Critics fret that health care reform would undermine American family values, not least by convening somber death panels to wheel away Grandma as if she were Old Yeller. But peel away the emotions and fearmongering, and in fact it is the existing system that unnecessarily takes lives and breaks apart families. My friend M. - you’ll understand in a moment why she’s terrified of my using her name - had to make a searing decision a year ago. She was married to a sweet, gentle man whom she loved, but who had become increasingly absent-minded. Finally, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The disease is degenerative, and he will become steadily less able to care for himself. At some point, as his medical needs multiply, he will probably need to be institutionalized. The hospital arranged a conference call with a social worker, who outlined how the dementia and its financial toll on the family would progress, and then added, out of the blue: ‘Maybe you should divorce. ‘I was blown away, M. told me. But, she said, the hospital staff members explained that they had seen it all before, many times. If M.’s husband required […]
WASHINGTON — Spring this year was unusually wet in the eastern half of the United States, with heavy rains falling from everywhere from Kansas and Missouri to New York City and Washington, D.C., the National Weather Service reported — and with those rains has come a bumper crop of mosquitoes. According to Jeannine Dorothy, a Maryland state entomologist, the wetter than usual spring means more mosquito eggs — and more of the adult critters to swat. ‘Our traps have probably been ten times above normal,’ Dorothy said. Where overnight traps might normally catch 80 or so mosquitoes, Dorothy said, she and her colleagues were seeing 1,000 or more bugs in their traps in July. Their observations predict an itchy end to summer. What’s the best way to swat those pesky skeeters? According to Jim Brasseur, a fluid dynamics professor at Penn State University, the best approach is to clap or slap from both sides - rather than a swat from one side only. Just as a hand passed quickly through a tank of water will force the water to move around it, a hand swept through the air towards a mosquito will push a column […]
Bats, birds, box turtles, humans and many other animals share at least one thing in common: They sleep. Humans, in fact, spend roughly one-third of their lives asleep, but sleep researchers still don’t know why. According to the journal Science, the function of sleep is one of the 125 greatest unsolved mysteries in science. Theories range from brain ‘maintenance’ - including memory consolidation and pruning - to reversing damage from oxidative stress suffered while awake, to promoting longevity. None of these theories are well established, and many are mutually exclusive. Now, a new analysis by Jerome Siegel, UCLA professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Sleep Research at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the Sepulveda Veterans Affairs Medical Center, has concluded that sleep’s primary function is to increase animals’ efficiency and minimize their risk by regulating the duration and timing of their behavior. The research appears in the current online edition of the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience. ‘Sleep has normally been viewed as something negative for survival because sleeping animals may be vulnerable to predation and they can’t perform the behaviors that ensure survival,’ Siegel said. These behaviors […]
Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency. The new version would allow the president to ‘declare a cybersecurity emergency’ relating to ‘non-governmental’ computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for ‘cybersecurity professionals,’ and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license. ‘I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness,’ said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. ‘It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. […]
Going to the dentist may seem like a mundane chore, but it can quickly become an expensive one. Here’s what you need to know to get the most for your money when shopping for dental care. Recently, I addressed the annual convention of the International Association of Comprehensive Aesthetics (IACA), an organization of dentists dedicated to continuing education. It was quite an eye-opener. I realized I knew very little about my dentist. Even worse, I didn’t know how to determine if my dentist had the right qualifications and equipment to provide first-class dental care. There are approximately 165,000 dentists in the U.S., and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the yearly earnings of dentists averaged $147,010 in 2007. There is no doubt we are spending a lot of money on dental care and most people do not have dental insurance. But are we spending our money wisely? This is an area of particular interest to retirees and those planning to retire, because dental health issues tend to become more pressing as we age. Here are the secrets your dentist may not want you to know – but you need to know to get the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
