Vitiligo - a mulitcoloured skin.

Dear General public, apologies for the delay in this blog (yes, I am ashamed, one week of saying that I will post on a Friday, and whoa, I didn’t post!)

Anyway, over the past week, my dear general public, I have been disturbed. Whilst scrolling down my Facebook page (as you do when you’re a teenager who’s supposed to be revising for exams) there was a picture of a girl that was getting all kinds of abuse! Why, I hear you ask? She had two different colours of skin.

Right, this infuriated me for three main reasons:

1) She was stunning, and her face looked no different from anyone else’s (she had been granted with two eyes in the right place and all that…)

2) There are all kinds of issues to do with racism, and what colour you skin is, so how having both colours (therefore not making you either ‘Black’ or ‘Caucasian’ or any other particular skin colour) is therefore not a justified reason not to like someone or to judge them. If anything having both skin colours should make you immune from any kind of racial discrimination, but somehow this miraculously isn’t the case.

3) She was clearly happy with this photo of herself, she smiled into the camera lens, so what right does the world of Facebook have to put her down and treat her badly?

 

Therefore my dear general public, I think it is only right that we all understand vitiligo, a skin condition caused due to the lack of pigment in the skin.  Then maybe people won’t see vitiligo as an abnormality (especially since it affects around 1 in 100 people, including famous faces such as Michael Jackson). This is going to be a slightly more serious particle, my general public, (hence no Vietnamese at the beginning), but I feel this is a particle of fact that everyone must know about.

Skin is made of two layers, the top layer is simply an epidermis which at the bottom has two types of cells: keratinocytes and melanocytes. The melanocytes are the cells which produce pigment for your skin. Vitiligo is simply when your melanocytes stop making melanin (the hormone that produces pigment for your skin). Therefore, the only difference between black and Caucasian skin, is that black skins’ melanocytes are more active, and  produce more pigment/melanin.

Vitiligo causes the sufferers skin to become ‘patchy’, usually around the face, neck, scalp hands and knees – but can occur anywhere on the body. It is not contagious and is not inherited, although your chances of having vitiligo are slightly greater if there is a family history of the condition, and can develop in anyone at any age.

Vitiligo is painless and does not have any side effects, but the sufferer can feel very self-conscious and feel uncomfortable about their appearance (so how is writing hate about them going to help!?)

 

Now general public, this is really just an overview of vitiligo, and what it is. But I sincerely hope that you now understand vitiligo and do not judge or treat people differently because of the colour of their skin. I also do not wish to have offended anyone by using the phrases ‘black’ and ‘Caucasian’.

Thanks for reading and I will see you next Friday,

Particle complete.

Sushis o0

Polar Bears are not just cuddly toys...

“từ ngữ của tôi, những gì một con cá lớn” or “my, what a big fish” to the majority of those reading this! Turns out learning Vietnamese is VERY hard, and their words are generally confusing… So if anyone out there is fluent in the language, feel free to comment with tips!

Also, you will all be very glad to know that my posts are now being “beta’d” by my charming and amazing and generally made-of-awesome friend, who’s going by Athena (Greek Goddess of Wisdom, she’s so modest) meaning that you will no longer have to suffer my terrible spelling and grammar! And also thank you to the 85 people who have viewed my blog (which may only be 0.000001% of the human population, but I’m still proud).

Now down to business! If you have read my introductory post, you will have noticed that someone who gets a tiny mention in there is Poly, my one true sole mate who just happens to be a stuffed Polar Bear (but don’t tell him that). He is the one that has suffered through my years of random fact finding and patiently sat there as I fill his polystyrene brain with essential knowledge.

So in dedication to Poly, my dear general public, I’m going to inform you with as much awesome knowledge about Polar Bears that you will ever need to know, and also teach Poly a little bit most about his family and species (who says I’m not a caring mother?)

 

Voila! That’s Poly! Now seriously down to business…

 Firstly, Polar bears are not to be mistaken with penguins (I mean really?) as polar bears live in the Arctic, not the Antarctic!  Polar bears are the largest land mammals with the boars (male poly bears) weighing up to 700kg, which put into perspective is equal to 1635 tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, 132 copies of the Oxford English Dictionary, or 1287 copies of the Vietnamese dictionary!

Also, Polar bears are closely related to the brown bear, as they evolved from them hundreds of thousands of years ago (technically meaning that they could breed to made a new form of ‘super-bear’, but anyway…) and the oldest polar bear fossil dates back 110000, which is 130000 years ago (Boffin Busting! My new catchphrase meaning ‘mind blowing’ or similar. So if you’re brave, and fancy a bit of trending, feel free to use in everyday conversation to impress your friends!).

