Miss Venezuela Has Been Crowned Miss Universe 2013!!! (Photos)

Miss Venezuela Gabriela Isler has been crowned Miss Universe 2013!!! She Beat other contestants from 88 countries to emerge the new Miss Universe.She takes over from Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo from the United States.

Miss Venezuela Being Crowned Miss Universe 2013 by the Out going Queen

The 1st runner up is .....Miss Spain

The 2nd Runner up is.... Miss Ecuador, Constanza Baez

The 3rd Runner up is..... Miss Philippines, Ariella Arida

The 4th Runner up is.... Miss Brazil, Jakelyne Oliveira

Here's what the 'Top 5' contestants said in the final Q & A round.

Miss Ecuador
Question: What would happen to the world if we could no longer use the internet?
Answer: Technology has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that we are no longer as close together with our families. We must use the methodology of computers and internet for the positive. In a positive. It's never too late to start. Let's start right now.

Miss Brazil
Question: What is your opinion about places that do not allow women to vote, or drive cars?
Answer: We as women have achieved our independence through time. We need to keep our open minds because now we are capable of doing anything.

Miss Spain
Question: What is the most significant thing we can do to help elect women to political offices around the world?
Answers: In order to select a good woman, she must posses good qualities in order to perform a good job.

Miss Philippines
Question: What can be done about the lack of jobs for young people starting their career around the world?
Answer: I do believe we should invest in education and that is my primary advocacy. Education is a primary source and a ticket for better future.

Miss Venezuela
Question: What is your biggest fear and how do you plan to overcome it?
Answer: We should overcome all our fears and this in turn would make us stronger. As soon as we overcome our fears, we can face any challenge.

Ok, so 9aija no de carry last nah, so here is the Beautiful  Miss Stephanie Okwu Nigeria's representative to the Miss Universe 2013.

Read More

ASUU UPDATE: ASUU Gives FG Final Condition Before They Will End Strike

It is not yet over, as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has given the Government conditions to be met before the union would finally call off its over four-month old strike.
“I must tell you that our mandate remains. The only mandate we have is that 2009 agreement must be met. We have not reached any agreement with the Federal Government. “
Since the Federal Government wants to be releasing N220bn every year for five years, then all monetary and regulatory agencies must sign…. The reason we will ensure this is that we don’t want argument tomorrow that the agreement was entered in error or that they don’t know the implication of signing the agreement. If possible, documents that will provide for automatic deduction of the agreed money at a particular/agreed date must be provided.”


A prominent member of the union, who craved anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on behalf of the union, told Punch that doing this would give the association the confidence that “the Government knows what it is doing when it signed the agreement.”He said, “The Central Bank of Nigeria, Ministries of Finance and Labour, National Assembly, Office of the Presidency, National Universities Commission, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Trade Union Congress and our umbrella body, the Nigeria Labour Congress, must sign with consequences stated.”
Recall that the leadership of ASUU had engaged in a 13-hour marathon meeting with government delegation led by President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja between Monday and Tuesday.Asked when the lecturers would call off the strike, a source who was at the meeting said, “I doubt if the strike is ending soon. The problem is with the Finance Minister. Where is government getting N1trn from? A government that could not implement agreement between 2009 and 2013, what is the guarantee that they would honour this agreement.“It is all politics. We are still awaiting directives from our branches. We have told them the outcome of the meeting with the President but we are waiting for them to tell us what they think of government’s proposal.

“Imagine the Minister of Education has travelled out of the country. He was appointed Vice President for UNESCO General Assembly. How can he travel out of the country without resolving the crisis in the education sector?’”The agreement reached by both ASUU and the Federal Government is that government would inject N1.1tn into public universities in the next five years.
But ASUU need guarantees that this will happen

Read More

Really Want To Get Tough? Then ....

Why do people say "Grow some balls"? Balls are weak and fucking sensitive!
If you really want to get tough, like seriously,u want to get tough? Then grow a vagina! Yes! Vejayjay! I mean those things really take some pounding!

Read More

Health:Young or Old,Stomach Infection Can Cause Arthritis, Joint Pains(See How To Prevent It)

Bacteria in Your belle(Stomach),Gut feelings, may train the immune system to attack joints 

 

The bacteria that live in your intestines are a mixed blessing. Scientists have known for decades that this so-called microbiota helps us digest our food and crowds out infectious germs. The bugs have also been implicated in allergies and obesity. Now, a new study adds one more potential malady to the list: rheumatoid arthritis.

