Mind Soup

What is Tamanna? Tamanna is an NGO in Lebanon that grants wishes of children with critical illnesses to give them joy, strength and hope. Fulfilling a child's wish provides an escape from a difficult reality, restoring time for laughter. It allows the child to live a magical experience and to share unforgettable moments with his family. Any child between 3 and 18 years with a critical illness may be eligible for a wish. Tamanna currently grants an average of three wishes a week. Some granted wishes A boy's wish to be a fire fighter for the day A gitl's wish to be a princess. A boy's wish to own a play station portable The above photos are just a glimpse of what wishes Tamanna has granted. From having a wedding for a young couple at the Children Cancer Center of Lebanon, to introducing the children to celebrities (such as President Suleiman, PM Hariri, basketball teams) and unforgettable trips to Rome, Istanbul, Paris and Disney land to owning laptops a...

Photo of Masri in South Lebanon via NOW Lebanon (from facebook) Last Sunday, during the demonstrations in the South near the Lebanese-Israeli borders to commemorate Nakba , Munib Masri, a petroleum studies student at the American University of Beirut got severely injured after being shot by an Israeli bullet. Masri is Palestinian in origin, but also holds both the Jordanian and American citizenships. Masri has underwent a couple of operations this week; "he is undergoing surgery today. He has already lost his left kidney and spleen in an earlier operation. His spine is also fractured, and he’s sustained injuries to his diaphragm, along with pieces of shrapnel lodged in his back."  ( NOW Lebanon ) In an e-mail addressed to the AUB community, Dr. Peter Dorman, President of AUB, writes: "We are all shocked and saddened by this development, and our thoughts and hearts are with Munib and his family.We are appalled by the unrestrained use of deadly force against un...

AP : A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, the brother of the victim said Thursday. Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed and subsequently lost a foot after a fight more than two years ago. He asked a judge in northwestern Tabuk province to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker under Islamic law, his brother Khaled al-Mutairi told The Associated Press by telephone from there. He said one of the hospitals, located in Tabuk, responded that it is possible to damage the spinal cord, but it added that the operation would have to be done at another more specialized facility. Saudi newspapers reported that a second hospital in the capital Riyadh declined, saying it could not inflict such harm. Administrative offices of two of the hospitals and the court in Tabuk were closed for the Saudi weekend beginning ...

Photo: Mind Soup© I encountered the funniest thing today. While walking alongside the American University Hospital with my friend, I was joking how hospitals don't have valet parking. That didn't last long. A few seconds later, we see a sign for VALET PARKING on the side of the road. Well it might be a good idea for the emergency division where people don't have the time to find a parking, but to think about it clearly, are we really that lazy? Lazy to the extent of having someone park the car at a hospital? And its not cheap either. Personally, I believe that our culture should depend more on one's self. This type of laziness is what is holding us back from actually achieving something. It is enough that we are bringing maids to our homes to cook the meals and raise up the children, but this? How low can we get? Next thing you know, people will start hiring professionals to help them go to the bathroom or shower. What do you guys think?

REUTERS : Squirting insulin up the noses of patients with early forms of Alzheimer's disease showed signs of improving their memory, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday. Patients who got the treatment for four months showed improvements in tests of memory recall that lasted for two months. "We believe our results are very promising and they warrant future trials," said Dr. Suzanne Craft of the VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington in Seattle , who presented her findings at a meeting of the Alzheimer's Association in Honolulu. Alzheimer's disease is a fatal and incurable deterioration of the brain that affects 26 million people globally. It is the most common form of dementia . Several studies have suggested that people with Alzheimer's have reduced levels of insulin in the brain, even in the earliest stages. Insulin is important for communication between brain cells and is needed for brain function. ...

PROVO, Utah — Gary Coleman, the adorable, pint-sized child star of the smash 1970s TV sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes" who spent the rest of his life struggling on Hollywood's D-list, died Friday after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was 42. Life support was terminated and Coleman died at 12:05 p.m. MDT with family and friends at his side, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Janet Frank said. Coleman, with his sparkling eyes and perfect comic timing, became a star after "Diff'rent Strokes" debuted in 1978. He played Arnold Jackson, the younger one of a pair of African-American brothers adopted by a wealthy white man. "It's unfortunate. It's a sad day," said Todd Bridges, who played the older brother Willis. "It's sad that I'm the last kid alive from the show." The series lives on thanks to DVDs and YouTube. But its equally enduring legacy became the troubles in adulthood of its former child stars. Dana Plato, w...

