Uses of Salts

1. Soak stained hankies in salt water before washing.
2. Sprinkle salt on your shelves to keep ants away.
3. Soak fish in salt water before descaling; the scales will come off easier.
4. Put a few grains of rice in your salt shaker for easier pouring.
5. Add salt to green salads to prevent wilting..
6. Test the freshness of eggs in a cup of salt water; fresh eggs sink; bad ones float.
7. Add a little salt to your boiling water when cooking eggs; a cracked egg will stay in its shell this way.
8. A tiny pinch of salt with egg whites makes them beat up fluffier.
9. Soak wrinkled apples in a mildly salted water solution to perk them up.
10. Rub salt on your pancake griddle and your flapjacks won’t stick.
11. Soak toothbrushes in salt water before you first use them; they will last longer.
12. Use salt to clean your discolored coffee pot.
13. Mix salt with turpentine to whiten you bathtub and toilet bowl.
14. Soak your nuts in salt brine overnight and they will crack out of their shells whole. Just tap the end of the shell with a hammer to break it open easily.
15. Boil clothespins in salt water before using them and they will last longer.
16. Clean brass, copper and pewter with paste made of salt and vinegar, thickened with flour
17. Add a little salt to the water your cut flowers will stand in for a longer life.
18. Pour a mound of salt on an ink spot on your carpet; let the salt soak up the stain.
19. Clean your iron by rubbing some salt on the damp cloth on the ironing surface.
20. Adding a little salt to the water when cooking foods in a double boiler will make the food cook faster.
21. Use a mixture of salt and lemon juice to clean piano keys.
22. To fill plaster holes in your walls, use equal parts of salt and starch, with just enough water to make a stiff putty.
23. Rinse a sore eye with a little salt water.
24. Mildly salted water makes an effective mouthwash. Use it hot for a sore throat gargle.
25. Dry salt sprinkled on your toothbrush makes a good tooth polisher.
26. Use salt for killing weeds in your lawn.
27. Eliminate excess suds with a sprinkle of salt.
28. A dash of salt in warm milk makes a more relaxing beverage.
29. Before using new glasses, soak them in warm salty water for awhile.
30. A dash of salt enhances the taste of tea. ?
31. Salt improves the taste of cooking apples.
32. Soak your clothes line in salt water to prevent your clothes from freezing to the line; likewise, use salt in your final rinse to prevent the clothes from freezing.
33. Rub any wicker furniture you may have with salt water to prevent yellowing.
34. Freshen sponges by soaking them in salt water.
35. Add raw potatoes to stews and soups that are too salty.
36. Soak enamel pans in salt water overnight and boil salt water in them next day to remove burned-on stains.
37. Clean your greens in salt water for easier removal of dirt.
38. Gelatin sets more quickly when a dash of salt is added.
39. Fruits put in mildly salted water after peeling will not discolor.
40. Fabric colors hold fast in salty water wash..
41. Milk stays fresh longer when a little salt is added.
42. Use equal parts of salt and soda for brushing your teeth.
43. Sprinkle salt in your oven before scrubbing clean.
44. Soaked discolored glass in a salt and vinegar solution to remove stains..
45. Clean greasy pans with a paper towel and salt.
46. Salty water boils faster when cooking eggs.
47. Add a pinch of salt to whipping cream to make it whip more quickly.
48. Sprinkle salt in milk-scorched pans to remove odor.
49. A dash of salt improves the taste of coffee..
50. Boil mismatched hose in salty water and they will come out matched.
51. Salt and soda will sweeten the odor of your refrigerator.
52. Cover wine-stained fabric with salt; rinse in cool water later.
53. Remove offensive odors from stove with salt and cinnamon.
54. A pinch of salt improves the flavor of cocoa.
55. To remove grease stains in clothing, mix one part salt to four parts alcohol.
56. Salt and lemon juice? Removes mildew.
57. Sprinkle salt between sidewalk bricks where you don’t want grass growing.
58. Polish your old kerosene lamp with salt for a better look.
59. Remove odors from sink drainpipes with a strong, hot solution of salt water.
60. If a pie bubbles over in your oven, put a handful of salt on top of the spilled juice. The mess won’t smell and will bake into a dry, light crust which will wipe off easily when the oven has cooled

Trouble sleeping? Maybe it’s your iPad

 
There’s growing concern that the glowing screens of laptops and the iPad
may affect sleep if used right before bedtime.

