JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Personal blog of Jessica Zafra, author of The Collected Stories and the Twisted series
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Archive for the ‘Health’

Manila, look out the window at noon. This is Arrakis.

April 03, 2014 By: jessicazafra Category: Books, Cats, Health 3 Comments →

You can actually see the heat shimmering.

We live in the tropics and are accustomed to high temperatures, but this summer is something else. One minute we’re wearing cardigans and dining outdoors, the next minute we’re sticking our heads in the freezer to make the hell imps stop drilling our brains.

If this isn’t climate change, then we must be living on Dune.


Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune is one of the greatest What-could’ve-beens in film history. Orson Welles as the Baron Harkonnen! Salvador Dali as the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV! Charlotte Rampling as Jessica, Gloria Swanson as the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Alain Delon as Duncan Idaho, and Mick Jagger as Feyd-Rautha, with H.R. Giger and Moebius doing design. The concept alone kills.

As a veteran survivor of heat-induced headaches, here are a few tips on how not to get microwaved this summer.

1. Stay indoors. Darkness is good.
2. Hydrate. Drink twice as much water as usual. (If you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated.)
3. Read books set someplace cold. In the fictional universe, Winter is coming. (Watching movies set in the poles is good, too.)

saffy vf got

4. Sleep. Cats know.
5. Limit movement.
6. In case of heatstroke, sweat.

Everything gives you cancer.

August 09, 2013 By: jessicazafra Category: Health, Music 2 Comments →

Like clockwork we receive health alerts warning us about the hidden dangers in our food and surroundings. Yesterday Jackie sent us an article on the evils of potato chips, which actually haven’t got potato in them. Are we to live without chips then? And doughnuts, soda, coffee (!) and all the other stuff we survive on? At these times Joe Jackson starts playing in our head.

You know what really makes you ill? Worrying constantly about being ill.

Teenager develops promising early detection system for cancer

August 06, 2013 By: jessicazafra Category: Health, Science 1 Comment →

From TED: Over 85 percent of all pancreatic cancers are diagnosed late, when someone has less than two percent chance of survival. How could this be? Jack Andraka talks about how he developed a promising early detection test for pancreatic cancer that’s super cheap, effective and non-invasive — all before his 16th birthday.

Check out his reaction when he won the Intel Prize.

The Lord of the Mosquitoes

July 18, 2013 By: jessicazafra Category: Health, Science, The Bizarre 5 Comments →

We’d like to thank all the concerned friends who’ve sent us the link to the article, Why are some people mosquito magnets? We have mentioned that mosquitoes love us. Put us in a crowd of thousands and if there is one mosquito in the area it will home in on us. At garden parties a crown of mosquitoes forms over our head, officially proclaiming us the Lord of the Mosquitoes.

According to the article, these are the factors that make certain people alluring to mosquitoes:

– Blood type O
– Beer ingestion
– Full moon
– Sockless stinky feet
– Pregnancy
– Carbon dioxide exhalation and sweat
– Dark-colored clothing, esp. black and red

Way to go, scientific research! You’ve just narrowed the field of potential mosquito meals to nearly every human in existence. (We especially like the part about exhaling carbon dioxide.) This method of reportage is known as reeeaching, and it is often driven by the desperate desire to meet a deadline—an impetus we know extremely well.

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Tarot cards from facade.com

The mosquito magnet article reminds us of our own research in a very different field: manghuhula, fortune-tellers, psychics and tarot card readers.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.

Get a leg up.

March 15, 2013 By: jessicazafra Category: Health 9 Comments →

The legs are among the most overworked parts of the body, but they also get the least care. Bad enough that they bear your weight or cover long distances every single day, but they’re also subjected to such tortures as poorly-made shoes with ridiculously high heels. And yet today’s fashions require that your legs look great in tiny shorts (Appointment with gynecologist?) and 6-inch heels. How your legs actually feel is beside the point; one must suffer for beauty.

At the launch of the anti-varicose vein supplement Antistax, it was noted that many women (and men too, we guess) experience leg pains, heaviness (pangangalay), swelling (pagmamanas), cramps and varicose veins, but don’t consider them serious enough to consult a doctor. (We’ll spare you the gross photos.) Leg problems won’t kill you, so they are dismissed as aesthetic rather than functional concerns. However, these pains may be symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency, in which weak and damaged legs cannot pump blood back to the heart. This supplement contains flavonoids from red vine leaf extracts, which improve blood circulation in the legs.

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The leg experts offered the following tips for the care and maintenance of healthy legs:
1. Move. Standing still: not good.
2. Bathe your legs in cold water. (Like ice baths for athletes.)
3. Elevate your legs. In the office, put them up on a footstool; at home, prop them up on pillows.
4. Don’t cross your legs for extended periods.
5. Avoid excessive heat. (Plunging them in very hot water: not good.)
6. Avoid high heels.
7. Wear loose, flowing clothes for easy movement.
8. Eat a balanced diet with enough fiber.

Got questions about leg health? Post them in Comments and we’ll forward them to the Antistax team.