Greta Thunberg, Sir Paul McCartney, Woody Harrelson, Lewis Hamilton, Pamela Anderson, RZA, Miley Cyrus, John Salley, and Cory Booker. These high-profile names have at least one thing in common: theyre thriving on the benefits of a vegan lifestlye.

Veganism is everywhere nowadays, and the people ditching animal products in favor of a vegan diet are doing so for a handful of reasons.

Those who follow a vegan diet, also called a plant-based diet, do not eat animal products. This includes meat, dairy, eggs, honey, and gelatin. But veganism expands further than diet. Per the Vegan Society, the definition is as follows: Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

For instance, vegans dont wear clothing made with animal materials (like leather and wool), buy cosmetics that were tested on animals, or support entertainment that relies on the exploitation of animals, like bullfighting or SeaWorld.

Sixteen-year-old climate activist Thunberg follows a plant-based diet and even persuaded her parents to do the same. She said in an interview that those who support animal agriculture are stealing her generations future. You cannot stand up for human rights while you are living that lifestyle, she added.

Beatles frontman McCartney famously said, If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. Now the 77-year-old rockstar is vegan and still a vocal advocate for the lifestyle. In a short film called One Day a Week, which encourages people to eat less meat, McCartney said, [If] we all join together in this effort, we can help improve the environment, reduce the negative impacts of climate change, and even improve peoples health.

Vegan New Jersey Senator Booker who is running for president in 2021 recently announced his animal welfare plan. It would see the end of animal testing for cosmetics, snares, people keeping big cats as pets, and the sale of shark fins. Booker said, Our treatment of animals is a test of our character and a measure of the compassion of our society.

Veganism has reached the sporting world, too. Formula One champion Hamilton says his plant-based diet has helped him feel the best Ive ever felt in my life.Wesley Woodyard, linebacker for the Tennessee Titans, experienced increased energy levels after going vegan because he began putting good fuel into his body. Quarterback for the Carolina Panthers Cam Newton credits his vegan diet for his quickened recovery. Im loving how Im feeling,he said.

Other high-profile vegan names include: A$AP Rocky, will.i.am, Alan Cumming, Ne-Yo, Ruby Rose, Ted Deutch, James Cameron, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jenna Marbles, Kyrie Irving, Nathalie Emmanuel, Natalie Portman, Craig Robinson, Eric Adams, Sia, Mayim Bialik, Tia Blanco, and Kevin Smith.

An ever-growing bank of research is highlighting the health risks linked to meat, dairy, and eggs, and the benefits associated with a plant-based diet. Many experts agree that going vegan could help you live a longer life.

In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) named red meat a Group 2 carcinogen, meaning it probably causes cancer in humans. WHO put processed meat (like bacon and pepperoni) in the Group 1 category, meaning it is carcinogenic to humans. Tobacco smoking and asbestos are also in the Group 1 category.

Even small amounts of meat could increase the risk of cancer. An Oxford Universitystudyfrom earlier this year found that eating just three rashers of bacon a day could increase cancer risk by 20 percent.

Professor Jane Plant, a geochemist who has survived cancer six times, maintains that dairy is also a carcinogen. She believes her plant-based diet helped put her breast cancer into remission twice.

Meat typically contains high amounts of saturated and trans fats, which can increase blood cholesterol. Cholesterol can cause fatty deposits in the blood vessels which increases the risk of stroke, peripheral artery disease, and heart disease. Plant-based foods, by nature, contain no dietary cholesterol. A diet high in fat and cholesterol can raise blood pressure, too, which also makes cardiovascular diseases more likely.

A2018 studyby the Cleveland Clinic found that eating red meat could increase the risk of heart disease 1,000 percent more than a plant-based diet.

More and more research is finding that a plant-based diet could reduce the risk of developing diabetes or even reverse the disease altogether.

A recentstudy, which included than 2,000 adults, found that individuals who increased the number of fruits, vegetables, and nuts in their diet over the course of 20 years lowered their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 60 percent more than those who didnt.

Brooklyn Borough President Adams says he reversed his diabetes diagnosis by adopting a plant-based diet. This concept is backed up by research. The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) recommends an online program that helps diabetes sufferers adopt a plant-based diet to reverse their condition. The National Institute for Diabetes and Endocrinology in Slovakia is trialing a whole-food, plant-based program to help reverse the condition.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) highlights a study on its website that looks at the eating habits and moods of 3,486 people over a five-year period. The study found that participants who ate whole, plant foods reported fewer symptoms of depression.

A different study found that vegetarians typically experience more positive moods than meat-eaters. Nutritionist Geeta Sidhu-Robb spoke toCosmopolitan about the study, which was published in Nutrition Journal. The elimination of long chain fatty acids, predominantly arachidonic acid which is present in meat and is associated with symptoms of depression, means you are less at risk of suffering from it,she said.Vegan diets also have more complex carbohydrates present which increase the feel good hormone serotonin in the brain.

