Will Confederate Jasmine Crawl Back After Winter?

White flower of Jasmine

We have lived in our current house for six years, and we believe that jasmine had been in our fence long time before we are moving in the house.

We faced at least twice frozen winters, temperature below C 0 (below F 30) degrees. Surprisingly, this tropic flower still live, and blooming this spring. They usually have flower until late summer.

If we grow Jasmine, the plant could have flowers at second years, and the plant may bloom every year and last for 20 years.

Other common names for Jasmine are a confederate jasmine, star jasmine and Chinese jasmine. Scientific name is Trachelospermum jasminoides. The flower native to South East Asia region.

Jasmines climb on our fence

Jasmine is an evergreen shrub and growing spreads over the fence, thus its scent diffuses through our landscape. I think that Jasmine has lovely and pleasant fragrance.

Some people said that the flower has romantic fragrance. Many perfume’s brands use its scent, and popular in wedding ceremony.

Jasmines grow in a corner of our lanscape

Jasmine represents appreciation, good luck and purity. White flower symbolizes a natural beauty, love and sensuality.

Some community in South East Asian countries extracted Jasmine flowers for oil. The oil then used for some remedies such as overcoming stress, improving low libido and improving moods.

Have you smell or used Jasmine’s fragrance?

Do You Know Spice which More Expensive than Gold?

Golden Saffron, the most expensive (credit to Google)

Spice is the most important factor in many dishes for communities around the world. We use spice to increase our satisfaction on particular foods.

Spices could be a bark, seed, root, flower or other substances relate to plants. In addition to taste, people may use spices for preserving and coloring foods.

Spice is generally quite cheap, and even free in many South East Asian countries. They have grown many kind of plants as source of spices.

Saffron plants with their beautiful flowers (credit to Google)

Saffron is one of the most expensive spices in the world. The plant grows well in the Eastern Mediterranean or Persian, and the market is dominated by this region. We may find this spices in the Northern America and European markets as well recently.

The Saffron best quality called as “red gold,” cost US$ 65 per gram or 454 x US$ 65 = US$ 29,510 per pound. For comparison, gold price (24 carat) is US$ 41.53 per gram. Thus, best quality of Saffron is much more expensive than gold.

Saffron sold in grocery

We found the cheapest price of Saffron is US 16.5 per 0.06 ounce (1.7 gram) in Walmart super center. We do not know the quality of this kind of Saffron. It is said “Spanish Saffron.”

The question is why Saffron spice is expensive? It is because processes that involve from growing plant to be spices are laborious and capitalized.

Have you tried or tasted a Saffron spice?

Is It Possible to Cure Prostate Cancer?

Illustration, credit to Pinterest

Even though a lot of men died from prostate cancer in the USA and worldwide, this type of cancer can be cured if patients get the early examination and appropriate medical treatments. 

Many treatments may increase survival rate, even some appropriate treatments such as radical prostatectomy, radiation therapy (external beam or brachytherapy) and hormone therapy made survival rate may reach 100%. 

The male sex gland having control for the yield of fluid that forms some part of semen is called prostate. The gland attaches to the urethra (a kind of tube that carries urine and semen through the penis and out of the body). Prostate cancer is diseases that effect on men only. 

A malignant cell growth usually begins in tissues of the prostate gland which is located just below the bladder and in front of the rectum. The prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men and the second leading cause of death from cancer in men in the USA. 

There are around 209 thousand men were detected, and about 27 thousand die due to prostate cancer in the USA each year, behind only lung cancer. Reported by the American Cancer Society (2016) that risk of prostate cancer is 1 man in 7 (14.29%) will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime. 

The chance to get cancer will be higher to older men, especially in men of 65 years or older.

Reference

American Cancer Society. 2016. Risk of prostate cancer. Retrieved from http://www.cancer.org/cancer/prostatecancer/detailedguide/prostate-cancer-key-statistics.

What is Cancer Cell of Origin?

Origin cell of breast cancer, credit to OMICS International

What we call cancer is uncontrolled cell growth in specific cells in the system of our body. Uncontrolled of growing cells will develop a tumor.

Cancer treatments either by chemotherapy or radiation caused around 17% death word wide. In drug treatment, the failure occurred at clinical trials, especially at phase III where drugs is not efficient, because to target “bulk cancer cells” only.

The question is then why? It was because one of the reasons that the scientists did not not know the “Cancer Cell of Origin” for long time. They did not recognize the exact location of cells which are starting the cancers.

