Life, Lust & LaVaSa

The sea is only beautiful if there's a shore. Life is like the sea. There'll be a direction to follow even if you sail more than one day or one life... the promise of a new land is your guide, because you know that the sea is a huge world that's beautiful only if there's a shore.
Patricky Field, as quoted in Beautiful if there's a shore (2008) song by Patricky Field

I'm in love with Lavasa. My wife & kids say they have never seen me in love with anyone like I love Lavasa. It was love at first sight. Now, the staff there agrees too! Almost every weekend, they look at me with wide eyes, treat me with kid-gloves and wonder what does doctor see in the Construction Sites? Ekaant is my base & I love exploring the nooks & corners of the growing city.

Lavasa is India's first hill station since Independence. It is being developed by HCC India near Pune. It is spread over 12,500 acres (51 km2) of land and is scheduled to be completed by 2021. The first phase (Dasave) is scheduled to become operational by June 2009. It will be a self-equipped city developed on the principles of New Urbanism.The city is planned to strike a balance between urban living and preservation of the environment. The master plan by HOK envisages a township in harmony with nature where nature begins at the doorstep. This master plan won both the Award for Excellence 2005, given by the Congress for the New Urbanism (USA) and the American Society of Landscape Architects Award—2005. The concept of a hill town dates from British colonial times and describes locations where British administrators went during the Indian tropical summer, prominent examples being Shimla, Kulu, and Ooty. It is just 210 minutes from home in Mumbai & this drive takes you to another world. The monsoons in Western India are the best time to visit the Sahyadris & with the Lavabahn (the equivalent of the German Autobahn) rolled out three years ago by HCC from Pirangut to Lavasa, driving in the rains on the Lavabahn is pure Lust!

Lust is any intense desire or craving for gratification and excitement. Lust can mean strictly sexual lust, although it is also common to speak of a "lust for men", "lust for blood" (bloodlust), or a "lust for power" (or other goals), and to "lust for love" - Wikipedia

The Greek word which translates as lust is epithymia (επιθυμια), which is also translated into English as "to covet". The word 'lust' originally had no negative connotation, but it has developed a connotation of sexual sin. We must add "Lust For Lavasa" to the Wikipedia annals. A few weekends ago, I decided to add to my solitude at Ekaant & introduce my Dad to Lavasa. My Dad convinced my daughter to accompany us. It was a beautiful weekend with Monsoon madness interrupted by the changing colors of the sky over the Mose valley. The clouds as I had promised them walked into our rooms & wafted into our nostrils. If you have never tasted a water-rich cloud, take in the fragrance at Ekaant on the upper level rooms. You open the 8 feet glass doors & the clouds come dancing in. The rains had scrubbed the place clean. This time the staff had some ugly tarpaulin & plastic curtains strapped down obliterating the view to the Warasgaon lake. Their argument was the rain lashes into the bedrooms if we leave them open. I convinced the FOM, Subashis Dutta that he was cutting off my Oxygen with the strapped down curtains. I spent most of Saturday evening walking around in the open - getting wet like I was having an anatabuse reaction! Early next morning, his staff got the curtains off & I got a new lease of life on this Wet Sunday.

I invited my Dad for a personal recce of the Valley city and told him how the lake was not yet full, but would be overflowing by our Independence day if the rains keep coming down like this. We decided not to go back on Sunday evening - Akanksha (my daughter) vetoed going back on Sunday evening. I was the happiest man at Ekaant! We decided to checkout at 5am on Monday so we could all be at our places of work by 9am Monday.

I am convinced that this will be the most beautiful amalgam of man & nature that India has ever seen in half a decade. as Indians, we should be proud of our brethren who had the vision.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
-Unknown

Mad Cow Fears Keep Euro Sperm Out of the USA

Health officials in the US have placed a ban on imports of sperm from European men to protect Americans from the human form of mad cow disease. Stores of European sperm are now running out, causing problems for women wishing to use them.
Before the ban, the use of sperm from Nordic donors in particular had grown in popularity. Companies such as California Cryobank in Los Angeles and Cryos International in New York City imported sperm from Denmark for which there was a huge demand, largely due to the donors' blue eyes, blond hair, and their tendency to be tall and well educated.
Since the ban, put in place in May 2005 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sperm banks are no longer allowed to import sperm from Europe for fear it might spread the fatal and incurable human form of mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt-Jaokb disease (CJD). The ban was one of a number of restrictions the US government put in place after the spread of mad cow
disease in Europe in the late 1990s. Other measures included banning people who lived in the UK for more than three months between 1980 and 1996 from giving blood. The disease, in rare cases, is spread from cow to human by eating meat from infected animals, and has also been known to spread from using contaminated surgical equipment and transplanted tissue, such as corneas. There are, however, no known cases of infection from sperm and scientists say that, although it is theoretically possible, the risk is insignificant.
Soon, the last few vials of European sperm imported before the embargo will be gone. Many women, who used this sperm before and now wish to have another baby using the same donor, are having to pay thousands of pounds to travel to Europe for insemination. Other women are travelling to Canada or Mexico, or even haggling with other women who have leftover vials. In response to the uproar, Nordic Cryobank has filed a petition asking the FDA to lift the restrictions.

