due to the estimation that the predicted rate of climate change will be 5,000 times faster than the estimated speed at which grasses could adapt to new niches. Furthermore, limited seed dispersal due to human settlements or mountains will be other obstacles to be faced. As conclusion, John Wiens emphasizes "This has several troubling implications, for both global biodiversity and human welfare."

Writing Feedback / TED Summary: How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain by Anita Collins [5]

In the last few decades, neuroscientists have made enormous breakthroughs in comprehending how the brain works by observing it in real time situation with appliances such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner by involving people who listened to music and played musical instruments as the respondents. When the researchers monitored those who were listening to music, they saw fireworks on multiple areas of their brain related at once to understand the elements such as melody and rhythm and then put them all back together as musical experience. Consequently, listening to music engages the brain into some interesting activities. While in musicians' brain movements, the neuroscientists noticed multiple areas of the brain lighted out simultaneously in processing different information. This equals to a full-body workout as the neuroscientists explain that playing musical instruments will practically engage every area of the brain, especially the visual, motoric and auditory functions. It will also strengthen these brain's functions and enable the musicians to utilize those strengths to various activities.

Therefore, playing musical instruments is able to increase the volume and motions of the brain's corpus callosum, the bridge between the two hemispheres. It also allows musicians to solve problems more effectively and creatively in both academic and social studying. Thus, musicians often have higher level of exact function, a category of interlink tasks including planning, approaching, and attention to detail, which requires simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects.

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=R0JKCYZ8hng

Writing Feedback / 'Mind Trap' - when someone's mental strength has been washed away by negative thoughts [2]

TED Summary: The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong by Amy Morin

According to Amy Morin, a practiced therapist, there is a term called 'Mind Trap', that is when someone's mental strength has been washed away by negative thoughts. She states that there are three Distractive Believes caused people less-effective. The first one is unhealthy believe about ourselves. It is when people are likely to magnify their misfortunes by complaining over and over about their terrible conditions. Secondly called unhealthy believe about others. Most of people assume that others might be able to control and validate their decision in life. They start comparing their achievements or envying others over their possessions. The last one is unhealthy believe about the world as people claim the world owes them for every misery they have suffered from.

In correlated to the Distractive Believes, Amy suggests Brain Training as the appropriate problem solving. She highlights the wish for the world to be fair is impossible since it does not work that way. When facing such a hard time, go through and conquer it!

Source:

Writing Feedback / Article Summary: Groundbreaking New Study May have Identified the Cause of Crohn's Disease [2]

A good news for at least 565.000 Americans who suffer chronic disease as Case Western Reserve University has announced a finding regarding a fungus identified as a common threat in patients' body. It might be a great step in order to find better treatments and a cure. This study compares the fungi and bacteria level in patients and found two bacteria namely Escherichia coli and Serratia marcescens and one fungus namely Candida tropicalis. The researchers explain "the presence of all three in the sick family members was significantly higher compared to their healthy relatives, suggesting that the bacteria and fungus interact in the intestines." However, even with this result of research, the researchers are still unable to specify the main precipitators and contributors of chronic disease since sharing diet and environment could affect, as well.

Writing Feedback / An Article Summary: Brad Pitt Says He's Skipping His Latest Film Premiere to Focus on His Family [3]

Brad Pitt, a famed Hollywood celebrity, has decided to focus on his current "family situation" instead of attending the premiere of his latest movie, Voyage of Time. Through his second press conference, after Angelina Jolie filed for divorce, according to People magazine, he stated "I'm very grateful to be part of such a fascinating and educational project, but I'm currently focused on my family situation and don't want to distract attention away from this extraordinary film, which I encourage everyone to see."

Jolie registered for divorce from Pitt on 19th September 2016, she has claimed "irreconcilable differences" as the reason of the divorce. Since then, it has been revealed that this outstanding couple had officially separated on 15th September 2016. Both, Jolie and Pitt take this matter gravely and will not let their children down or get involved in that complicated situation.

Writing Feedback / TED Summary: The Benefits of a Bilingual Brain by Mia Nacamulli [3]

Language ability consists of two divisions, namely Active and Passive part. Speaking and Writing belong to the Active part while Listening and Reading belong to the Passive part. Those who are bilinguals have balanced skills, thus most bilinguals around the globe, know and utilize their languages in varying proportion, depending on their circumstances. Having an easier time when traveling, watching movies without subtitle, having healthier brain are several benefits of being a bilingual or multilingual.