Take a bank loan to have plastic surgery! How obsessed can people get?

During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once. If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick's Day parade - at any time of the year. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down. The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place.  No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty. You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language.  A German accent will do. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds. If a large pane o...

A Taiwanese man with a history of high blood pressure has died of a stroke that an emergency room doctor says was likely triggered from over-excitement while watching the 3D blockbuster Avatar, AFP reports. The 42-year-old man, who suffered from hypertension, was rushed to the hospital after he began feeling ill during the screening of the movie earlier this month in the Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, AFP says. The man identified only as Kuo was unconscious when he got to Nan Men General Hospital where a scan showed that his brain was hemorrhaging, Dr. Peng Chin-Chih, an emergency room doctor, told AFP. "It's likely that the over-excitement from watching the movie triggered his symptoms," the doctor told AFP. Kuo died 11 days later from the brain hemorrhage.

A coroner has ruled that Chicago Bears defensive end Gaines Adams died of a heart attack, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter's posting on his Twitter account. Adams, 26, was pronounced dead at 8 a.m. Sunday at a Greenwood County, South Carolina hospital, according to the Greenville News. Selected as the fourth overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft, Adams joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Apparently Adams had an enlarged heart that caused cardiac arrest, according to tweets posted at Schefter and Jason La Canfora's Twitter pages. On Thursday, Southern Indiana senior Jeron Lewis also had an enlarged heart, like Adams, that led to his cardiac arrest during a basketball game at Kentucky Weslyn College. Adams, who played football at Clemson, was considered by many to be a bust at the NFL level and was traded from the Bucs to the Bears last October. The former 2006 ACC Defensive Player of the Year registered 93 tackles, 13 1/2 sacks and two interceptions in four seasons (thr...

Millions of people suffering from malaria now have new hope after British scientists unlocked the genetic map of the plant used to cure the disease. Scientists from the University of York have confidently predicted they will have high-yielding anti-malaria crops available for wide spread plantation in developing countries within two years. The discovery of the genetic map of the medicinal herb Artemisia annua has been hailed as a significant breakthrough that could save countless lives. Researchers said the new plants they will breed will be given to poor farmers who can use them to grow a cash crop that could help build up fragile economies. The research has been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Malaria kills at least one million people every year even though it can be prevented and treated.The most effective drugs to treat the disease are Artemisinin Combination Therapies.More funding has become available to deliver these treatments which are expected to reac...

A Polish building contractor working at London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital was given his marching orders after a security guard caught him having sex with a Henry Hoover, the Sun reports.  The Henry HooverThe unnamed pervert was supposed to be locking up the site, at hospital admin offices, but was instead discovered in the staff canteen "naked and on his knees with the smiling cleaner". The "horrified" guard told the chap to "clean himself and the hoover", then ejected him from the premises. The unnamed vacuum-molestor later told his bosses he was actually cleaning his underwear, describing this habit as "a common practice in Poland". His employer, HG Construction, was having none of it. The company said: "That behaviour is not acceptable, though it gave a few people a laugh."

Live flies are emerging out of a perforation in the lower part of the body of a 13-year-old boy in Bengal in a bizarre — but not unknown — phenomenon. Admitted in Burdwan Medical College Hospital since last Saturday, Chandan Goswami stunned doctors as the flies began to come out of a part of his crotch to take wing. Some of the flies were caught by the boy’s parents. “This is a condition called myiasis in which a human or animal body, dead or alive, is invaded by the larvae of particular types of flies,” said an excited Snehansu Pan, the surgeon taking care of Chandan. After nearly a week of Chandan’s admission, this afternoon Pan found out what was happening to his patient. “This is a very, very rare condition and we are trying to figure out how the fly invaded the boy’s body and then we will determine how to treat him,” he said. Myiasis is prevalent in central and southern America, but mostly in animals. Experts said the larvae invade the human bod...

