Color Effects Universal

While perceptions of color are somewhat subjective, there are some color effects that have universal meaning.
Colors in the red area of the color spectrum are known as warm colors and include red, orange and yellow. These warm colors evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility.
Colors on the blue side of the spectrum are known as cool colors and include blue, purple and green. These colors are often described as calm, but can also call to mind feelings of sadness or indifference.

Combinations
In 1666, English scientist Sir Isaac Newton discovered that when pure white light is passed through a prism, it separates into all of the visible colors. Newton also found that each color is comprised of a single wavelength and cannot be separated any further into other colors.
Further experiments demonstrated that light could be combined to form other colors. For example, red light mixed with yellow light creates an orange color.
A color resulting from a mix of two other colors is known as a metamer. Some colors, such as yellow and purple, cancel each other out when mixed and result in a white light. These competing colors are known as complements.

Color Therapy
Several ancient cultures, including the Egyptians and Chinese, practiced chromotherapy that used colors to heal.
Chromotherapy is sometimes referred to as light therapy or colourology and is still used today as a holistic or alternative treatment.
In this treatment:
Yellow is thought to stimulate the nerves and purify the body.
Orange was used to heal the lungs and increase energy levels.
Blue is believed to soothe illnesses and treat pain.
Indigo shades are thought to alleviate skin problems.
Black represents power, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, anonymity, unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger, underground, good technical color, mourning and death.
In speech we say “Don’t let a black cat cross your path”, “Black Market” or “Black Monday”.
White is what we see when all colors come together in perfect balance.
It represents reverence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, good, sterility and marriage.
Crimson can make some people feel irritable. With red invoking feels of rage and hostility, it is a color that should be avoided as the main color of a room. Sitting for long periods of time in a room this color will likely break down any peace and harmony you are striving to create in your home. Ancient cultures used the color red to stimulate the body and mind, and to increase circulation.
Most psychologists view color therapy with skepticism and point out that the supposed effects of color have been exaggerated. Colors also have different meanings in different cultures.
Research has demonstrated in many cases that the mood-altering effects of color may only be temporary. A blue room may initially cause feelings of calm, but the effect dissipates after a short period of time.

96m Women ‘Missing’ in Asia

Asia is ‘missing’ about 96 million women--the vast majority in China and India--who died from discriminatory healthcare and neglect or who were never born at all, the UN estimated on Monday.
Female infanticide and sex-selective abortion have caused a severe gender imbalance in Asia and the problem is worsening despite rapid economic growth in the region, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report was cited by AFP.
“The old mindset with its preference for male children has now combined with modern medical technology” that makes it easier to predict and abort unborn girls, said Anuradha Rajivan, the report’s lead author.
“It is not just female infanticide but sex-selective abortion of unborn girls that cause so-called ‘missing’ females,” she said, contrasting the issue with recent improvements in female life expectancy and education.
The UNDP report found that East Asia had the world’s highest male-female sex ratio at birth, with 119 boys born for every 100 girls.
This far exceeded the global world average of 107 boys for every 100 girls.
The region, and especially South Asia, ranks near the worst in the world--often lower than sub-Saharan Africa--on issues such as protecting women from violence, as well as access to health, education, employment and political participation.

Internet a Fundamental Right

More than three-quarters of people across the world believe access to the Internet is a fundamental right.
The poll carried out for the BBC, which questioned more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries, indicated on Monday strong global support for access to the web, AFP reported.
The findings come as efforts are stepped up across the world to increase net access, with the United Nations leading a push for more people to be given the opportunity to get online.
Countries, including Finland and Estonia, have already declared it a human right.
“The right to communicate cannot be ignored,” Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunications Union, told the broadcaster.
“The Internet is the most powerful potential source of enlightenment ever created.”
Almost 79 percent of those questioned said they strongly agreed or somewhat agreed with the description of the Internet as a “fundamental right of all people”. This included people who had access and those who did not. A total of 87 percent of Internet users questioned in the poll, carried out by GlobeScan for the BBC, felt access should be a right, while more than 70 percent of non-users agreed with this view.

Men Fear Looking Old

Male cosmetics sales in Britain are growing at twice the rate of the female market, according to a survey, with the need to look good for job interviews and the fear of looking old playing key roles.
One in five men is using hair dye to cover up signs of grey, the survey of 1,013 males for L’Oreal UK found, Reuters reported.
Taking care of their appearance is now a status of manhood, the poll concluded, with almost two-thirds of men (56 percent) using cosmetic products daily and 82 percent saying there are no cosmetics products that they would be embarrassed to buy. A quarter of men regularly use face moisturizer and two in every five (39 percent) use facial cleansers every day to take care of their skin and combat the effect of work stress and aging.

Pope Knew About Church Abuse?

