Archive

Archive for September, 2007

Describe the adaptations in seed plants that help them to avoid excess water loss?

September 30th, 2007
help seed
PINK asked:


Describe the adaptations in seed plants that help them to avoid excess water loss.

Botany , , ,

No Down Payment Poor Credit Mortgage Loans - Understanding 80/20 Loan Option

September 24th, 2007
4:20
Carrie Reeder asked:


When applying for a mortgage loan, down payments are generally required as part of the financing. Many traditional mortgages will only finance 80 percent of the home price. Thus, homebuyers are obligated to provide the additional 20 percent. Having a down payment of 20 percent is ideal in a perfect world. In reality, few people have access to this type of money. For this reason, mortgage lenders are offering 80/20, or piggyback mortgage loans.

How Do 80/20 Home Loans Work?

The concept around 80/20 home loans is very simple. Ordinarily, if a homebuyer did not have a down payment of 20 percent, they would have to purchase private mortgage insurance, (PMI), to complete the home financing. On average, PMI increases mortgage payments by $100.

If accepting an 80/20 home loan, PMI is not required. Instead, homebuyers receive two loans to finance the home purchase. A first mortgage is approved to finance 80 percent of the home cost, whereas a second mortgage or home equity loan is approved to finance the remaining 20 percent.

Who Qualifies for an 80/20 Home Loan?

Any homebuyer hoping to avoid private mortgage insurance may qualify for an 80/20 option. Piggyback loans are especially beneficial for first time homebuyers. Young couples will also benefit from these loans. Usually, these individuals have not been able to build a large cash reserve. This way, they do not have to put off buying a home.

An 80/20 home loan is also offered to individuals with poor credit. Mortgage lenders vary in their loan qualification guidelines. Traditional lenders such as banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies prefer applicants that have a high credit rating. Thus, they may not approve loan requests for credit scores that fall below 640.

On the other hand, many lenders offer a range of bad credit mortgage loans. These consist of loans that provide assistance for down payments, closing costs, low mortgage rates, etc.

Applying for an 80/20 Loan with Bad Credit

Mortgage brokers are very effective with helping bad credit applicants find a fitting home loan program. To smooth the process, brokers have websites available, which offer explanations on various bad credit home loans. Moreover, you can request a mortgage quote online, and receive up to four offers from different lenders granting piggyback loans to people with bad credit.

Mortgage , , ,

A Guide to Organic Vegetable Seeds

September 23rd, 2007
help seed
Martin Applebaum asked:


You can easily grow a lot of fresh organic herbs and vegetables in your back yard. This is a great idea because the organic vegetables you grow in your garden are free from all the harmful chemical and pesticides. It is also cost effective to grow your business own vegetable as compared to purchasing organic foods from the local market.

Organic vegetables are cultivated in a different manner. The use of the most primitive type of agriculture is prominent in this procedure. The most interesting part is that no chemical fertilizers or pesticides are used in organic vegetable cultivation.

An innovative steam seam technology of Cascadian Farm is utilized to cultivate organic vegetables. The technology is efficient enough to the fresh vegetable. Organic vegetables are tastier, healthier and pretty.

Several organic plants such as marigolds, dill and sunflowers are capable of attractive beneficial insects to help controlling the population of pests. If you can grow tomatoes in an organic manner, you can get the most delicious and nutritious tomatoes. You can even grow tomatoes in a container if you do not have a garden in your house.

If you have no clue on how to grow organic plants, here are some in this regard.

a) Tip 1:

You can easily purchase certified organic mixes for your gardening pots from any good commercial supplier or mix them on your own.

b) Tip 2:

Grow many organic plants in yard via using Organic vegetable seeds to know exactly what went into the soil when growing the plant.

c) Tip 3:

Store many Organic vegetable seeds with just a little care to use them as per your desire.

d) Tip 4:

Check carefully whether the bulk Organic vegetable seeds you purchase from a commercial supplier have undergone organic certification. You can easily get to know about this through the documentation available with the supplier.

e) Tip 5:

Make doubly sure of the fact that the grower can warrant the absence of transgenic germplasm. This means that need to show the proof that they have not genetically modified the seed.

You can find bulk Organic vegetable seeds at the following places:

a) Local nursery or local garden store:

These places sell many bulk organic vegetable seed. You can easily check your local phone directory and call some of these to ensure the seeds you want.

b) Seed catalogs:

You can easily order bulk organic vegetable seeds from seed catalogs and get all these delivered right at your doorstep.

c) Online source:

Several online sources sell Organic vegetable seeds. You need to browse through the World Wide Web efficiently and look for the best. Make sure that you make a thorough research on the companies, products, authentication and prices prior to actually purchasing from them.

