Lithograph of the Rotator Cuff group from Gray's Anatomy.

The Rotator Cuff is a group of four muscles that attach to the humerus and scapula to support the shoulder joint. The Glenohumeral joint (where the scapula and humerus meet, a.k.a. the shoulder) is a ball and socket style joint and due to the small surface area of each bone where they connect, it is the most moveable joint in the entire body. The Rotator Cuff along with deltoid, teres major and the coracobrachialis make up the 7 muscles responsible for the movement and stability in the shoulder.

The four muscles of the Rotator Cuff include the supraspinatus, the subscapularis, infraspinatus and teres minor all of which have their attachment and/or insertion points on the scapula bone and/or the humerus (the large bone connecting the shoulder to the elbow). The most commonly damaged muscles in the group are the supraspinatus and the infraspinatus.

A sudden, powerful movement of the shoulder joint can cause an acute tear. Bowlers, tennis players, boxers, and pitchers often suffer an acute tear. A chronic tear is caused by repetitive motion wearing down the muscle on or near the tendon. Chronic tears can lead to Impingement Syndrome; the condition where the inflammed muscles are squished under the acromial arch before they attach to the Humerus. Chronic tears occur most often in people over 40 years old.

Rotator Cuff tears have a 40-90% treatment success rate.

Scene from Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace

Foreshadowing is a device used in writing to elude to a future event. It is a tool writers use to  give a hint about what will happen later in the story. The best way to understand foreshadowing is use universally well known stories as examples.

In the Boy Who Cried Wolf, every time he cried “wolf” to draw the townspeople to his aid, they warned him that one day there would be a real emergency, and no one would help him because they wouldn’t know if he was joking or in real need. In the end, the wolf got the sheep because the boy’s multiple pranks destroyed their trust; thus confirming their fears.

In a horror movie, when the protagonists are frightened by something suddenly jumping out at them that turns out to be a benign object, but later are brutally killed by an axe murderer jumping out at them, the benign object gives the watcher a clue about later happenings in the movie.

The Star Wars saga are absolutely riddled with examples. In Star Wars, when Ben Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker that his father was killed by Darth Vader, he was both eluding to a future conflict and speaking metaphorically about Anaken Skywalker’s “death” and rebirth as Darth Vader. In the Phantom Menace, we see young Anaken’s shadow shaped like Darth Vader’s profile, eluding to his eventual change. For more information on the Star Wars Saga, check out the Lucas Film website.

Both of my kids are at an age where the question of allowance comes up. I have a 4 year old son and a 6 year old daughter who are learning to become consumers. I was shocked to find out that girls at her school are already getting all “brand namey” when my daughter came home from school and asked for a pair of Sketcher’s Breeze. My husband and I have made a point of explaining to our kids that commercials between their television programs are companies trying to sell their products to kids, and to look at these “mini shows” featuring toys, cereal or candy with a critical eye. I also suffer from wanting to get the one toy for my kids that will be the magic bullet that will keep them entertained for long stretches of time without me having to break up a fight or be involved in order to eek out some precious “me” time. There is a lot more cool stuff out there than when I was a kid, and I love cool stuff. The request for a pair of Sketcher’s Breeze made me stop and think. I have no good reason to buy her a pair (she has 3 pairs of sneakers already), and yet she wants them. Because I love to shop, I would normally just go out and buy them but that wouldn’t be, teaching her anything about working towards a financial goal.

I had heard musings about allowances not being a good idea, but when I researched online, I found almost universal agreement between financial planners, banks, parents and children about the learning value of an allowance. If our kids are going to make financial mistakes (and they will), don’t we want them to happen when they are dealing with $20 and not $20,000? The current line of thinking is that an age appropriate amount should be given on a regular basis to your children after a discussion has taken place about what the allowance is for. For example, as parents, it is our job to provide the basics of food, clothing, shelter and some entertainment, but if my daughter wants those shoes, over and above what she needs, she can buy them herself. In addition, there are different ways kids can use their money; save, spend or share. If you really want shrewd, financially savvy kids, teach them to put aside10-20% of their allowance into savings. Obviously, they are going to want to use the money to buy things for themselves, and they must be allowed to make mistakes. After buying cheap toys that break after one use, junior will quickly become a shrewd spender. Finally, you want to teach your kids the value of charity and community involvement. I enjoy taking my son to visit the cats at the SPCA. Each time we go, we stop at a pet store to pick up kitten food, or toys, or extra litter boxes to take along with us. I give the item to my son to hand into the SPCA and he looks forward to this simple act of making a contribution. Likely, your children have a passion. For my son, it is animals. For my daughter, it is learning. Teach them that they can use their money to benefit an organization that parallels their interests.