While German authorities are seeking to break the Catholic Church’s “wall of silence” on child molestation, Catholic reformers turn to Pope Benedict XVI for answers.
Sexual abuse of child pupils at several German Catholic schools, including a monastic boarding school in Bavaria, have sparked a nationwide scandal with more than 150 ex-students coming forward with allegations of suffering abuse during the 1970s and 80s.
In a German radio interview On Monday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger criticized a 2001 Vatican directive requiring even the most serious abuse cases to be first investigated internally, saying it had erected a “wall of silence”, around the issue.
Recent media revelation about the sexual and physical abuse of former choirboys of the famous Regensburger Domspatzen choir, which was once headed by the Pope’s brother Georg Ratzinger, has turned the spotlight to Rome.
The sexual abuse dates back to the 1960s. Ratzinger, who led the choir from mid-60s to mid-90s, has denied any knowledge of the abuse, and has promised to testify, should a case be built around the abuses.
The choir’s director and composer has unveiled terrible details of how as a choirboy, he saw the boarding school’s director at the time “come into the dormitory at night and pick out two, three of us boys to take back to his apartment”.
A spokesman for the “We Are the Church” movement, Christian Weisner, urged the Pope to publicly state what he knew about the abuse by clerics in the Bavarian city of Regensburg during his 1977-82 term as bishop there.
“From 1977 to 1981, Joseph Ratzinger was the bishop of Munich and Freising, so he must answer the question about what he knew then and what he did about it,” Weisner told DAPD news agency.
He said that senior officials in the church leadership could not have been unaware of the abuse, calling on authorities to take action.

Gender Shift In S. Korea College Admission

Men used to be the sole breadwinners in the typical South Korean family. Women typically stayed home, taking care of the children and other household affairs.
However, this is no longer the case, with the majority of young women receiving higher education, securing jobs and attaining financial independence, Korea Times wrote.
Many women are prioritizing their career over raising a family.
They even outpace their male counterparts in some professional fields, emerging as an essential part of the nation’s highly-educated and sophisticated labor force.
Reflecting women’s growing role in South Korean society, a larger portion of female high school students went on to universities than their male counterparts last year for the first time in history, Statistics Korea said.
It said 82.4 percent of female high-school students entered universities in 2010, higher than the 81.6 percent for males. It was the first time the ratio was in the females’ favor since the statistical office began compiling data.
In 1990, only 32.4 percent of young women moved on to university, but the ratio has continued on an upward curve over the past two decades, reaching as high as 83.5 percent in 2008.

UAE Women Taxi Drivers Earning More

Female-only taxi drivers in UAE’s Al-Ain have seen their income double since the service was introduced and are now earning on average more than their male counterparts.
According to a report in the National, female taxi drivers working for Q-Link Transportation make on average AED12,000 ($3,300) a month, compared to AED8,000 for male drivers.
Filipino driver Flordeliza Ramos, told the paper, she is “getting many personal calls from women so I don’t have to drive around all day looking for women customers.”
“The ladies feel safe with me and I feel safe with them. It’s a good system.”
In January, taxi regulator TransAD ordered that each taxi company operating in UAE had to have 10 female-only taxis. As yet no company has the full amount of cars operational, the paper reported.
Women-only taxis are swiftly growing in popularity. In January, a company called Eve Taxis set up in Kuwait, following in the footsteps of other successful firms in Iran, UAE, Lebanon, Syria and Bangladesh.

Bahrain Graduates Need Jobs

Jobless Bahraini graduates have called for independent experts to investigate what they claim is the growing problem of unemployment in the country.
The Unemployed Graduates Society, which has been formally launched, plans to lobby government departments and international bodies with a list of demands, TradeArabia reported.
These include an urgent review of Bahrain’s unemployment programs, a study of the problems faced by the government in trying to solve the issue, a ban on ministries outsourcing their work to people from overseas and “proper statistics” of the number of unemployed graduates.
The move was announced during a meeting held at the National Democratic Action Society in Umm Al-Hassam, attended by around 60 unemployed graduates.
They included people who had been unemployed for up to eight years, said organizers.
“This letter will reflect problems faced by all unemployed graduates in Bahrain and will contain as many signatures as possible,” said society member Manal Abdul Samad.

China Rhinos Under Threat

China is farming African wild Rhinos in order to harvest their horns for alleged medicinal properties, said a report by international conservation monitors.
The country has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000-- far more than is needed to promote tourism--with the possible aim of setting up rhino farms, the Sunday Times quoted the report as saying.
The monitoring report is due to be delivered to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and comes ahead of a CITES meeting of wildlife experts in Qatar during March 13-25.
The report says, “Since 2000, Chinese data suggest 141 rhinos were obtained from South Africa. Reports of horn harvesting of captive rhinos in China have surfaced but need further verification. Clarification on the purpose of keeping large aggregations of captive rhino in China would be welcomed.”
Of the five surviving rhino species, the Javan rhino is close to extinction, numbering just 130, with the neighboring Sumatran rhino following closely with only about 300 survivors.
The great one-horned rhino, found mainly in India, only number about 2,800.

Elimination of Diseases

Malaria, mother-to-child transmission of HIV, TB could be eliminated as a public health problem within a decade in most countries.