Good morning! I am singing in the rain today-not sure we are getting enough, but if. This drizzle keeps up all day, It will certainly help. Yes, you all have the answer. Music helps with all the above-named problems. Here is the article: Jessica Hullinger filed under: music, 11, top-story IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS/PETR JOSEK/LANDOV Music is a splendid thing. It can cheer you up when you're sad, make you dance like a fool, and allow you to drown out the world when you need to. But music has its scientific uses, too. The new documentary Alive Inside details how dementia patients react positively when given iPods filled with their old favorite songs. The music seems to help them "come alive" again. While listening to familiar songs, many of the documentary's patients can sing along, answer questions about their past, and even carry on brief conversations with others. "Music imprints itself on the brain deeper than any other human experience," says neurologist Oliver Sacks, who appears in the film. "Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring with it memory." The documentary follows recent studies showing that music can improve the memories of dementia patients, and even help them develop new memories. Here, a look at some other things music has been known to "cure": 1. LOW BIRTH WEIGHT Babies born too early often require extended stays in the hospital to help them gain weight and strength. To help facilitate this process, many hospitals turn to music. A team of Canadian researchers found that playing music to preemies reduced their pain levels and encouraged better feeding habits, which in turn helped with weight-gain. Hospitals use musical instruments to mimic the sounds of a mother's heartbeat and womb to lull premature babies to sleep. Researchers also say that playing calming Mozart to premature infants significantly reduces the amount of energy they expend, which allows them gain weight. It "makes you wonder whether neonatal intensive care units should consider music exposure as standard practice for at-risk infants," says Dr. Nestor Lopez-Duran at child-psych.org. 2. DROOPY PLANTS If music helps babies grow, can it do the same thing for plants? Dorothy Retallack says yes. She wrote a book in 1973 called The Sound of Music and Plants, which detailed the effects of music on plant growth. Retallack played rock music to one group of plants and easy listening music to another, identical group. At the end of the study, the 'easy listening' plants were uniform in size, full and green, and were even leaning toward the source of the music. The rock music plants had grown tall, but they were droopy, with faded leaves, and were leaning away from the radio. 3. THE DAMAGING EFFECTS OF BRAIN DAMAGE Of the 1.5 million Americans who sustain brain damage each year, roughly 90,000 of them will be left with a long-term movement or speech disability. As treatment, researchers use music to stimulate the areas of the brain that control these two functions. When given a rhythm to walk or dance to, people with neurological damage caused by stroke or Parkinson's disease can "regain a symmetrical stride and a sense of balance." The beats in music help serve as a footstep cue for the brain. Similarly, rhythm and pitch can help patients sing what words they can't say. A study of autistic children who couldn't speak found that music therapy helped these children articulate words. Some of these kids said their first words ever as a result of the treatment. "We are just starting to understand how powerful music can be. We don't know what the limits are." says Michael De Georgia, director of the Center for Music and Medicine at Case Western Reserve University's University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. 4. TEEN LOITERING Public libraries, malls, and train stations already know this: Teenagers typically don't like classical music. In fact, they dislike it so much that "it sends them scurrying away like frightened mice," says the LA Times. The theory is that when the brain hears something it dislikes, it suppresses dopamine, "the pleasure chemical." And as teenagers' moods fall, they go elsewhere to find something to bring it back up. So if you want the neighbor kids to get off your lawn, turn up the Tchaikovsky. 5. HEARING LOSS OK, maybe music can't cure hearing loss, but it may help prevent it. A study of 163 adults, 74 of them lifelong musicians, had participants take a series of hearing tests. The lifelong musicians processed sound better than non-musicians, with the gap widening with age. "A 70-year-old musician understood speech in a noisy environment as well as a 50-year-old non-musician," explains Linda Searling at the Washington Post. 6. A BROKEN HEART Not the kind caused by rejection, but the kind caused by a heart attack. Music can help patients who are recovering from heart attacks and heart surgery by lowering blood pressure, slowing the heart rate and reducing anxiety. As a preventative, try listening to "joyful" music, or songs that make you feel good. Research says listening to songs that evoke a sense of joy causes increased circulation and expanded blood vessels, which encourages good vascular health. 7. POOR SPORT PERFORMANCE In 2005, a UK study found that listening to music during sports training can boost athletic performance by up to 20 percent. That's roughly equal to the boost some athletes get from illegal performance-enhancing drugs, except music doesn't show up on a drug test. For best results, try music with a fast tempo during intense training and slower songs during cooldown. 8. GRUMPY TEENS In a 2008 study, researcher Tobias Greitemeyer wanted to study how lyrics impacted teenagers' attitudes and behavior. To do so, he exposed one group of teens to "socially conscious" songs with a positive message, like Michael Jackson's "Heal the World." Another other group listened to songs with a "neutral" message. The researchers then "accidentally" knocked over a cup of pencils. The group listening to positive songs not only rushed to help more quickly, but picked up five times as many pencils as the other group. 9. ILLITERACY A 2009 study comparing two groups of second graders from similar demographics suggests learning music boosts reading abilities. The only major difference between the two groups was that one learned music notation, sight-reading and other skills, while the control group did not. Each group was tested for literacy before and after the school year. The end-of-year scores for the control group improved only slightly from their beginning of the year scores, while the kids with a music education scored "significantly higher," especially on vocabulary tests. 10. SLUGGISH ALCOHOL SALES Are you a wine store owner suffering from an overstock of German vino? Try pumping some German tunes through your store. A 1999 study showed that doing so boosted German wine sales, and similarly, playing French music boosted French wine sales. Customers said they were completely oblivious to what music was being played. 11. WINE SNOBBERY Ever purchased a bottle of wine with recommended listening printed on the bottle? Well, makers of cheap wine may want to consider that tactic. A group of researchers say certain types of music can "enhance" the way wine tastes by up to 60 percent. In a study, wine-drinkers rated white wine as 40 percent more refreshing when it was accompanied by "zingy and refreshing" music ("Just Can't Get Enough" by Nouvelle Vague was their go-to zingy song). The taste of red wine was altered 60 percent by "powerful and heavy music" like Orff's "Carmina Burana." "The tongue is easy to dupe." says Jonah Lehrer at Wired. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some $8 chardonnay that needs a little help from Tina Turner. May 11, 2012 - 10:41am Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/30649/11-problems-music-can-solve#ixzz2cKb24mo8 Thanks for playing everyone. I think I should probably watch Groundhog Day! If you like to read quotations, the link below starts out with the one to which Nancy may have been referring. Cynthia Here is a link that might be useful: Quotations