Lastly, it is important not to link allowances to chores. Don’t make receiving an allowance dependant upon chores done. When living in a family unit, all of us need to contribute in order to keep the household running smoothly. These are chores that we all have to do, including the kids. If a monetary value is placed on chores, the kids could choose to forego their allowance because they don’t feel like doing chores for that week. Having said that, if your little one is saving up for something big and wants to earn money faster, many sources recommend offering them jobs that go beyond normal household chores, like cleaning out the car, mowing the lawn, weeding the garden, sweeping out the fireplace, etc. Agree on a monetary value for this service ahead of time and be sure to pay them promptly so that they can learn the association between working hard and acheiving a desired goal.

The value of allowance is determined in a few different ways. Some websites suggest one dollar per year of age. Others suggest basing their allowance on that of their peers. Still others recommend estimating the amount that you are currently spending on “extras” and giving that amount each week. A really great piece of advice was to have your kids keep track their spending by recording the date, what they bought and the cost of the item. I was thinking that I would like to try this as well; although it may be frightening to closely examine my spending habits. Good financial mangement can and should start early. Maybe if the US was better at collectively managing money, the current debt situation might not be so desparate.

Read more parenting articles at the Modern Parent Blog.

I am crazy for bird watching. Silly as it may sound, growing up a city girl with pigeons, crows and seagulls, the rare event of seeing a beautiful Wood Duck or peculiar Crossbill, speaks to me. This is why I have involved my kids in three outdoor hobbies that help them to watch and learn about the world around them.

I use Birds of the Pacific Northwest Coast as my guide. It is a simple, color coded book with good illustrations. Every time our family encounters a new bird, we check it off in the “bird book”. My kids fight about who gets to check off the latest addition to our collection and love to watch the birds through the binoculars. I regularly take them to a nearby bird sanctuary where they can see species that they might not otherwise be exposed to.

My other interest in mushrooms. I love to try to identify all of the different kinds – I don’t eat any, and I have taught my children not to eat any. In addition, I have taught them that some varieties of mushrooms have toxins on their surface. In the autumn, our family goes on mushroom walks with our Audubon Mushroom Book. Since we live in a particularly rainy part of the world, we have a great amount of species to observe and check off. Pictured with this article is the beautiful, but poisonous Amanita muscaria; my favorite mushroom to look at. I once had a Biology teacher who studied squirrels in a particular region and found that they had been eating the white dots off of all the Amanita’s in the area. The white substance is hallucinogenic/deadly. Not a fungus that I would mess with, but those must have been some trippin squirrels!

On occasion, when we are out and about, we make a point of taking a sample of an unknown plant home to try to find out what it is. This both teaches our children to do research online and helps them get to know their environment a bit more. We also emphasize the importance of environmental stewardship. These values came to the surface when we discovered an infestation of gigantic ants in our house. I had been on an ant killing spree for several days, and felt enough shame that I didn’t want my kids to see me killing bugs. When they discovered the ants on their own, a massive cup and paper operation began. They trapped the ants with their plastic cups, slid paper underneath and released the lucky ants outdoors. I think they rescued about 20 ants. This may seem a bit extreme, but we also name the spiders we find in our house. Clarisse was with us for several months, living on top of our pantry shelf.

One of the projects set to begin is to number the snails in our yard and track their movements. We plan to put a mark on their shells with a felt pen and make a point of looking for them when we are outside. We can see how long they live, where they go in the garden and how they change over time.

Fossils are also of great interest in me. We happened to be lucky enough to live near a river that was an abundant source of fossils. Any given summer day would have my little ones playing in the shallow calm of a riverbed, while I nearby, examined rocks for fossils. I was never disappointed. Most of the finds were ammonites, clams and mussels, but what a great springboard for teaching! I had them looking for fossils with me, and they were more interested in discovering a great find than in splashing around the river.

No matter what the season, you can find an enjoyable activity outdoors: in the autumn and winter; mushroom hunting, late winter/early spring is great for water fowl, in our part of the world. Summer time is a good time for looking at song birds and hummingbirds. If you like to camp, you can listen for owls and bats. Bats come out at dusk to hunt mosquitos, and chances are, if you think you see a bird at dusk, you are probably seeing a bat.

The point of all of this; even if you live in a big city, there are ways you can discover nature with your kids that will help them in their learning and nature is never far away.

Most people after exposure will test positive after between 2 and 12 weeks. There is a small percentage of people who will not test positive until the virus has been in their body for 6 months, so to be absolutley sure that you are HIV free, take the test at 6 months after exposure, but feel free to take the test before that; say, at 12 weeks because this fits the time frame for most people to have the virus show up in their blood. Let’s put it this way, if it were me, I would get tested after 12 weeks and again at the 6 month mark.