"It's been suspected for years and years, both in humans and in the animal model, that the development of autoimmune diseases like arthritis is dependent on the gut microbiota," says immunologist Diane Mathis of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Now, she says, those suspicions are beginning to be confirmed in humans. "It's a very striking finding.”

Rheumatoid arthritis is a mysterious disease. It can strike at any age, typically beginning in young and middle-aged adults and causing painfully stiff, swollen joints in the hands and feet. It can also destroy bone and cartilage and damage organs like the lungs and kidneys. Scientists aren’t sure what causes rheumatoid arthritis, but they do know that it’s an autoimmune disorder, meaning that the body's immune system is attacking its own tissues. And that's where gut bacteria come in.

Gut bacteria have an intricate relationship with our immune system. We need to be able to tolerate helpful microbes while still recognizing and fighting invaders. Immunologist Dan Littman of New York University knew that gut microbes are important to the development of a particular type of immune cell his team studies, known as a Th17 cell. Mice that are reared in sterile conditions produce very few of these cells, and his group had previously found that mice bought from one supplier had far more Th17 cells than those that came from a different supplier. The difference turned out to be due to the rodents' gut microbes.

When Littman presented that result at a conference several years ago, Mathis, who was in the audience, told him that she had seen a change in her lab animals when they were moved to a lab in a different town. Instead of spontaneously developing a mouse version of arthritis, they remained healthy. Littman and Mathis collaborated to find out why and tracked down the difference to a particular type of bacterium that, when present in the intestines, trains the immune system to produce 

Th17 cells, which in turn release molecules that cause inflammation and bone damage in arthritis.

Littman wondered if rheumatoid arthritis in humans might also be due to specific gut microbes. His team tested fecal samples (which reflect the population of gut bacteria) from 114 residents of the New York City area. Some subjects were healthy; others had been living with rheumatoid arthritis for years; still others had psoriatic arthritis, a different autoimmune disease whose causes are also unknown; and some had been recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Members of this latter group were especially important because, although they had rheumatoid arthritis, they hadn't yet been treated for it. In this group, a bacterium named Prevotella copri was present in 75% of patients' intestines, the researchers will report online tomorrow in eLife. P. copri only appeared in 37% of patients living with either rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis and 21% of healthy controls. This last number is similar to the prevalence of P. copri that previous studies found in the general population in industrialized countries.

"That they were able to associate one bacterium with one pathology is remarkable," says Yasmine Belkaid, an immunologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved in the work.

But the results aren't enough to convict P. copri as the mastermind behind rheumatoid arthritis, she notes. The authors can't ethically give the bacterium to healthy subjects, so they couldn't prove that P. copri caused arthritis in patients, just that the bacterium and the disease tend to occur together. Genetics and other environmental factors, like smoking, have been associated with rheumatoid arthritis, so even if P. copri is the culprit, it doesn't necessarily act alone. "The next step is to be able to understand how causative these microbes are," Belkaid says. That would require surveying people's microbes and waiting to see who develops the disease.

To build its case against the bacterium, Littman's team gave a lab-grown strain of P. copri to mice and watched what happened in the rodents' guts. P. copri easily took up residence, and the researchers found that the mice developed increased inflammation, especially in the gut. They didn't get arthritis, possibly because the strain of P. copri was different from the human ones, but Littman says the gut inflammation corroborates the idea that gut microbes are prodding immune cells to develop and that those cells then go forth and lead an attack on other parts of the body.

That is the most exciting possibility, Mathis says. But, she explains, other hypotheses can't be ruled out. It's possible that arthritis patients' immune systems allow P. copri to grow out of control, or perhaps a third factor affects both the microbes and the immune system independently. Rheumatoid arthritis, Littman says, seems to have several environmental triggers, but how and whether they combine is not well understood.

The findings, Mathis says, open the possibility of new therapies to prevent or treat rheumatoid arthritis. Current treatments for the disease include drugs with scary side effects—Remicade, for instance, seems to increase the risk of developing certain cancers and serious infections. Perhaps P. copri could be attacked with antibiotics, Littman says, or crowded out with probiotic pills full of good bacteria. Either way, patients may someday be able to relieve their joint pain by focusing on their guts

Read More

Health:Late Nights,Smart Phones, Reduces Ur Immune System,Makes You Sick(See What To Do)

Timing is everything. Infection-fighting T_H17 cells (green) in the intestine cause disease when the body clock is  disrupted

Jet lag, shift work, and even late nights staring at your tablet or smartphone may be making you sick. That's because the body's internal clock is set for two 12-hour periods of light and darkness, and when this rhythm is thrown off, so is the immune system. One reason may be that the genes that set the body clock are intimately connected to certain immune cells, according to a new study.

