As March comes to an end I await the arrival of Summer, the dreaded Summer.

My new garden took a heavy hit….we had a strong storm move through and the high wind and heavy rain wrecked about half of my garden….just what I needed after all that hard work.

AS long as I am talking about the weather I will start with a prediction…

The United States can expect a nice spring break from the too rainy or too dry extremes of the past, federal meteorologists predicted Thursday. After some rough seasons of drought, flooding, and fires, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s spring outlook calls for a less hectic season that should be warmer and wetter, but not prone to major flooding and with drought at low levels, per the AP.

• Flooding and drought: There’s zero major or record flooding forecast, with much of the East and Southeast predicted to get more nuisance-type flooding that doesn’t cause property damage, said Ed Clark, director of NOAA’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Meanwhile, less than a quarter of the country is in drought, with just 0.14% of the nation experiencing the highest level of drought, which is unusually low, said Jon Gottschalck of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. In other words, a sweet spot.
• Transition: Former NOAA chief scientist Ryan Maue, who wasn’t involved in the spring forecast, said there’s likely to be a bit of “overtime winter” at the end of the month for the Great Lakes and Midwest, but otherwise, spring is looking good. He and others say the world is transitioning from a strong El Niño to a forecast summer La Niña, which is El Niño’s cooler cousin. “A mild wet pattern for the next one to two months will probably give way to a hot, dry La Niña summer, but until then we may actually see a bona fide spring transition season rather than flipping the switch directly to summer,” Maue said.
• Asterisks: Near the end of spring, flow rates along the lower part of the Mississippi River could be low for barge traffic, Clark said. Meanwhile, wildfire risk is still high in parts of the country, including the southern High Plains region, Gottschalck said. The NOAA forecast also doesn’t look precisely at tornadoes or severe storms, which may be a bigger problem than usual this spring. That’s mostly because a warm, relatively ice-and-snow-free winter in the Midwest sets up conditions ripe for those more severe weather systems, said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University.

After our storm I am not impressed.

Moving on….surely your have heard of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation)?

Well there is a new thing that endangers young women….breast ironing.

While reaching the age of puberty is a thing of joy to many female children, ‘puberty is pain’ for many others, especially those born in Pygba Sama, Kpaduma and other indigenous communities in Abuja, parts of Niger State, and the Camerounian communities of Cross River State. Their source of pain is the barbaric act called breast ironing.

Also known as bosom flattening, breast sweeping or breast grinding, the process involves the use of heated objects, including spatula, pestle, bunch of broom head, shard of calabash, grinding stones, hammer or any handy instrument to pound or massage these girls’ breasts twice a day.

This process lasts for four to six months or more, pending when the breasts is seen to have flattened. By then, the fatty tissues and lobules of the breasts would have disappeared or melted to a point they can no longer come up again, until the young women in question have past age of puberty and may be married.

And for parents that cannot see their daughters cry endlessly or writhe in pains as a testament of the painful operation, they go for the easier way out. They make their daughters to either tie broad belt or tick cloth tightly across their breasts. These materials remain on the girls’ chests until the breast buds disappear.

https://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/how-breast-ironing-endangers-lives-of-girls/amp/

What a terrible thing to put your daughter through….it is beyond barbaric.

There is a dire health issue that is worse than smoking or drinking….

While it might not be regularly considered a high-risk lifestyle factor, the so-called loneliness epidemic appears to be an absolutely devastating risk factor for health.

In a press release about new research, the Regenstrief Institute data informatics firm said that its study, conducted alongside the Indiana University School of Medicine, suggests that a majority of people aged 65 or older consider themselves lonely — which may well be worse for them than alcoholism, obesity, smoking at least 15 cigarettes per day, or leading a sedentary lifestyle.

Published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, this groundbreaking look at what researchers are calling a “biophysical stressor” may help doctors better address this overlooked lifestyle factor that seems to greatly reduce quality of life for seniors.

The results were alarming: that nearly 53 percent of seniors identified in a database study experienced loneliness, and among those who experienced it, mental and physical health outcomes were much poorer across demographics and health conditions.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/loneliness-worse-than-smoking

Our brains are getting larger…..

If someone tells you that you have a big head, take that as a compliment.

Humankind’s brains have apparently gotten bigger and bigger over the years, according to a team of scientists, who are surmising that bigger brains may stave off dementia as folks age.

An international team of researchers, led by the University of California Davis Health, arrived at this finding after studying the MRIs of people starting with those born in the 1930s, all the way through the 1970s.

In the resulting study, published in JAMA Neurology, the researchers found that 1970s babies had nearly 15 percent more brain surface area and 6.6 percent more brain volume than 1930s babies.

The scientists had taken MRI data from the Framingham Heart Study, a long running health survey started in 1948. They specifically looked at brain scans from 3,226 subjects.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/human-brains-larger

Our brains may be getting larger but that does not mean we are smarter….just look at the world today….

This is my fare for this Spring Saturday….I hope everyone will have a great Easter weekend….and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”