(CNN) — J.D. Moyer decided recently to conduct a little experiment with
artificial light and his sleep cycle.

The sleep-deprived Oakland, California, resident had read that strong
light — whether it’s beaming down from the sun or up from the screens
of personal electronics — can reset a person’s internal sleep clock.

So, for one month, whenever the sun set, he turned off all the gadgets
and lights in his house — from the bulb hidden in his refrigerator to
his laptop computer.

It worked. Instead of falling asleep at midnight, Moyer’s head was
hitting the pillow as early as 9 p.m. He felt so well-rested during the
test, he said, that friends remarked on his unexpected morning perkiness.

“I had the experience, a number of times, just feeling kind of
unreasonably happy for no reason. And it was the sleep,” he said. “Sure,
you can get by with six or seven hours, but sleeping eight or nine hours
— it’s a different state of mind.”

Moyer may be onto something.

More than ever, consumer electronics — particularly laptops,
smartphones and Apple’s new iPad — are shining bright light into our
eyes until just moments before we doze off.

Now there’s growing concern that these glowing gadgets may actually fool
our brains into thinking it’s daytime. Exposure can disturb sleep
patterns and exacerbate insomnia, some sleep researchers said in interviews.

“Potentially, yes, if you’re using [the iPad or a laptop] close to
bedtime … that light can be sufficiently stimulating to the brain to
make it more awake and delay your ability to sleep,” said Phyllis Zee, a
neuroscience professor at Northwestern University and director of the
school’s Center for Sleep & Circadian Biology.

“And I think more importantly, it could also be sufficient to affect
your circadian rhythm. This is the clock in your brain that determines
when you sleep and when you wake up.”

Such concerns are not entirely new: One sleep researcher said Thomas
Edison created these problems when he invented the light bulb. But
they’ve been revived by the popularity of Apple’s new slate computer,
the iPad, which many consumers say is good for reading at night in bed,
when the brain thinks the environment should be dark.

Unlike paper books or e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle, which does
not emit its own light, the iPad’s screen shines light directly into the
reader’s eyes from a relatively close distance.

That makes the iPad and laptops more likely to disrupt sleep patterns
than, say, a television sitting across the bedroom or a lamp that
illuminates a paper book, both of which shoot far less light straight
into the eye, researchers said.

“I wish people would just take a boring book — an old-fashioned book —
and [read] by a lamp. Make sure that it’s not too bright — just so you
can read,” said Alon Avidan, associate director of the Sleep Disorders
Center at UCLA. “And if they do that, I think they’ll feel a lot better
and they’ll be able to relax.”

These concerns stem from the fact that people are biologically wired to
be awake when the sun is out.

When receptors in our eyes are hit with bright light for an extended
period of time, they send a message to the brain saying it’s time to be
awake. The brain, in turn, stops secreting a hormone called melatonin,
which makes people sleepy and helps regulate the internal sleep clock.

Normally, our brains start giving us that hormonal sleep aid at about 9
or 10 p.m. But if bright lights are shining in our eyes, that may not
happen as planned. That’s what worries some sleep researchers.

To make matters worse, our eyes are particularly sensitive to blue
light, which is common during the day, but is less so in the evening.
The fact that computer screens and phones tend to put out a lot of blue
light could intensify the screen’s awakening effects, even if the light
isn’t all that bright.

There’s no exact formula for determining how much light is needed to
reset a person’s internal clock. Several factors are at play, including
how bright the light is, what hues are present, how large the light
source is, how far it is from the person’s eyes and what that person
tends to do during the day.

A farmer who is exposed to sunlight all day long would likely be less
sensitive to artificial light at night than a person who works in a
dimmer office environment, said Mariana Figueiro, an assistant professor
and director of the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, New York.

While there has been research to show that light — even artificial
light — can affect human melatonin production, no research has been
done specifically on whether the iPad and laptops disrupt sleep cycles.

Some researchers are skeptical of the link.