Organic vegetable seeds are very helpful when it comes to providing the best of nutrition to you. Order

Gardening , , ,

Back Pain And Sciatica

September 19th, 2007
medical marijuana
Thomas Henricks asked:


When you stop and realize that the human spine runs all the way from base of the skull into the pelvic area, it is not surprising that many of us will experience back pain at point in our life. Studying the structure of the spine will help us better understand sciatica pain and how that pain can be managed.

Sciatica

Sciatica is pain that begins in the lower area of the back and continues all the way down into the leg. The condition is usually the result of compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve. Most patients can achieve relief from the pain by opting for non surgical treatments such as anti-inflammatory medications, curtailing some forms of physical activity, and resting.

Chronic Pain

Pain is considered chronic if it persists for longer than six months and you have failed to relieve that pain by medical or surgical care. Chronic pain often results from a previous injury, from neuropathy, or sciatica.

The method of treatment for chronic pain will vary for each individual. A medical professional must first determine the cause of the pain. There may also be consideration given to benefits allowable by his or her health care provider. Many patients find pain relief in alternative forms of medicine. Medical marijuana, acupuncture, and hypnotherapy have all been proven to successfully treat chronic back pain.

Spinal Stenosis

Stenosis is a disease in which the sufferer experiences narrowing of the spinal canal. People who suffer from stenosis may suffer from low back pain or pain in the buttocks area, or feel pain in the leg and thigh area when they stand or walk. Patients suffering from severe stenosis may suffer from numbness and weakness in their legs. The pain is usually relieved temporarily when the patient sits or rests or changes position relieving the pressure on the spinal cord.

Stenosis is usually confirmed through analysis of a CT scan. This condition must be treated by surgery to widen the spinal canal.

Stiffness And Tightness Of The Back

Stiffness or tightness in the muscles of the neck, back, arms, and legs, is one of the most common types of back pain reported. These sensations are usually caused by some degree of damage to the muscles running through those areas.

Most painful back muscles can be attributed to poor posture. Although this is often simply a bad habit, it can also be a sign of weakness of the muscles surrounding the spine. Often a well designed exercise routine that works the back and abdominal muscles will effectively treat the pain by strengthening the muscles that support the body. It takes strong muscles to support the back and the soft tissues of the stomach, breasts, and torso. After these muscles are strengthened, the patient’s posture should improve naturally and the symptoms of tight, stiff muscles should diminish.

Many people suffer some degree of back pain during their lifetime. The causes vary from sciatica to muscle injury to poor posture. By determining the cause of that pain you will determine the preferred method of treatment.

Diseases And Conditions , , ,

Fight Off Aging With Grape Seed Extract

September 11th, 2007
help seed
Darrell Miller asked:


It is possible to fight off aging with grape seed extract due largely to the antioxidant effect of the phytochemicals contained within the seed of the grape. The seed is rarely absorbed by your body because it is so difficult for your digestive juices to break down; significantly more difficult than the skin or the pulp. So what is specific about the seed that makes it so useful as a source of antioxidants? That shall be discuss shortly, but for now let’s discuss the causes of aging, and how antioxidants can help to keep them at bay.

To fight off aging you have to understand what causes it, and the take steps to avoid these causes. It is fairly obvious that all causes of aging cannot be circumvented, but there are things that can be done to keep some of them at bay. Here, we are specifically concerned with the aging of your skin, which is the most visible form of aging. The first aspect of aging to understand is that there are two types: intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic Aging

Intrinsic aging is natural aging, and is largely genetic. Starting when you are fairly young, normally in the early to mid 20s, intrinsic aging is typified by wrinkling, hair loss or graying of the hair, hollowing of cheeks and other areas where the fat underneath the skin that normally contributes to your physical appearance is lost, and also bone loss that causes your skin to sag due a gradual loss of the structure that sculpts your physical appearance.

The age at which this occurs, and its speed is determined by your genes; although the process generally begins around the mid 20s, the speed with which it progresses is genetically controlled.

Extrinsic Aging

This is where grape seed extract can help. Extrinsic aging is not genetic, but environmental. Ten majority of this type of aging is due to exposure to the damaging UV light of the sun, which cause the typical ‘leathery’ look of the skin of people raised in areas such locations as the hotter parts of Australia and the USA, without the benefit of the native skin pigmentation that filters out these harmful ultra-violet rays.

Other factors that can cause the same degradation of your skin cells are smoking, the way you sleep and gravity. The sun generates free radicals (more on these later) that can destroy skin cells, cause freckles, leathery skin and a blotched complexion and also skin cancer. Smokers are more likely to develop leathery and wrinkled skin than non-smokers, and as the elasticity of your skin reduces, gravity cause jowls to develop and also a more pronounced lower lip.

Even your sleeping position can make you appear to age quicker, particularly using the same sleeping position on your pillow each night that cause what are known as sleep lines, that are really wrinkles that are difficult, if not impossible to remove. However, one of the most relevant factors is pollution, and the effects of car emissions, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals, paint fumes and 1001 other forms of chemical pollution that produce free radicals.