Bilinguals can be classified into three general types. Firstly, Compound Bilinguals, those who develop two linguistic codes simultaneously. Meaning that acquiring and using two languages naturally due to the environment condition. A kid who migrates from one country to another country then acquires both languages of those nations. Coordinate Bilingual is the second type. Those in this type, work with two concepts of language. For instance, they use English in the school but utilize Spanish to speak with friends and at home. The last type is Subordinate Bilingual. The people that categorize into this type are mostly the elderly who have already acquired their first language. They tend to apply the second language by filtering it to their primary language.

Related to those previous conditions, a critical period hypothesis states that children are easier to acquire languages due to the plasticity of their developing brain. This research also highlights that learning multiple language is good to avoid Alzheimer and Dementia. Bilingualism might not be able to make people smarter, but makes brain healthier, complex and actively engaged.

Writing Feedback / An Article Summary: Everything You've Heard about Alcohol being Good for You is a Lie By Elizabeth N [3]

Providing a scientific research regarding the benefit of alcohol's consumption is a current persuading technique by the alcohol industry to attract more customers. As The American Heart Association states that alcohol can raise good cholesterol, provide the body with antioxidants, and reduce blood clotting that can lead to heart attack or stroke. There is also a statement which claims those who follow a Mediterranean diet, which permits wine-consumption, appear to live longer.

In fact, there is no reliable data regarding this controversial situation. Those research institutions tend to promote the benefits of alcohol for money-making purposes rather than publish different point of views as comparison. They do not care about the negative impacts which customers might risk for, such as heart damage and other related diseases.

Surprisingly, the World Health Organization (WHO) classifies alcohol as a known carcinogen in the very same category as asbestos, formaldehyde, tobacco, and processed meat. Alcohol does not just increase the risk of cancer but actually causes at least seven types of cancer. Therefore, be aware of what you hear!

Writing Feedback / TED Summary: Changing the Face of Fashion By Mariah Idrissi [6]

When she is chosen as a Hijabi model, a model who wears veils to cover her head and hair, represents the way a muslimah gets dressed, Mariah Idrissi believes that something small is able to give major impacts as the people around her start questioning her decision. How do you feel?, how is your parent's response? why women (muslimah) are forced to wear hijab?, why do men make you wear hijab?, why you are pressed but still follow the religion?, Is there something wrong with the fashion industry?, are the common bizarre questions she deals with.

Mariah comes up with a logical explanation that a muslimah who wears hijab is not a representation of pressure. By wearing hijab, she is still able to be her own self. Hijab is not a limitation in doing positive activities. She highlights that she does not need the validation of Social Media or others regarding her appearance. Hijab is the way of beautifying women in Islam as well as a part of today's fashion industry.

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=1CJThRWoXt4

Writing Feedback / An Article Summary: William, Kate, George, and Charlotte Arrive in Canada for the Royal Tour [2]

The famous royal couple, Prince William and Duchess Kate who dressed elegantly in blue, has arrived in Canada for a royal tour with their two adorable kids; Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau; Governor General of Canada, David Johnston and his wife, Sharon Johnston; Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon; Premier of British Columbia Christy Clark and her son, Hamish, are the welcoming committee.

The whole family members appear incredibly amazing. The tailored suit of Prince William has successfully revealed his masculinity. The oldest son, Prince George, looks cheerful as usual. This photogenic little boy is always able to attract people around him, especially the journalists. While his gorgeous little sister, Princess Charlotte, whose chubby cheek becomes even cuter with her smiling face, seems a little bit tired. She sticks on her mother's arm. This perfect family has been a role model today.

Writing Feedback / The only way for women to show their qualities is by getting involved in economy and politics [2]

TED Summary: What Islam Really Says about Women By: Alaa Murabit

Experiencing a school of a traditional city in Libya in the age of 15 was the path which led Alaa Murabit; a moslem activist, to start questioning the role of women in her religion. She was introduced to two cultural aspects of religion namely 'Haram'(religiously prohibited) and 'Aib' (culturally inappropriate). After having a lot of conversations and a heavy debating, she then decided to conduct a research. Through her research, she found an astonishing fact regarding a well-known muslimah namely Khadijah, whose participation in economic sector was vital in Islamic movement. This fact proves that women have the same right as men in Islam. Thus, if women are equal in the eyes of God, they should be equal in the eyes of men, as well. Then why there are so many restrictions for women. Men domination is probably the most logical answer. Men have become the decision maker for religion institutions for years; they have been controlling 'the spiritual messages' to create policy in their wills. This condition has caused miss-perception, miss-used, and manipulation of religious scripts. People then tend to hide in the name of religion when giving judgment.

The only way for women to show their qualities is by getting involved in such economic and politic activities in order to begin social and cultural changes. Alaa Murabit utilizes Qur'an scripts and Hadist in her campaign to persuade other women and as a counterattack. She believes that by changing the 'messages', women are able to find alternatives to interact, as men do.