Message: Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2011!

Locky's English Playground wishes everyone a very happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Image from touchaholics

And like every year (well, actually 2009 and 2010), let's not forget you can learn some English terms on this festive day!

http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2009/10/message-happy-mid-autumn-festival.html


Resources:
Message: Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2009!!! @ Locky's English Playground

http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2009/10/message-happy-mid-autumn-festival.html

Food, Dining & TV: Sushi, Sashimi & Monsters Inside Me

Salmon
Iamge from Wikipedia

To be honest, I really like the rhyme in the title.

Okay, who likes sushi? Sashimi?

Has anyone of your heard that eating sushi or sashimi can give you worms and maggots in the brain? Well, maggots in brain is confirmed fake! Parasite fly larvae causing myiasis, or human cerebral myiasis was the truth.

But what about worms?

So infected sushi can give you worms in the guts, how about worms in the brain? Well, then you will have to eat undercooked pork. Here's the full video for both parasites:

And this is no joke!!!

So next time you eat raw fish, look before you eat! Or you will have monsters inside you.

What is really intriguing for me is that the videos really showed Anisakis worms getting energised by the lemon juice! So those people who claims that the high acidity in the lemon juice can kill the worms, they are wrong! Lemon juice may be as acidic as pH 2.3 (lemon juice was used in the test because it is similar to the pH of the gastric juice in the stomach, pH 1 to 2), but it is not enough to kill any Anisakids. I wonder how wasabi might affect them? One point to note is that, if you follow the flow of the video, this worm is more fierce when it is dead, then you might be thinking, it makes no difference for the worm to be dead before it gets into your body or after it has got into your body. In fact, there is a big difference, because if the worm is alive when it gets into your body, it will pass the stomach and reach the intestines when it triggers an immune reaction causing the bile obstruction. However, if the worm is already dead before it gets inside the body, then it should be digested in the stomach and will not reach the intestine as a living worm. So it is still safer to eat cooked or frozen seafood, that includes fish and shellfish. Let's not forget, the Anisakids first live in the crabs, shrimps and lobsters  (the crustaceans) before getting inside the fish.

Have a happy meal!


Vocabulary:
Anisakis -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisakis
energised -- (adj) to make someone feel energetic or eager
parasite -- (n)[C] An organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense
gastric juice -- (n) [U] a digestive fluid, formed in the stomach. It has a pH of 1 to 2 and is composed of hydrochloric acid (HCl) (around 0.5%, or 5000 parts per million), and large quantities ofpotassium chloride (KCl) and sodium chloride (NaCl). The acid plays a key role in digestion of proteins, by activating digestive enzymes, and making ingested proteins unravel so that digestive enzymes can break down the long chains of amino acids.


Resources:
Maggots Brain @ Snopes
http://www.snopes.com/photos/medical/maggots.asp

Myiasis @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myiasis

Anisakis @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisakis

Medical & TV: Scabies, Monsters Inside Me & solutions -- Part 1 @ Locky's English Playground
http://lockyep.blogspot.com/2011/08/medical-tv-scabies-monsters-inside-me.html

Monsters Inside Me 2  @ Locky's English Playground YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2DEE3528F0AE393B

Salmon Worms @ YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG6NW6AjN_A&NR=1

Lemon Juice @ Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_juice

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/energize?q=energize
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastric_juice