Where grape seed extract is involved in fighting off aging is in extrinsic aging is by destroying the free radicals. All substances, from the air to the oceans, are formed of atoms that contain electrons. Stable molecules contain an even number of electrons, or what are known as ‘electron pairs’. When a molecule loses one electron it is known as a free radical, whose prime purpose in its very short life is to steal an electron from the nearest molecule. This ’short’ lifetime can as long as a day or as short as thousandth of a second: it depends on is size and the degree of steric hindrance to the reaction with the spare electron.

Now that the reasons for aging and the nature of free radicals are better understood it is easier for you understand why grape seed extract can help to fight aging caused by the effects of free radicals on your skin.

Grape seed is a waste product of the wine industry. You cannot make wine from grape seeds, so they are removed from the final product by filtration or sedimentation. It contains a large number of phytonutrients, the most important being polyphenols in the form of flavanoids, lipids and carbohydrates. It also contains proteins that don’t have much of an effect on aging. Flavonoids (also spelled flavanoids) are powerful antioxidants that destroy free radicals; they are twenty times as powerful as Vitamin E and over fifty times more powerful an antioxidant than Vitamin C.

Both of these vitamins are regarded as strong antioxidants in their own right, which is an indication of how good grape seed extract is at killing free radicals. It’s like a combination of Harry Callahan, Paul Kersey, John McClane and the whole of the Magnificent Seven after the scavengers in your body cells. They succeed, and do it in spades!

Not only do the ingredients of grape seed extract kill off free radicals with the efficiency of a Delta Task Force, but are also anti-allergenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti just about anything else you can think of. However, let’s have an even closer look and find out exactly what polyphenols are present in this so-called wonder juice.

Procyanadin was originally named Vitamin P in 1936 by its discoverer, Prof. Jacques Masquelier, and is believed to bond with collagen to protect you from premature aging by retaining and even improving the elasticity of your skin. An added benefit is that it also improves the elasticity of your blood vessels, and so helps to fight off the effects of high blood pressure and places less strain on your heart. The overall effect on your face is to practically give you a chemical face lift and also provide protection from the damaging effect of the UV component of sunlight through its lethal attitude towards the free radicals that UV radiation generates.

Another component of grape seed extract particularly that of muscadine grapes is resveratrol; a phytoalexin that has strong anti-inflammatory properties and can also fight off the effects of aging. Phytoalexins are antibiotics produced by plants that are under attack, and, in addition to helping you age slower, confers other benefits to your body including helping your brain to carry out its work more efficiently.

All in all, grape seed extract confers many benefits to your health and is also believed to possess powerful anti-cancer properties. However, it is for its ability to fight off aging that most people use it as a supplement, and in this respect it has been found to be extremely effective. Any antioxidant is of benefit to your body, but grape seed extract is of particular benefit due its high antioxidant potency.

Anti Aging , , ,

Anne of Green Gables (4/20)

September 11th, 2007
AmyOfGreenGables asked:


IN this part

Anne meets Mrs Lynde

Entertainment

Marijuana Cultivation

September 11th, 2007
legalization of marijuana
Darren Kavinoky asked:


Marijuana Cultivation

It is illegal to grow, or cultivate, marijuana. The California criminal jury instructions gives guidance to the factors that the prosecution must prove in order to successfully convict someone of this offense.

“Every person who plants/cultivates/harvests/dries/ or processes any marijuana or any part thereof is guilty of a violation of Heath and Safety Code Section 11358, a crime.

The word “harvesting” is defined as the gathering of crops of any kind.

The verb “to harvest” means:

a) to gather in a crop: reap…’

b) to gather a natural product as if by harvesting

In order to prove this crime, each of the following elements must be proved:

1. A person [planted] a marijuana plant; and

2. That person knew it was a marijuana plant or some part thereof.” CALJIC 12.24

The operative law that results in the above jury instruction is California Health and Safety Code Section 11358 which reads:

“Every person who plants, cultivates, harvests, dries, or processes any marijuana or any part thereof, except as otherwise provided by law, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison.”

Medical Marijuana

Under federal law, sale, cultivation and possession of marijuana remain strictly illegal. However, the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996, known as Prop. 215 exempts patients and their primary caregivers from criminal prosecution for personal possession and cultivation of marijuana, but NOT for distribution or sale to others.

Medical cannabis may be legally used & cultivated by qualified patients in California under Prop. 215, provided they have a recommendation from a licensed physician.

State law SB 420 establishes Prop. 215 guidelines for possession and cultivation. State limits are set at 6 mature or 12 immature plants and 8 ounces marijuana, except where a physician declares more is needed, or where local governments authorize more.

Law , , ,