It is actually a seven-week season called Eastertide. It is a period of fifty days beginning at sundown on the eve of Easter Sunday and lasting for six more Sunday until Pentecost. Thus Easter includes fifty days a week of Sundays.

Like all of the major holidays of the Christian year, the season of Easter is framed around a sequence of events in the life of Jesus. In this case, it commemorates the time that Jesus spent with His disciples following resurrection, prior to His ascension.

Tradition holds that Jesus “ascended” to God on the 40^th day after the resurrection. On the church calendar this day, always a Thursday, is referred to as Ascension Day. In practice, the Ascension is sometimes “transferred” to the sixth Sunday of Easter.

The season officially ends on Pentecost Sunday, which Christians think as the “birthday of the church.” This holiday celebrates the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and indeed, the world.

Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to billions. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

There are two ways in treating cancer that is chemotherapy and radiation. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc. Radiation however destroys cancer cells and also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs. Initial treatment with these two will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use does not result in more tumor destruction. They can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply. CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Mänuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

b. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

c. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans.

d. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Daily exercising and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

During the fly-by around Mercury, the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging, or MESSENGER, observed what seemed to be scalloped edged cliffs which had been mostly created by the shrinking action of the planet as it cooled in time. The same evidence has been observed by the Mariner 10 orbiter during its three fly-bys around the planet, albeit Mariner 10 images seem to suggest that they could have only formed in the early history of Mercury.

The real question is: why isn’t any older features remnant of the shrinking of Mercury on its surface. Virginia Tech professor Scott D. King believes that the loss of heat from the mantle through the crust may have also had an important role in the dynamics of the formation of scalloped edges. Thus, while waiting for the MESSENGER spacecraft to collect gravity and topographic data in order to test this theory, professor King started creating a computer simulation of the silicate mantle of Mercury to model the three-dimensional heat convection patterns which take place beneath the surface.

According to King, mantle convection of Mercury would form long and linear rolls on the surface, opposite to compression alone which would create a random pattern. Further still, it is now obvious that these features created by contraction, assisted by heat convection, are much more different that what we have seen on all the other rocky planets in the solar system, because Mercury is much smaller than the others – meaning it would have a thinner mantle and a larger core in relation to its size.

This basically means that the orientation of the features is determined only by mantle convection, thus MESSENGER could collect data to confirm the model, as all evidence points towards a still active convection process. It is clear that scalloped edged cliffs stopped forming a couple of billions of years ago, but the planet is so cool now that not even mantle convection could further modify the structure of the surface.

Studies show that a large number of people are diagnosed with skin cancer every year, and a strong correlation is linked between those who are regularly exposed to the sun and the disease itself. According to scientific research, there is no such a thing as a “healthy tan”. Tanning is, basically, the skin’s reaction to damage already done, and a defensive attempt to protect itself from further harm.

The name “koala” means in an extinct Aborigine language “does not drink.” Even if called koala bear, this animal has nothing to do with the actual bear; it is not even a placental mammal, but a marsupial, like the kangaroo. Its closest living relatives are the wombats. A koala (Phascolarctos cinererus) is about 60-80 cm (2-2.6 ft) long and weighs 5-14 kg (11-30 pounds). The extremely fine gray fur is the reason why koala has been heavily hunted in the past. The blunt muzzle, long nose, small eyes and large ears give koala a funny look. Koalas are unique amongst mammals in the adaptation of their limbs for arboreal life: they have opposable digits in an arrangement of two against three (like in chameleons).

The koala is a nocturnal mammal; during the day, it sleeps in the canopy of
the eucalyptus trees. Like in most marsupials, the koala male has a double-headed penis. Female koalas are notorious for their lesbian “sex sessions,” rejecting male suitors (females are slightly larger!) and trying to mate with each other, sometimes up to five at a time. This tendency has been observed till now only in individuals kept in captivity, while in the wild, they seem to remain heterosexual. In captivity, koalas have a ratio of three homosexual mating sessions for each heterosexual one.

The researchers have tried to explain the bizarre behavior: lesbian sex could be used by females to turn on the males; it may also be a hormonal impairment occurring in captivity, or employed to relieve stress.

The female gives birth to an offspring the size of a pea grain. She takes it with her mouth and places it into her marsupium (poach). In 6 months, the young can get out and feed on leaves. At the beginning, the young feed on semi-digested food from the mother. This way, the infant receives the microorganisms required for digesting plant food (imagine that some rodents take them by eating the parents’ excrements!). A female koala gives birth once at 2 years, and between mother and young strong bonds establish.

This animal feeds almost exclusively on eucalyptus leaves. The eucalyptus leaves, besides being toxic for most animals, are rich in cellulose and poor in proteins and fats. The adult must detoxify leaves (with energy expense), while cellulose is hard to break down. Because of this poor diet, koalas save energy by sleeping most of the day, while their movements are very slow. One individual consumes about 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of eucalyptus leaves daily and it may never drink water!

Koala is related to two of the most formidable marsupials that have ever existed. One is the extinct Australian marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex), the largest carnivorous marsupial mammal ever. This animal would have killed a modern African lion (Panthera leo) in a fight. Thylacoleo killed its victims very quickly, penetrating with its “bolt-cutter” teeth through the hide and flesh of large animals, causing huge wounds and blood loss. Its massive carnassial cheekteeth effect major trauma and a rapid kill.

The other koala relative is the Diprotodon, an Ice Age species that was the biggest of all marsupials that have ever existed: as large as a hippopotamus! Diprotodon was 2 m (6.5 feet) tall and 3 m (10 feet) long, weighing around 3 tonnes and was part of a pre-historic Australian “mega-fauna” that included giant cow-sized kangaroos and marsupial lions.