Juju

Juju or Ju-Ju are objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa. Juju historically referred to traditional West African religions.

The term "juju", and the practices associated with it, travelled to the Americas from West Africa with the influx of slaves via the Atlantic slave trade and still survives in some areas, particularly among the various groups of Maroons, who have preserved their African traditions.

Juju is sometimes used to enforce a contract or ensure compliance. In a typical scenario, a juju spell will be placed on a Nigerian woman before she is trafficked into Europe for a life in prostitution, to ensure that she will pay back her traffickers and won't escape. The witch doctor casting the spell requires a payment for this service. Juju is also commonly used in an attempt to affect the outcome of football games.

Contrary to common belief, Vodun is not related to juju, despite the linguistic and spiritual similarities. Juju has acquired some karmic attributes in more recent times: good juju can stem from almost any good deed; bad juju can be spread just as easily. These ideas revolve around the luck and fortune portions of juju. The use of juju to describe an object usually involves small items worn or carried; these generally contain medicines produced by witch doctors.

Juju (singer)

Juju (ジュジュ) (stylized as JUJU) (born February 14, 1976) is a Japanese jazz singer. She is represented by Sony Music Associated Records Inc.

Biography

She currently resides in New York City. She dreamed of being a jazz singer while growing up in Kyoto, and participated in all sorts of music-related activities. At age 18, she left for the US alone. While in New York, she was very taken with the "New York sound," including jazz, R&B, hip-hop, soul, Latin music, and house. Around 2001, Juju began to be featured in a number of works by other artists. In 2002, she provided music for the film Kyōki no Sakura. In 2004, she debuted with her first single "Hikaru no Naka e". The same year, concurrent with her musical activities in New York, she started performing live in Japan. When her third single, "Kiseki o Nozomu nara", was released, it topped the USEN charts and remained on the chart for a record length of 22 weeks. At this point, while she received support from a small group of listeners, she remained mostly unknown. On August 23, 2008, with the release of "Kimi no Subete ni", a collaboration between Spontania and Juju, she broke out onto the Japanese popular music scene, with the single receiving over 2.5 million downloads. Again, on November 26, 2008, another collaboration with Spontania named "Sunao ni Naretara" earned her even more fame, with the song receiving 2.2 million downloads.In 2010, Juju released her third album called Juju and it won the Excellence Album Award at the 52nd Japan Record Awards.

Juju (disambiguation)

A Juju is a supernatural power ascribed to an object.

Juju may also refer to:

Places

Music

Performers

Albums

Songs

People

People Named Juju

People Nicknamed Juju

Sneeze

A sneeze, or sternutation, is a semi-autonomous, convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and mouth, usually caused by foreign particles irritating the nasal mucosa. A sneeze expels air forcibly from the mouth and nose in an explosive, spasmodic involuntary action resulting chiefly from irritation of the nasal mucous membrane. Sneezing is possibly linked to sudden exposure to bright light, sudden change (fall) in temperature, breeze of cold air, a particularly full stomach, or viral infection, and can lead to the spread of disease.

The function of sneezing is to expel mucus containing foreign particles or irritants and cleanse the nasal cavity. During a sneeze, the soft palate and palatine uvula depress while the back of the tongue elevates to partially close the passage to the mouth so that air ejected from the lungs may be expelled through the nose. Because the closing of the mouth is partial, a considerable amount of this air is usually also expelled from the mouth. The force and extent of the expulsion of the air through the nose varies.

Photic sneeze reflex

The photic sneeze reflex (also known as photoptarmosis, Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome (ACHOO) and colloquially sun sneezing) is a condition of uncontrollable sneezing in response to numerous stimuli, such as looking at bright lights or periocular (surrounding the eyeball) injection. The condition affects 18-35% of the population, but its exact mechanism of action is not well understood.

Overview

The photic sneeze effect is a genetic tendency to begin sneezing, sometimes many times consecutively (due to naso-ocular reflex) when suddenly exposed to bright light. This condition tends to occur more severely after one has emerged into the light after spending time in a dark environment. Although the syndrome is relatively harmless and not widely studied, it is thought to affect about 18% to 35% of the human population.

The Photic Sneeze Effect has been documented for many centuries. The Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of the first to contemplate this strange phenomenon in 350 BCE, exploring why looking at the sun causes a person to sneeze in The Book of Problems: "Why does the heat of the sun provoke sneezing?" He hypothesized that the sun’s heat caused sweating inside the nose, which triggered a sneeze in order to remove the moisture. In the 17th century, English philosopher Francis Bacon disproved Aristotle’s theory by facing the sun with his eyes closed, which did not elicit the ordinary sneeze response. Bacon therefore guessed that the eyes played a vital part in triggering photic sneezing. He assumed that looking at the sun's light made the eyes water, and then that moisture proceeded to seep into the nose and irritate it, causing a sneeze. Although this theory made sense, scientists later determined it to also be incorrect because sun-induced sneezing occurs too quickly after sunlight exposure; watering of the eyes is a slower process, so it could not play a vital part in triggering the reflex.