Adam Clare

Fun News

Since every Friday we try to cover more fun news than normal I figured today is a good day to announce that we will be changing the site a fair bit in the 2007.

I can’t say much about right now, because we are still looking into some new ideas. We are already looking at some better ways to streamline getting good news up here on the site. There is so much good news out in the world that is looking to be shared, and we want to make that process easy!

If you any ideas (or comments) please share them with me via email at adam [at] ThingsAreGood

Tea Time to Focus

Some new research (from a company that makes tea) has found that tea has a chemical that helps people be more attentive.

“Every cup of tea naturally contains the amino acid theanine. Tea is virtually the only dietary source of theanine, apart from the edible bay boletes mushroom, which explains why sometimes only tea will do.

The effects of 50mg theanine – the amount present in 2-3 cups of PG tips tea is known* to stimulate alpha brain waves which are associated with being relaxed yet alert. Alpha activity is thought to be important for the ability to focus attention.”

Soy May Help Combat MS

Researchers have discovered that in lab tests on animals soy helped restore the animal’s muscles. The animals had a multiple sclerosis (MS) like disease. Now they are theorizing that a similar treatment could work on humans. The soy-based substance that was used was Bowmann-Birk Inhibitor Concentrate (BBIC), and the results were promising.

“The scientists are not sure how BBIC works in multiple sclerosis, but they theorize that it suppresses the immune response to some extent, in addition to inhibiting proteases. Dr. Rostami sees BBIC as being used as a single therapy or in conjunction with other drugs in treating MS. He notes that because current therapies for MS involve injecting drugs such as interferon and copaxane, one goal is to develop an oral agent. BBIC could be given by pill daily.”

Calendar for Green WiFi

Eric Daams wrote in with this nugget of good information:

“The 2007 Travellerspoint Calendar is supporting the work of Green WiFi. All profits from sales will be donated to a Green WiFi project in a remote rurual community.”

You may remember Green WiFi from this ThingsAreGood post about them. So go on and get yourself a calendar.

The Urban Dictionary

My post yesterday on ugly creatures got a some people telling me that I spelt ‘the’ wrong. It was on purpose, to highlight the stupidity of the internet which in that context should be called “teh internets“.

Clearly, the people who were texting me and told me about the “typo” don’t know about geek humor. Well, here is the Urban Dictionary, a place to figure out what all those kids are saying. Some entries are NSFW and kinda tasteless, but hey, so is the internet.