Transfusion breakthrough as human blood grown from stem cells

A team of scientists from the Advanced Cell Technology company (ATC), California, USA, have made massive amounts of red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells (ESC). The work may lead to laboratories being able to produce blood for transfusions, providing a limitless supply and an alternative to donations. This exciting development in stem cell research was published in the journal Blood last week. [The paper] clearly shows that stem cells could serve as an unlimited source of blood for transfusion in the future', Dr. Robert Lanza at ATC, who led the research with colleagues from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the University of Illinois in Chicago, told Nature.
The researchers created the red blood cells by exposing cultures of human ESCs to a sequence of nutrients and growth factors. An important step in the process was achieving 'enucleation' - making the cells eject their nuclei, as they do naturally in the body. The functions of the cells were tested, and results suggest the cells can carry as much oxygen as donated red blood cells. The cells were also able to respond to environmental stimuli, as donated cells would.
It will be possible to make type O negative blood from stem cells, which everyone can receive safely regardless of their blood type, believe the researchers. It may also be possible to produce red blood cells from adult pluripotent stem cells, avoiding the need for ESCs. This work is the first time red blood cells have been made in bulk from stem cells. The next step will be to test that the cells are safe and functional in animals.
Stem cells have the potential to develop into many different cell types, and it is possible they could be used to treat a variety of human disease. For example, scientists are currently researching the use of stem cells as therapy for Parkinson disease and diabetes, amongst others.

Orgasms 'at the touch of a button'

Women around the world are being told they can now have an orgasm at the touch of a button. The makers of "Slightest Touch" say their device can give women longer, better and more intense orgasms. They claim their device can trigger an orgasm without touching a woman's genital area.

According to the manufacturers, Slightest Touch works by stimulating the body's sexual nerve pathway. Women start by drinking an electrolyte sports drink 20 minutes before using the device. They then apply two white electrode pads inside their ankles.These pads are connected to the Slightest Touch device, which is about the size of a personal stereo.

With the flick of a switch, women can literally get turned on. The device stimulates the nerves sending gentle pulses up the woman's leg for between 10 and 30 minutes leaving women on the verge of climax. "The Slightest Touch does not provide an orgasm," said Cherisse Davidson, the company's director of customer support. "It gently stimulates the sexual nerve pathways taking the woman to a pre-orgasmic plateau where she dangles on the edge of orgasm for as long as she wants. "From there, gentle stimulation can then effect the orgasm."

Ms Davidson, who first tested the device three years ago, insists it is effective. "It can be of great benefit to many women," she told BBC. "I've been using mine for three years and I just love it." She said the product can help women who simply want to improve their sex lives and those who have problems achieving orgasm.

However, the Slightest Touch, which sells for $139.95, is not suitable for everyone. It is not recommended for women taking anti-depressants, those who are pregnant or those with some underlying medical conditions such as heart problems.

The product which was launched in the United States six months ago is now starting to getting attention in Europe.

Ms Davidson said the company had now sold almost 4,000 devices - some to customers in Britain. However, the UK's FPA, formerly the Family Planning Association, urged women to get professional advice before spending their hard earned cash.
"If women feel they have problems with either sex or relationships, it's better to go and get professional advice about the possible causes, before spending a lot of money on a particular product," said a spokeswoman.

Polygamy is the key to a long life

Want to live a little longer? Get a second wife. New research suggests that men from polygamous cultures outlive those from monogamous ones.

After accounting for socioeconomic differences, men aged over 60 from 140 countries that practice polygamy to varying degrees lived on average 12% longer than men from 49 mostly monogamous nations, says Virpi Lummaa, an ecologist at the University of Sheffield, UK.

Lummaa presented her findings last week at the International Society for Behavioral Ecology’s annual meeting in Ithaca, New York.

Rather than a call to polygamy, the research might solve a long-standing puzzle in human biology: Why do men live so long?

This question only makes sense after asking the same for women, who - unlike nearly all other animals - live long past the menopause.

One answer seems to be a phenomenon called the grandmother effect. For every 10 years a woman survives past the menopause, she gains two additional grandchildren, Lummaa says. It seems that doting on and spoiling grandchildren aids their survival, as well as furthering some of their grandmother’s genes.

Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect.

To test this possibility, the team analysed church-gathered records for 25,000 Finns from the 18th and 19th centuries. People tended to move little, no one practiced contraception and the Lutheran Church enforced monogamy.

Only widowed men could remarry, and if they had children with their new wife, they fathered more kids, on average, than men who married once.

But ultimately remarried men "don’t end up with any more grandchildren," Lummaa says. "If anything the presence of a grandfather was associated with decreased survival of grandchildren."

Perhaps, Lummaa adds, the children of the first mother lose out on food and resources that go to the second mother’s kids. "It's kind of the Cinderella effect."

Even fathers with only one wife provided no benefit to their grandchildren, a finding supported by previous research.

Biological selection

With the grandfather effect ruled out, Lummaa and Russell next wondered whether the constraints of human physiology explain male longevity. In the same way that men have nipples that evolved for women to nourish their young, male longevity might be a consequence of biological selection for long-lived women.

To answer this question, the researchers compared the lifespan of men from polygamous countries with those from monogamous nations.

Using data from the World Health Organization, Lummaa and Russell scored 189 countries on a monogamy scale of one to four - totally monogamous to mostly polygamous. They also took into account a country's gross domestic product and average income to minimise the effect of better nutrition and healthcare in monogamous Western nations.

Lummaa stressed that their monogamy score is a crude first stab, and they are working to find multiple ways to assess marriage patterns. The conclusions could evaporate under further analysis, she adds.

If female survival is the main explanation for male longevity, then monogamous and polygamous men would live for about the same length of time. Instead, it seems that fathering more kids with more wives leads to increased male longevity. Men, then, live long because they're fertile well into their grey years.

The explanation could be both social and genetic. Men who continue fathering kids into their 60s and 70s could take better care for their bodies because they have mouths to feed. But evolutionary forces acting over thousands of years could also select for longer-lived men in polygamous cultures.

"It's a valid hypothesis and good prediction," says Chris Wilson, an evolutionary anthropologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the talk. But the care and attention of several wives who depend on the social status of their ageing husband could explain everything. "It doesn't surprise me that men in those societies live longer than men in monogamous societies, where they become widowed and have nobody to care for them."

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