Unfortunately, Polar Bears do not have any super power moves for catching their dinner of seal, with the occasional side order of walrus. So instead they stick to the old fashioned method of just attempting to clasp their prey between their paws and then, well ummm, crushing their skulls.  If you’re more interested in how polar bears catch their prey, and want to get into the really gory details, Google is your friend J

Poly is currently looking very shocked at that last fact, and cannot believe that his species could do such a thing, him being so vicious and all…

 

Although Polar bears are super-efficient killing machines, they can go through very long periods of time without eating, especially just after their cubs are born, where they do not eat anything as there is very little prey, but still provide cubs with milk (so basically, by some very extended logic, polar bears are the Fantine’s of the animal kingdom, and therefore are saints!)

And also quite frankly, I am proud to be best friends with a polar bear, as they are cool (get it, cool? They live in the Arctic? Never mind) and also cutesome (another phrase I’m going to trend, a funky twist of the classic word ‘cute’) animals which are very deserved to be on our planet!

 

hạt hoàn chỉnh! Or “particle complete” to the rest of my dear general public.

 

Sushi

o0

Isaac Newtons apple... and some stuff about the blog!

Okey dokey chaps, chapettes and other member s of the blogosphere/general public… After the launch of my blog and my first 2 posts… I’m going to set some mini ground rules about how I’m going to work this blog so you – the amazing general public, who are actually reading my posts – know when to check out my page!

Right

1) I will attempt to post a new particle every Friday about some random facts that you really didn’t need to know! There interesting though… so defo (check my coolness, using text-speak on a blog… REBEL!) check them out!

2) All feel free to comment/ send me ideas on what to write particles about! Ever wanted to know what sort of apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head (a cooking apple, from the Flower of Kent tree. And it’s also believed that he possibly wasn’t even hit on the head…), but can’t be bothered researching it yourself… let me know!

3) If you are from Vietnam or speak really good Vietnamese, apologies but all the spelling/ grammar may not be correct, I’m still in the early learning stages 

4) From the post after this onwards, all my work will be beta’d (edited to all the others out there who had no idea what that was!) so you will no longer have to suffer through my terrible spelling, punctuation or grammar!

5) Enjoy the fact particles and reading my blog and I hope you enjoy looking at the particles just as much as I love researching them! Thank you all and I will be posting again tomorrow with a proper particle!

Sushi
o0

Pufferfish are not friends or Food!

Ah the pufferfish, a childhood friend comically blown up as a balloon and given as a gift to Fiona in Shrek, and sporting its comical name better than any land mammal ever could whilst also having to deal with being sterotypically bloated.

However, do not be fooled by the name or cuddly appearance... as PUFFERFISH ARE DEADLY CREATURES!!! (the second most deadly vertibrae in the WORLD to be precise, after the poisonous tree frog, whos name just gives it all away!) Pufferfish, or tetraodontidae to scientific people, contain a HIGHLY DEADLY NEUROTOXIN IN THEIR LIVER AND OVARIES which they have developed as a defence mechanism from predators in the sea - and well, humans.

Pufferfish are also a delecacy in some Oriental countries such as Korea and Japan, who serve the Pufferfish flesh raw in sushi, and has to be prepped by SPECIALLY TRAINED CHEFS with TWO SEPARATE KNIFES (one for the edible flesh and another for the deadly, posionous, frankly evil liver) so that the poisin is 100% NOT consumed by humans, which would easily kill a full grown man in less than a minute!

Also, pufferfish only turn puffy as a defence mechanism, inflatting their stomachs with water, causing them to bloat like a lady after 10 McDonalds and expose LOTS OF SHARP SPINES (is there no end to their power moves - sorry Vlogbrothers, just had to use that phrase because wow pufferfish are powerful with their moves!) The pufferfish also has chameleon like features and can change the pattren of its skin to suit it's environment, along with having eyes that can move independently of themselves!

WOW!

So pufferfish are basiccally killing machines (but not to sharks, or lizardfish...) but anyway KILLING MACHINES!!! But the pufferfish has only developed these deadly characteristics so that they are not eaten by predators... so a word of advice general public, if you ever feel like your going to be eaten, bloat that stomach, unleash those hidden spines and produce that toxin that is likely to scare any prey away!

Particle (well, more like molecule, as this was QUITE LONG!) complete!

Sushi
o0

Chao, or 'Hello' to most of us...

CHAO! or Hello to the majority who are reading this! You have now been informed on how to greet those whilst on those regular holidays in Vietnam.

Apart from knowing very minimalistic Vietnamese, I also have a pauchant for facts and other little nuggets of knowlege that are really pointless but keep the world turning on its axis (between 21.5 and 24 degees). And now instead of keeping it all to myself and pet/toy polar bear Poly, im going to share it with you, the unassuming general public!

So lets hope this is the beginning of a happy blogging journey, and on reading this intro you haven't 1) gone 'she's weird *log out*' or 2) 'I aready know all this stuff, and im fluent in Vietnamese girlfriend' because if thats the case i NEED to meet you!

Happy blogging/following and hope you enjoy my future particles (what im going to refer to as my facts of knowlege)...

Sushi, (as anything fishy that is wrapped in seaweed must be good, right?)

o0