A FEW SURPRISING FACTS

1.  What is the first prime number?.  2...then  3, 5, 7...etc.  Could be useful info if you're on a quiz show.

2.  How many pounds of bacteria do you have?  Yes, pounds.  A 200-pound person can have as much as 6 pounds and as little as 2 pounds.  Thus, a 100-pound person will have more than a pound at the minimum.  Just your gut has 100 trillion of these microbes.  How many cells in your body?  Amazing, but science does not know.  The estimates range from 10 trillion to 100 trillion.  Thus, in all probability, you have more bacteria than cells.  These "germs" mostly live in harmony with your body, and are mostly good and necessary.  Thus, when I take antibiotics, as I have been doing now for ten days because of my thumb, I worry about upsetting the dynamic bioequilibrium.   While we only have 22,000 genes, these bacteria contribute 8,000,000 genes to our biosystem.  These details can ruin a dinner conversation.

3.  Quoting Kofi Annan:

Pet food and health. Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion a year on pet food--$4 billion more than the estimated annual additional total needed to provide basic health and nutrition for everyone in the world.

$40 billion a year. It is estimated that the additional cost of achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education for all, basic health care for all, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food for all and clean water and safe sewers for all is roughly $40 billion a year--or less than 4% of the combined wealth of the 225 richest people in the world.

Sure, tax the top 1% more, but some solutions to world problems can be found here.

4.  You know about IQ, of course.  There is also EQ, emotional intelligence.  EQ counts for 58% of your daily success.  Incredibly, CEO's have the lowest EQ:

I found this so unbelievable, that I felt it was necessary to show an opposing point of view.  Want to know your EQ?  Don't go to this site.  I did and could not get a result.  I then went to Test Your Emotional Intelligence, and did very well.  But I didn't see an EQ level number, unless that 100% I saw was the actual score.  Chances are higher that this number showed I was 100% completed.  So in a quick PBS test, which took all of two minutes, I scored an 80.  Wow!

Well, my first stop on my Saturday walk was at Shimazu for shave ice.  The second photo was my passion fruit / ling hingmui / lychee flavored small, covered with haupia cream:

The largest size would qualify for monster status.  I then saw a star fruit plant, something I hadn't seen for 60 years.  A large tree grew in my grandfather's yard.

At Maemae Elementary School I identified with the following sign:

It occurred to me that my whole life has been driven by this philosophy.  I brought home a Japanese assortment, which I had with a Kirin beer:

Hirame (yellowtail) collar, musubi (rice ball),  kinpira gobo (burdock) and nishime.  The best part of the fish is around the belly (where o-toru, the fattiest part of tuna) and the region connecting the head to the body, which is the collar.

-
The death toll from Typhoon Bopha is approaching 600, and while now considerable weakened into a tropical storm, could well still dump a lot of rain in Northern Philippines.

Cyclone Claudia is at 115 MPH in the middle of the Indian Ocean, but will weaken before becoming a problem.