Ever wonder what happens to all the fat sucked out during liposuction? If you feared it was going to waste, worry no more. According to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the gelatinous material can be converted into embryonic stem cells . “We’ve identified a great natural resource,” said Stanford surgery professor and co-author of the research, Michael Longaker. The physician also called lipo leftovers “liquid gold.” Changing regular adult stem cells to embryonic stem cells poses a number of problems. Four genes, known as Yamanaka factors, need to be expressed to change adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), which mostly resemble embryonic stem cells. Doctors often experiment with skin cells for this procedure. But like some adults, mature cells are resistant to change. It takes skin cells about three weeks in the lab to convert to iPS cells. The Stanford researchers looked at adipose, or immature fat cells, which lie within a labyri...

French court convicts woman after 4-year-old boy suffers bruised cheek CAEN, France - A French court has fined a preschool teacher $1,450 for biting the cheek of an allegedly unruly 4-year-old during a bathroom break. The court in the Normandy town of Lisieux handed down the fine Wednesday over the March 2007 incident in the nearby town of Houlgate. The teacher had denied the boy's claim and said he had been misbehaving. The ruling came after a medical report showed a bruise on his face. The school reprimanded the 48-year-old teacher weeks afterward. In keeping with French judicial practice, the court didn't identify the woman because she is still teaching.

H1N1 Flu Virus under an electron microscope The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved vaccines designed to protect against the H1N1 influenza virus, a key step before starting a vaccination campaign. The approval was announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing that was held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency approved vaccines made by a unit of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Novartis AG, CSL Ltd. and AstraZeneca PLC's MedImmune unit. MedImmune makes a vaccine in the form of mist delivered through the nose rather than a shot. Ms. Sebelius said a large-scale vaccination program will begin in mid-October. The U.S. has spent more than $1 billion to purchase and administer a total of 195 million H1N1 vaccine doses being made by five companies, including GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Ms. Sebelius said that the agency's officials are still working on that application. About 40 million to 50 million vac...

"I'd say five years is pretty wishful thinking," ... "Two years seems likely if you're going to believe statistics. I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it" -- Patrick Swayze Patrick Swayze , the balletically athletic actor who rose to stardom in the films “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost” and whose 20-month battle with advanced pancreatic cancer drew wide attention, died Monday. He was 57. His publicist, Annett Wolf, told The Associated Press in Los Angeles that Mr. Swayze died with family at his side. Mr. Swayze’s cancer was diagnosed in January 2008. Six months after that, he had already outlived his prognosis and was filmed at an airport, smiling at photographers and calling himself, only half-facetiously, “a miracle dude.” He even went through with plans to star in “The Beast,” a new drama series for A&E, and filmed a complete season while undergoing treatment. Mr. Swayze insisted on continuing with the se...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The world's oldest person, a woman who was born in 1894 and gained a measure of fame when she voted for Barack Obama for U.S. president, died on Friday at the age of 115. Gertrude Baines died peacefully in her sleep sometime between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. local time (1300 and 1400 GMT) at the Western Convalescent Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had spent the past decade of her life. "She's a very dignified lady," Emma Camanag, the hospital's administrator, told Reuters. "It has truly been a blessing and an honour for us to take care of her over the last 10 years and we will greatly miss her. It's just like we lost a relative." Baines had no living relatives, Camanag said, but was popular at the home and at her church, where she attended services every Sunday until she became too ill to leave her room. Camanag said parishioners at the church often visited Baines, who was born on April 6, 1894 in Shellman, Georgia, and became the ...

"CBS-Cutting Edge" explores the possibilities of stem-cell therapy to grow new organs, etc. Very interesting.

Michael Jackson is a icon in every way shape or form and the news has came in that he has died at the age of 50. Michael Jackson suffered from cardiac arrest this afternoon while he was in his Holmby Hills home. By the time that the ambulance responded to a call at his Los Angeles home about 12:30 p.m., he was already without a pulse and they were not able to get one back. Michael Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 and first got popular as part of the group The Jackson 5. He left to go on his own as a solo artist where he became known as "The King Of Pop" after selling millions and millions of records worldwide. There is million of fans that still show up to see Michael Jackson anywhere he goes. The world has lost a great icon today and there is bound to be millions of fans that are going to be heartbroken for years to come. Michael was responsible for raising millions and millions of dollars for different charities on top of being a musical legend..