The finding “was a happy accident," says Lora Hooper, an immunologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She and her colleagues were studying NFIL3, a protein that guides the development of certain immune cells and turns on the activity of others. The gene for this protein is mutated in some human patients with inflammatory bowel disease, and mice lacking the gene for NFIL3, the team found, had more so-called T_H17 cells in their intestines.

These cells are a type of immune cell known as a T cell. They get their name from a signal they produce, called interleukin 17, which tells other T cells to increase the immune response. In normal numbers, T_H17 cells, which live in the intestines, help the body fight bacterial and fungal infections. But when there are too many, the immune defense begins to cause illness rather than prevent it. Boosting NFIL3 levels in T cells growing in lab cultures resulted in fewer of them turning into T_H17 cells, the researchers found, suggesting that the protein's job is to prevent T cells from going into that area of specialization. The absence of the protein, the team concluded, leads to runaway T_H17 activity.

At this point, the researchers had no reason to suspect a connection to our body’s internal timekeeping system—also known as our circadian clock—which responds to daily cycles of light and dark. But as they continued to explore the connection between NFIL3 and T_H17 cells, they found that some of the proteins produced by the body’s "clock genes” attach to the NFIL3 genes. What's more, cultured cells and mice whose clock genes were experimentally tampered with produced fewer T_H17 cells. The researchers surmise that a key protein in the clock network binds to the NFIL3 gene to keep the production of T_H17 cells synchronized with periods of light and darkness. And the team found that normal mice produce less NFIL3, and thus more T_H17 cells, during the day than at night.
In a final experiment, the researchers gave the mice jet lag. "We didn't fly them anywhere," Hooper jokes. Instead, the team shifted the rodents' light/dark cycles by 6 hours every 4 days. "It would be like flying from the U.S. to Europe, India, and Japan and spending 4 days in each country," she explains. Mice with altered light cycles had nearly twice as many T_H17 cells in their spleens and intestines, compared with mice having a normal day, the team reports online today in Science. The jet-lagged mice also mounted a stronger inflammatory response to irritation by an experimental chemical—a test used to gauge immune-system sensitivity that hints the animals may be more prone to inflammatory disease.

   The finding adds to a growing body of research showing that a healthy pattern of light and dark, sleeping and waking, is essential to keep the immune system in balance, Hooper says. She notes that inflammation is the basis of many chronic disorders, such as heart disease, asthma, chronic pain, and many things ending in "-itis," like bursitis and dermatitis. Inflammatory conditions are more prevalent in developed countries, where people's circadian rhythms are chronically disrupted. Even people who don't work shifts or cross time zones still wake and sleep out of sync with light and darkness, Hooper says. "We all have screwed up light cycles. We stay up late, keep the lights on, look at our lit-up iPhones at 2 a.m."
Immunologist Dan Littman of New York University in New York City finds the results in cultured cells convincing. He cautions, though, that the neatly defined pathway from clock gene to T_H17 suppression might not be so tidy in a living animal. "Even if NFIL3 is involved in the way they show, circadian disruption affects many other things." Stress hormones, gut bacteria, and the actions of other types of T cells may also account for the effects of the experimental jet lag, he says.
Littman also notes that the increased inflammation in the jet-lagged animals was a response to an induced chemical irritation, and more research is needed to prove a link to inflammatory or autoimmune disease.

Hooper agrees that the present study is probably the tip of the iceberg, and more research will yield deepening insight into the relationship between immune cells circadian rhythms. She is hoping to collaborate with other researchers to determine if T_H17 cells are increased in humans with chronically altered light cycles. For now, she says, she tries to keep her own sleeping patterns more aligned with nature, starting by limiting exposure to artificial light at night. "I turn off the lights, I draw the curtains, and I keep my iPhone off."

Read More

Sad One; With The Kardashian Star Scort Disick Loses Mum

How sad. keeping up with the kardashians star Scot Disick has lost his mother, Bonnie Disick

Remember "I can't quit you"? Hmm, thats what he always say to his boo, the mother of his two kids-  Kourtney Kardashian. Anyways, this story is not about his boo but his mum who just passed away.

 She was only 63 years old, and while her cause of death remains unknown, insiders say the death was sudden.

Scott discussed his family often on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. He implored girlfriend Kourtney to move to New York City so he could be closer to his parents, who live in Eastport, Long Island. Viewers even met Bonnie in an episode of Kourtney and Kim Take New York. A source tells Radar that there was a small funeral service last week, with Scott and Kourtney in attendance but no one else from the Kardashian-Jenner family.

