Special Speech

Tropical Chinese, located in Westchester near Tropical Park, is our favorite Chinese Dim Sum restaurant in Miami. Sit Down and relax while the Dim Sum comes around in steaming carts. If you are unfamiliar with Dim Sum, it is small dishes of Chinese food served as snacks. This Miami restaurant has been around for years and usually is packed on Saturdays and Sundays for lunch so try to get there early. Dim Sum is not served for dinner, buy you can still order some exotic dishes.

The Menu: In addition to the traditional Chinese restaurant dishes, you can order exotic dishes such as Sliced Abalone with sea cucumber in a hot clay pot or Braised Sea Cucumber with spicy sauce.

Red Lantern, in Coconut Grove, is our favorite Chinese delivery restaurant in Miami. When Red Lantern says that the delivery will take 30-40 minutes, the food usually arrives under 20 minutes. If you do not live in the Grove, delivery may be limited and may take longer.

The Menu: We recommend the Fried Noodle Dish ($10) with chicken or pork and the General Tso’s Chicken ($11).

New Chinatown, in Sunset/South Miami, is our favorite Chinese dinner and a movie restaurant in Miami. New Chinatown, located on the corner of Sunset Place, is close to shopping and the movies. New Chinatown prepares Szechuan, Mandarin, and Cantonese dishes, so it should not be too difficult to find something you like.

The Menu: From the Cantonese menu, we recommend the Tree Treasures ($20), which is lightly fried scallops, shrimp and calamari mixed with garlic and broccoli. From the Mandarin menu, you will find more typical dishes such as Kung Pao and Orange chicken; however, the Ta-Chien Chicken ($12) is worth a try. It is diced chicken with stir fried mushrooms, baby corn and a special sauce.

China Grill, in South Beach, is our favorite upscale Chinese restaurant in Miami. China Grill, the Sister restaurant to New York’s China Grill, has a spectacular atmosphere created from the Egyptian limestone, wraparound bar, and wood floors. There is even an ice-top sushi bar and bar that wraps around the restaurant.

The Menu: Exquisite items that we recommend include the Stir Fried Lobster Pancakes with red chili and scallions, the Black Fettuccine topped with grilled garlic shrimp, and the Tempura Sashimi.

To get more information on Miami Chinese Restaurants or to view Miami Restaurant Menus, visit http://www.restaurantplace.com

Our ears have these two main functions; allowing us to both hear
and maintain our balance. However, throughout the duration of a
lifetime, the hearing function of our ears become worn out and
less effective. In fact, one of three adults over the age of 65
has a hearing loss and half of seniors over the age of 75 have a
hearing loss. Such loss is commonly due to over-exposure to
noise, heredity or both.

The signs of hearing loss is normally relatively easy to detect:

1) If you notice everyone sounds muffled. 2) It is difficult to
understand words. 3) You request others to speak more slowly,
clearly or loudly. 4) Often need to turn up the volume on your
TV or radio.

If you suffer from any of the above, combined with a desire to
withdraw from conversations or avoid social settings, it is
highly likely that you are suffering from a loss of hearing.

Most hearing loss results from damage to the cochlea ( a coiled
structure in the inner ear responsible for hearing ). This loss
is usually a result of prolonged exposure to loud noises of 85
decibel or higher. A decibel is the unit used to measure degrees
of loudness and is often abbreviated to dB.

Other common causes of hearing are:

1) Ear infections. 2) Abnormal bone growths. 3) Tumors of the
outer or middle ear. 4) Ruptured ear drums.

Other non-age related causes for deafness include Auditory
Neuropathy, Meniere’s Disease, Noise Ostosclerosis and Usher’s
Syndrome.

There are three basic types of hearing loss:

Type # 1 - Conductive Hearing Loss

This occurs when sound is not conducted efficiently to the
middle ear, which may be caused by fluid, earwax, infection,
foreign matter or malformation of the middle or outer ear.