If you live in the United States, there is a National HIV and STD Testing Resource Center that will direct you, based on your postal code to the nearest testing center. If you chose the finger prick method to test for HIV, it is called the RAPD test and it will give you the results within 5 to 60 minutes of the procedure. Standard testing takes up to 2 weeks for results to come back. There are tests that you can buy online and in drug stores to do yourself, but only one is approved by the FDA and is called the Home Access HIV-1 Testing System. This test involves pricking your finger, squeezing blood onto a prepared card, then mailing the card into a laboratory for testing. Counseling resources are available to you before, during and after the procedure.

If you live in Britain, you can contact the British Association For Sexual Health and HIV. Type in your postal code, and the website will show testing centers near you.

If you live in Canada, you can contact the Public Health Agency of Canada for a 1-800 number specific to your province or territory.

In South Africa, The Aids Foundation of South Africa can direct you contacts who can help you find test locations.

It takes anywhere from a week to 10 days for the seeds to send up grass shoots. When working from bare ground, the advice I have read says that when these shoots are about 2 to 3 centimeters long, add another layer of grass seed and in approximately one month, you should start seeing some lush grass grow. Be sure to keep the area moist while new grass is growing in.

When planting a new area from seed, sprinkle the seed into newly tilled soil, then rake over the seeds so that they are covered with about 1-2 centimeters of dirt. Keep them well watered, but don’t overwater them, as you will drown the new shoots. Most grass varieties should be planted in the spring or fall. Common hearty varieties include Fescue, Bermuda and St. Augustine. There are very useful instructions in an article called The Grass is Always Greener.

Two words that I, myself misused all the time without truely understanding their difference. Than is used only when comparing objects. I am taller than you. You make more money than me. Think of greater than and less than in math.

Then refers to time in a sequence of events or in reference to the past. I was much thinner back then. First I went to the supermarket, then I saw a movie.

There is nothing more to it.

Wow; in researching the answer to this question, I came across a lot of grammarese that read like gobblely gook. I will try to break it down in a manner that we can all understand. The use of “that” in a sentence is essential to the comprehension of the sentence, and is used to describe a noun in order to distinguish it from other possible interpretations. For example, “The salon that does my hair has raised their prices.” In this case the use of the word “that” is essential for describing the salon in question and distinguishes it from any other salon.

Which is used to begin a useful piece of information that gives additional information to the reader, but is not essential in conveying the basic information. For example, “Universe Today, the website which I get my space news from, just received a huge grant from the National Science Foundation. The phrase accompanying the “which” in this case is separated by commas. It expands upon the information, but is not an essential part of the sentence.

Clear as mud? Wise Geek provides a great description of the proper usage of these two words. Just get past the first paragraph because you need a Bachelor’s Degree in English Grammar to understand it.

Qualitative research is a method for gathering data that employs the use of surveys and focus groups with the goal of understanding the attitudes and behaviour of the target group. It is looking for people to give their subjective account of an experience or idea. The researcher spends more time with the test subjects and generally tests fewer people compared to Quantitative research.

Quantitative research involves gathering statistical data; usually in the form of questionnaires and focussed interviews and usually involves using the Scientific Method to obtain information. If you have been called upon to fill in a document verbally or orally that asks you to rate on a scale of 1-5, you have participated in Quantitative research. Demographic information falls under this category: age, sex, occupation, area of residence, etc.

There is a tendency in the scientific community to give more credence to quantitative research, but this attitude is a mistake as both methodologies have their place in gathering research. I once assisted on a study that examined perception of crime and safety within a subject’s neighborhood as defined by them. For example, what you consider to be part of your neighborhood, I might not, even though we live next door to each other. When we looked at the answers to the questionnaire where people identified crime “hot spots” in their neighborhood, we found that there were some definite streets, houses and intersections that were widely thought to be centers of criminal activity. This would be considered Qualitative Data, but we also examined demographics as well: income, married status, sex, age, etc. because these two types of data support each other, fill out a more comprehensive picture and raise interesting questions about relationships between two sets of data. For example, is one age group more fearful of a particular area of town than another age group.

Both sets of gathering data are valid and useful, and many researchers employ both methods when studying a phenomenon.

When talking about Chemistry, organic refers primarily to the study of carbon and hydrogen with some phosphorus, silicon and sulfur, chlorine, flourine, bromine and iodine. Organic chemistry is somewhat misnamed because the term organic was meant to imply all things associated with living matter, but there are many “inorganic” compounds necessary for normal body functioning. Inorganic chemistry, therefore, refers to everything not covered by Organic chemistry with some overlap.

When referring to agriculture, in most countries, food cannot be Certified Organic unless it meets the following criteria:

Produced without synthetic chemicals, genetically altered organisms, or sewage sludge on land that has been chemical free for at least 3 years, with strict production and sales records and no contact with food not produced organically and with techniques subject to periodic inspection. It is important to note that a label of organic on meat and other animal products doesn’t necessarily mean that those products are cruelty free. Consumers are demanding organic products for consumables other than food; specifically in beauty and body care.