Neither Scott nor Kourtney has commented yet on the death, not even on their very active social-media accounts, though the source says he is “devastated.” Poor Scott. Our hearts are with him at this tough time.

Read More

It's Now Official, Lady Gaga Goes Out-of-this World To Sing In Space

Lady Gaga is planning to fly to space

The famed 27-year-old pop singer is scheduled to blast off on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo in early 2015, according to press reports. Gaga will reportedly sing one song during her trip into suborbital space.

"She has to do a month of vocal training because of the atmosphere," said a source speaking with Us Weekly. The source also told the publication that Gaga's entourage would accompany her on the space flight

Us Weekly also reports that Gaga will sing her song from space as part of Zero G Colony — a three-day festival at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

This announcement coincidentally follows the release of Gaga's new space-themed song called "Venus." The song lyrics take the listener on a techno trip through the solar system, including a few references to aliens. "Venus" is a track off Gaga's new record, "ARTPOP," set for release on Nov. 11.

Gaga joins the ranks of other celebrities with tickets to ride into space with Virgin Galactic. Justin Beiber, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher have all signed up for seats.

Tickets reserving a spot on SpaceShipTwo cost $250,000 and more than 600 people have already signed up.

Another singer might be flying to space the same year as Gaga. Sarah Brightman — who is best known for starring in the original Broadway cast of the "Phantom of the Opera" — is planning on taking a 10-day trip to the International Space Station in 2015. Brightman is thought to be paying upwards of $35 million for the experience, which includes blasting into orbit atop a Russian Soyuz rocket. Brightman also has a ticket to fly aboard SpaceShipTwo.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield composed the first original song in space during his stint aboard the International Space Station. He recorded "Jewel in the Night," a song honoring the 2012 Christmas holiday, on Dec. 23, days after he launched to orbit.

Read More

Kim Kardashian And Boyfriend Kanye West Take a Bootyful Walk With North West

Big Ass Bootyful Family

Kimnye - Kim Kardashian, Her Boyfriend Kanye West with their baby girl North West enjoyed a bootyful stroll today in Santa Barbara. The Happy family just ventured out in the morning for a walk. Ain't they looking beautiful?

Meanwhile Kanye's lawyer Blair Berk pled not guilty on the rapper's behalf in the photo-beating case

For Kim, Kanye, and North West -- life is just a walk in the park.

Read More

Cultists Attack Residents In Lagos As One Of Their Members is Released From Prison

Hoodlums suspected to be cult members attacked residents of Akoka,Lagos state on tuesdarobbing them of their valuables .

The hoodlums, numbering over 50 also destroyed over 10 cars in the attack which was said to have lasted for about 30 minutes.
According to report, trouble started after one Balogun aka small Japron who was released from prison under controversial circumstances held a birthday and welcome party at Kayode Market Street and some of the thugs at the party, proceeded to Solanke and Adenuga Kajero streets to wreck havoc.
According to one of the resident, Ayowole, they had informed the police ahead of the party when they got gist about it and so they were surprised when they saw the hoodlums operating freely without police intervention.
Some of the victims said that the hoodlums were armed with guns and cutlasses and attacked many shops on the affected streets, while also robbing pedestrians, adding that it was after the hoodlums had left that policemen arrived at the area.

Speaking on the incident, the Chairman, Somolu Local Government, Gbolahan Bago-Stowe, who visited the affected streets, said the residents were not security conscious, adding that they know those behind the attacks and yet they have refused to give information to the police.
It was gathered that Small Japron, a suspected serial murderer, was arrested and questioned by policemen attached to Bariga Police Division on Wednesday over Tuesday’s robberies.
A police source at the station said that Balogun denied having anything to do with the attack and has even assisted the police in apprehending three suspects.
He said investigations are ongoing

Read More

Khloe Kardashian And Husband Lamar Odom Secretly Selling Family Home, Preparing For Divorce

It seems their marriage is finally packing up.Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom are packing it in -- according to TMZ sources they are secretly selling their Tarzana mansion.

... Khloe has given several San Fernando Valley realtors a pocket listing -- meaning the house will not appear in the multiple listing service.  It's being done on the down low.  Any prospective buyer must pre-qualify before seeing the house, meaning they must have the dough to buy the crib. 

 

According to the reports, Khloe and Lamar want a cool $4 mil for the house.  They paid $3.95 million in 2009. Khloe is the driving force behind the sale, telling realtors she wants to "start fresh and move on."