Type # 2 - Sensorineural Hearing Loss

This condition occurs when there is damage to the inner ear (
cochlea ) or to the nerve pathways from the inner ear to the
brain. Disease, birth injury, drugs or genetic syndromes can
also be causes of Sensorineural hearing loss. Additional causes
may include noise exposure, viruses, head trauma, aging and
tumors.

A person suffering from this type of hearing loss may exhibit a
lack of speech comprehension.

Type # 3 - Mixed Hearing Loss

Sometimes a person may suffer from conductive hearing loss
combined with a Sensorineural hearing loss. This type of hearing
loss is known as mixed hearing loss.

A person can have a loss of hearing in one ear or in both ears.
The degree of the severity of hearing loss in each ear may be
equal or disparate. The loss of hearing can either occur
suddenly or over a long period of time.

Some people suffer from hearing losses that fluctuate and their
condition may worsen or improve erratically. This is usually
caused by an ear infection causing conductive hearing loss.

If you suspect you have a hearing problem, you should consult
your health specialist to get a professional diagnosis and
appropriate treatment for your condition.

In the world of science, there is excited speculation about recent discoveries of individual neurons in the brain, with striking capabilities. They had discovered a neuron, which fired on recognition of just one special face. Scientists spotted this using microelectrodes, which could identify the firing of a single neuron. Buried deep in the amygdala of a female patient, they discovered the so-called “Bill Clinton” neuron. The cell fired on recognizing three very different images of the former President; a line drawing of a laughing Clinton; a formal painting depicting him; and a photograph of him in a crowd. The cell remained mute when the patient viewed images of other politicians and celebrities. In other patients, scientists found similar cells that responded selectively to actors, including Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt, and Halle Berry.

Most neuroscientists had believed that specific nerve cells handled individual pixels as on a television screen. Suddenly, a single neuron could identify Clinton. Could there be a “thinking neuron?” Scientists felt it impossible for an individual cell to be clever enough to make sense of a concept as subtle as Clinton. Even the world’s fastest supercomputers would have difficulty performing that pattern-recognition feat. So, how could a single neuron ever learn to recognize a President? Such speculation on the nature of neurons continued ceaselessly in scientific circles. This was surprising. How could scientists remain blind to the significance of the Nobel Prize awarded in 2004 to Lynda Buck for the discovery of the recognition processes in the olfactory system?

There, Buck had already reported a “Sweat” neuron and an “Orange” neuron. Those experiments concerned the recognition of smells. She reported that octanol smelled like oranges and octanoic acid, like sweat, even though their chemical structures were similar. Yet, different neurons fired for each smell. Was this just more evidence of thinking neurons? Yet, Buck had a simple explanation. The olfactory system recognized different combinations of firing for different odors. First, a single receptor recognized multiple odorants. Second, a single odorant was recognized by multiple receptors. And third, different odorants were recognized by different combinations of receptors. It was this combinatorial coding system, which enabled the olfactory system to recognize millions of odors. So, there were Sweat neurons, Rose neurons and Orange neurons. And millions more. Could it be that Clinton and Berry neurons were no different?

Was it only the olfactory system, which used combinatorial coding? The mind received kaleidoscopic combinations of millions of sensations. Could instant combinatorial recognition extended beyond the olfactory system? Could it be the essence of the neural system? A new book, The Intuitive Algorithm, suggested just this. The mind used combinatorial coding and pattern recognition to propel recognition through many neural regions like a lightning streak. The mind saw, recognized, interpreted and acted. Data was reported to move from input to output in a bare 20 milliseconds. In the blink of eye. Myriad processes converted light, sound, touch and smell instantly into your nerve impulses. Special regions recognized those combinations as objects and events. The limbic system, another region, interpreted those events to generate emotions. A fourth region responded to those emotions with actions. The mind perceived, identified, evaluated and acted. Pattern recognition and combinatorial coding got you off the hot stove in a fraction of a second.

About the Author

Abraham Thomas is the author of The Intuitive Algorithm, a book, which suggests that intuition is a pattern recognition algorithm. The ebook version is available at www.intuition.co.in. The book may be purchased only in India. The website, provides a free movie and a walk through to explain the ideas.