Recently, scientists have found what they said as “Cancer Cell of Origin.” They able to distinguished and isolated those cells from a breast cancer patient.

By knowing the origin of cell cancer, scientists know the “target” and know the behavior of cancer cells. Thus, they believed that they could easily to develop new drugs.

Moreover, surprisingly that it might be possible to turn cancer from a dangerous disease to be a manageable disease such as diabetes in near future.

Sure, good news for all of us.

What Things Can We do in the Library?

Brochures in library

I visit library at least once a week. If not for new books borrowing, I return the books. Sometimes, I hang around to observe somethings such as painting gallery of teenagers, read announcement and find schedule for many important events.

Yes, many libraries across America not only about books, but also about providing many community service relate things. They have programs, organize events and provide classes.

Playground for kids

What Things Can We do in the Library? Some of them are following:

1.Watching movies

East Baton Rouge library provides “ free streaming film service.” Our library card could access thousand of films, include documentaries from around the globe. No software needed to download films.

2. Playing chess

Our city library has chess club for at least one a week. Participants come from all ages. The skill levels from zero to advance.

Farmer market, credit to East Baton Rouge Library

3. Shopping at farmer market

Our city library, East Baton Rouge schedules farmer market in its parking lot every Tuesday or once a week. We find healthy and fresh produces sold by farmers. We also have opportunity to watch cooking demonstrations either from farmers or invited chefs.

4. Computer classes.

Many computer classes provided by library for beginners include introduction to internet, social media and how to recognize fake news.

5. Playing ground

Library have space both for parking lot and play ground for kids and families.

Moreover, many more we can do in the library. What Things Can We do in the Library in your city or country?

Is Short Story of The Bath about Unclear Communication?

Illustration, credit to Short Story Award

The Bath, is another short story written by Raymond Carver, an American writer. The story was about a boy, named Scotty who would have birthday. The boy’s mother, Ann Weiss orders the cake for her boy birthday party from a bakery shop.

Unfortunately, the birthday boy got accident while walking to the school. Then, the story, actually start from here.

In the story, Carver (1989) draws the unclear communication among boy’s mother, boy’s father, baker, and health providers. Boy’s mother did not understand why a technician should take her son blood.

When back home to bath, boy’s father did not understand about the cake and price of 16 dollars. 

Even complicated, when boy’s mother thought the baker ‘s call was a hospital call about her son fate. She confused why hospital ask US$16? 

Both boy’s mother and father do not understand how far the meaning of what doctor said, as written by Carver (1989), Doctor said that “nothing to worry about” (page.6) and their son will be fine. 

Fine of what? While their son still not wake up since the accident. They are fear and feeling of helplessness with Scotty’s condition. 

I need to read twice before I could understand the flow of this short story, it is because the writer “asks” the readers to make own conclusion on each character. There is symbol of communications through telephone that difficult to what its mean is in the context of story for readers. But, overall, the story is quite interesting to read.

Reference

Carver, R. (1989). The Bath. In What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. New York: Vintage Contemporaries. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/Tanza/Documents/Tanza-UnivPeople/Sem08-Jan2007/English1102/Unit-02/Story-TheBathRaymondCarver.pdf

Does Azalea Blooms Once a Year?

Pink color of Azalea flower

Azaleas are found abundant in Japan, China and Korea, then brought to and grow well in American southern states such as Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Few of my neighbors and I have planted Azaleas (Rhododendron sp) in our yards.

Colors of Azalea flower are mainly white and pink (close or tend to red). The flowers usually blooming in February. Unfortunately, beautiful flowers fell off (dried up) soon, around March. Length of blooming no more than 4 weeks, very short of time period in my opinion.

Our Azalea just bloom once a year. Luckily, the Azaleas have bloomed for 6 consecutive years in our backyard. So beautiful. I love white than pink.

I read an article that varieties called “Encore azaleas” developed in the 1800’s could bloom twice a year, in the summer and fall. The man who developed this varieties was Robert Lee from state of Louisiana.

Lovely white flower

We fertilized Azalea at least twice a year, before blooming around the end of January and after blooming. The timing to fertilize azalea after blooming could be in the middle of summer or early fall. There are many brand names for plant fertilizer in the commercial market. You may choose whatever you want.

We use commercial “Miracle-Gro” as our plant food. It is said this brand name is suitable for plant which produces flowers such as Azaleas, dogwoods, camellias, gardenias, magnolias and orchids.

Do you know Azalea? What color of flowers do you like?