Title to the house is held in both Khloe and Lamar's names.

As it was first reported,kloe intends to divorce Lamar but no documents have been prepared or filed because she knows he's in a fragile state and doesn't want to push him over the edge.

Source: TMZ

Read More

Outcome Of The FG/ASUU Meeting Finally Made Public (Details..)

Outcome Of The FG/ASUU Meeting Finally Made Public (Details..)

President Goodluck Jonathan (Left), ASUU President (Right)

Details of the Monday/ Tuesday marathon meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of Academic Staff Union of Universities have begun to emerge.

According to The PUNCH Tuesday evening  a key component of the agreement reached by the parties was that the Federal Government would inject N1.1tn into public universities in the next five years. A reliable source, who made this known, also hinted that the strike would be called off anytime next week.

He said the government team which was led by President Goodluck Jonathan would release N220bn yearly into the sector beginning from 2014.The source added, “The meeting should be the longest that we have ever had on this crisis but I can tell you that both parties were frank all through the discussions.

“ The parties also showed commitment towards ending the crisis. The President in particular showed that he was serious about ending the strike and that was why he offered to release over N1tn to the universities in the next five years.

“The money will be released on a yearly basis at N220bn per annum beginning from 2014. For the outgoing year, the government will only release N100bn and this has been processed.”He said that the government, in order to show its commitment to a fresh pact, accepted that “the fund(N1.1tn) should be domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria”

“The money will be released on a quarterly basis to the universities. So, there won’t be any problem about funding the deal,” the source said.

The National Universities Commission and the Trade Union Congress, according to him, will be the joint guarantors of the agreement while the Minister of Education will be the implementation officer.

The source also said that the government agreed among other things, to revamp the public universities by ensuring that all those issues that always led to strike were dealt with once and for all.

It was learnt that the negotiating team of ASUU led by Dr. Nassir Faggae met on Tuesday night to further deliberate on the deal.Though the details of the meeting were not known as of 11.22pm on Tuesday, it was gathered that ASUU might call a National Executive Council meeting on or before Saturday where the deal would be tabled before all its branch executives.

Jonathan had while shaking hands with Fagge after the marathon meeting in the Presidential Villa, Abuja said, “My President, I hope it (strike) will end today(Tuesday). Our children have suffered enough. We must find a solution.”

All those in attendance responded with a loud “Amen.”

When greeting Omar, he said, “My President with you around, there will be no problem; our agreement is signed, sealed and delivered.”.

Faggae told State House correspondent on his way out of the Villa, that his team would take back a message to varsity teachers before a decision would be taken on the next line of action.

“We had a lengthy meeting with Mr. President, and we looked into how best to address the problem of university education in this country. We now have a message from Mr. President that we are going to take to our members and we are expecting that our members will respond appropriately to his message,” he said.

Fagge added that since the message was meant for members, he would not divulge it to the press.

When asked whether university teachers would be called upon to return to the classrooms, he said that the decision was left for them to take.

When further asked if he was impressed by the President’s message, Faggae cautioned journalists against putting words in his mouth, insisting that only ASUU members would determine that.

The Minister of Labour, Chief Emeka Wogu, who listened to Faggae’s encounter with journalists, later said progress was made during the discussion.

He said, “We made progress. The President of ASUU told you that they are going back with a message from the Federal Government back to their members and the message is full of high expectation and hope.”

When asked whether ASUU would call off the strike, Wogu said that was why he described the message as full of expectation.

“Our prayer is that they will come back with positive outcome. They might even not come back to meet us. They might take decision there that will meet your expectations “ he said.

He added that the offers made by the government during the meeting were those that were in line with the contentious 2009 agreement.

He said since the issues that led to the strike bordered on the 2009 agreement, the government did not go beyond the pact.

The President was joined at the meeting that started at 2.40pm on Monday by Vice-President Namadi Sambo; Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim; the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike; Wogu among others.

Faggae led the union team which included past presidents such as Prof. Abdulahi Sule-Kano, Prof. Dipo Fashina and Prof. Festus Iyayi.

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Abdulawahid Omar and his Trade Union Congress counterpart, Bobboi Kaigama, also attended.

Other members of the delegation were Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, Prof. Victor Osodeke, Prof. Suleiman Abdul, Dr. Victor Igbum and Mr. Michael Odunmoraye.

The marathon meeting was the first between ASUU and Jonathan since the strike started. The Presidency took over the negotiations with ASUU on September 19 with Sambo in charge

Read More