From the "History" website "would-be criminals saw they could make a good profit by filing shavings from the sides of gold and silver coins and selling the precious metal. Before the 18th-century was out, the U.S. Mint began adding ridges to the coinsâ edges, a process called âÂÂreeding,â in order to make it impossible to shave them down without the result being obvious. As a side benefit, the reeded edges also made coin design more intricate and counterfeiting more difficult. The U.S. Mint stopped producing all gold coins during the Great Depression, thanks to an executive order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and a silver crisis in the 1960s led that metal to be gradually phased out as well. TodayâÂÂs coins contain no precious metals��"but youâÂÂll still find those ridges, at least on half-dollars, quarters, dimes and some dollar coins. Aside from keeping up with tradition, the ridges also help make the coins distinguishable from each other by feel as well as appearance, enabling visually impaired people to tell the difference between similarly sized coins, like the dime and penny. So while coins made from precious metals may be history, it seems reeding is here to stay." So four stars for all of you. I was going for the shaving off of the gold and silver, but you (your DH?) get points too, Bobbie, for the counterfeiting answer. Thanks for playing! Have a wonderful week! Cynthia

Four stars for TM! The shad is a fish that, like salmon, spends most of its life in the ocean. It travels upriver to spawn in the spring. If you have never tasted shad, you really should come east in the spring when the shadbush is in bloom! That is how the serviceberry got its alternative names. The tree blooms in spring when the shad are running. Lots of folks love shad roe (it was a favorite of my mother). The fish is my absolute favorite. There are festivals in Pennsylvania and down here every year. The Potomac used to be thick with shad in Washington's time. Wish that were still the case! Nancy, I love smelts, too. My mother used to fry them up-delicious. Paternal granddad was from a long line of Chincoteague watermen (landed in Virginia in the 1630s) and moved to Pennsylvania where he became a fish broker. We always had the best fish-even the cat got mostly fresh flounder to eat! He would come in with all sorts of fruits and fish that he got from the sources, so I was awfully spoiled when it came to food. Sunday summer breakfast at the shore was always a huge bowl of fresh lobster and everyone converged in one kitchen-great party! As a kid, I didn't eat it. Stupid me. Sigh. I had toast this morning. Have a wonderful day and thanks for playing. Bobbie, I hope you get to the movie tonight. If you get a chance, let us know how it was! I am watering again even though we may at last get some rain this week. I am so tired of the dustbowl out there! Left the sprinkler on in the back all night long. Cynthia

Four stars for Bobbie, TM, and Annette! Yes, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. Here is a blurb from Wikipedia: TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off event. The annual conference began in 1990, in Monterey, California. TED's early emphasis was technology and design, consistent with its origins in the Silicon Valley. The TED main conference is held annually in Long Beach, and its companion TEDActive is held in Palm Springs. Both conferences will move from Long Beach and Palm Springs to Vancouver and Whistler, respectively, in 2014. TED events are also held throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Asia, offering live streaming of the talks. They address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling. The speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners. TED's current curator is the British former computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson. Since June 2006, the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license, through TED.com. As of May 2013, over 1,500 talks are available free online. By January 2009 they had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, the viewing figure stood at more than 500 million, and on Tuesday November 13, 2012, TED Talks had been watched one billion times worldwide, reflecting a still growing global audience. I have listened to several of these talks and always found them interesting. Pretty cool concept, I think. I am linking to one talk that is way beyond my feeble brain to understand on a deep level, but it fascinates me nonetheless. Have a good day. Leaving TED behind to focus on Christmas music with Nancy! :) Cynthia Here is a link that might be useful: TED talk