“I don’t think it’s an area of concern. I think it’s an area of personal
preference,” said Mary Lou Jackson, director of vision rehabilitation at
the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, which is affiliated with
Harvard Medical School.

People shouldn’t be concerned about reading on backlit electronic
devices at night unless they’re experiencing insomnia, in which case
they should dim the screen, Jackson said.

Several iPad owners contacted by CNN said they enjoy reading on the
device before bed and haven’t noticed sleep problems.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

George Brainard, director of the Light Research Program at Thomas
Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, said it’s more
important for people to turn off their computers and gadgets at night —
so they have a dark sleeping environment — than to worry about reading
in bright conditions before bed.

Electronics with glowing screens may create problems for people who are
susceptible to insomnia, he said, but that research hasn’t shown the
link yet.

“Can we jump from [the available research] to an iPad? Not quite yet,”
he said. “But you can begin to see the potential is there for low levels
of light to potentially have a biological effect.”

Avidian, from UCLA, said several factors play into how well a person
sleeps. It’s possible iPads and laptops, when used late at night, may
delay sleep because they require more focus and provide more potential
distractions than books, he said.

Still, the possible relationship between reading at night on backlit
screens and insomnia has led some sleep doctors to prescribe zany
solutions for patients.

Figueiro, the professor at RPI, prescribes sunglasses with orange lenses.

“Wearing these orange glasses definitely will take away any of the
[blue] light that the circadian system is sensitive to,” she said. “Your
circadian system would basically be blind.”

Zee, the Northwestern doctor, said she has recommended the same. She
also says people who have trouble sleeping should keep iPads and laptops
out of the bedroom. It’s best to stop using them one or two hours before
going to bed, she said.

Changing your computer or iPad’s screen settings to make the display
dimmer or take blue hues out of the display at night may also help,
researchers said.

A free, downloadable program called F.lux will automatically adjust the
hues on your computer screen to eliminate blues when the sun starts
setting — and then replace them when it rises again.

The program, which was developed by a computer programmer and an artist,
is not scientific. Sleep researchers said they are unsure of its actual
impact.

Moyer, the Oakland resident who turned off all of his gadgets and lights
at sundown for a month in 2009, said he hasn’t kept up the rigid routine.

But he has applied some lessons from his lights-off-at-night experiment.

For one, he uses the computer less at night. And when he needs to use
it, he employs F.lux to make the screen more red and less blue.

He says he’s happier and  more rested for it.
.

__,_._,___

ATTENTION : KILLER HOUSE PLANT

Please read forwarded message below. The message is true.
The author almost lost his daughter who put a piece of the leaf of this plant in her mouth and her tongue swelled to the point of suffocation.
This is one plant but there are others with the same characteristics of coloring.
Those are also poisonous and we should get rid of them. Please watch out for our children.
 As we all leave our children home in the hands of the helpers, we should give them a safe environment where they can play.
“This plant that we have in our homes and offices is extremely dangerous!
This plant is common in Kenya , Rwanda , Uganda in plant nurseries, many offices and  homes.
It is a deadly poison, mainly for the children. It can kill a kid in less than a minute and an adult in 15 minutes.

GOD MAKE ME A TV !

 A teacher from Primary School asks her students to write an essay about what they would like God to do for them.
At the end of the day, while marking the essays,she read one that made her very emotional.
Her husband, who had just walked in, saw her crying and asked her:- ‘What happened?’
She answered ‘Read this. It is one of my students’ essay.’
‘Oh God, tonight I ask you something very special :
Make me into a television. I want to take its place and live like the TV in my house.
Have my own special place, And have my family around ME.
To be taken seriously when I talk….
I want to be the centre of attention and be heard without interruptions or questions.
I want to receive the same special care that the TV receives even when it is not working.
Have the company of my dad when he arrives home from work, even when he is tired.
And I want my mom to want me when she is sad and upset, instead of ignoring me…
And… I want my brothers to fight to be with me…
I want to feel that family just leaves everything aside, every now and then, just to spend some time with me.
And last but not least, ensure that I can make them all happy and entertain them…
Lord I don’t ask you for much… I just want to live like a TV.’

At that moment the husband said :- ‘My God, poor kid. What horrible parents!’
The wife looked up at him and said:- ‘That essay is our son’s !!!