Products that are made with plant-based ingredients but also processes that dont involve animals are considered vegan. Beeswax, honey, lanolin, collagen, and keratin are some common non-vegan ingredients to look out for.

Most people are against experiments on animals. A survey by Naturewatch Foundation found that 99.5 percent of Brits support a ban on cosmetic animal testing. While most are against the practice due to the stance that it is cruel to animals, animal testing is also unreliable.

Many experts agree that tests on animals cannot accurately predict human response to a product. More than 95 percent of pharmaceutical drugs test as safe and effective on animals but then fail in human trials, according to PETA.

Yet the practice is still common in the beauty industry. Since veganism does not allow for the exploitation of animals, buying vegan beauty products guarantees that youre not supporting animal testing.

Up to 60 percent of the products we apply to our bodies are absorbed by the skin and end up in the bloodstream. Many cosmetics brands use phthalates and parabens in their recipes. These ingredients can interfere with development and reproduction, and cause neurological issues. The nervous and immune systems can also be affected.

While not all vegan beauty brands use natural ingredients, a growing number of them do. Companies like Zuii Organic use real flowers, essential oils, and plant extracts to make their vegan cosmetic products.

As well as sidestepping the health risks linked to chemical ingredients, natural ingredients can provide health benefits. Oats have anti-inflammatory properties and can treat skin irritations like eczema. Witch hazel hydrates the skin, and green tea contains high levels of antioxidants, which can help repair sun damage.

A plant-based diet could boost your beauty regime by helping your skin stay healthy. An increasing number of studies are linking dairy to skin problems like acne. Dairy products contain growth hormones and are also treated with artificial hormones, which can interfere with the human bodys hormone system. Some experts also believe that dairy can disrupt insulin levels, making acne more likely.

Many celebrities credit veganism for their youthful looks. American singer-songwriter Ma says that her vegan lifestyle is to thank for her fountain of youth. Fifty-eight-year-old actor Woody Harrelson said his plant-based diet is crucial for his youthful appearance, and 77-year-old rock n roll legend Paul McCartney not only looks younger than he is but completes his solo world tours which see him playing more than 30 songs per show over the span of two and a half hours on a vegan diet.

Following a vegan lifestyle means not buying items featuring leather, suede, wool, or silk. But dont be fooled, the vegan fashion industry is bursting at the seams with innovation and style.

Wearing vegan fashion means you wont be supporting the leather industry. Besides the animal welfare issues linked to the livestock trade, raising animals for leather (and food) leaves a large mark on the planet. Raising livestock accounts for 14.5 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in September 2018 that the greenhouse gas footprint of animal agriculture rivals that of every car, truck, bus, ship, airplane, and rocket ship combined.

Leather is treated with 250 different substances including cyanide, arsenic, chromium, and formaldehyde. These substances pollute waterways and raise the risk of disease for workers and local communities.

Vegan leather is just as durable and stylish as its animal-based counterpart. It can be made from

Its easy to believe that wool can be collected without harming the animal. However, exposs reveal that animal cruelty is rampant in the woold sector. Shearers are paid by the volume of wool collected, not by the hour. This often encourages the aggressive handling of sheep. The animals are beaten and when injured, their wounds are sewn up without pain relief. To prevent flystrike, workers will mule sheep cut off pieces of the sheeps hindquarter skin. This often has the opposite of the desired effect since flies are attracted to the open wound.

Vegan alternatives to wool include hemp, linen, and organic cotton. Bamboo, seaweed, and wood are also used to make cruelty-free clothing.

Many vegan fashion brands prioritize sustainability in their designs. Footwear brand No Saints uses food waste to make its vegan leather sneakers. The companys pineapple leather, called Piatex, is made from pineapple leaf fibers, which are a by-product of pineapple harvests and would otherwise go to waste. Using these fibers offers extra income to farming communities and saves the waste from being incinerated, which creates toxic emissions. No Saints also uses apple peels thrown out by the juicing industry to make apple leather shoes.

German footwear brand thies and Brazilian brand Insecta make vegan fashion items out of plastic waste. Adidas teamed up with Parley for the Oceans to produce a vegan shoe with plastic pulled from the ocean. Each shoe contains 12 plastic bottles worth of waste, with some of this coming from discarded fishing nets.

Animal agriculture is one of the major generators of greenhouse gas emissions, which worsens climate change. UNEP hasnamed meatthe worlds most urgent problem, saying that, Our use of animals as a food-production technology has brought us to the verge of catastrophe.

Producing half a pound of beef generates the same amount of emissions as driving a car 9.8 miles. Producing half a pound of potatoes is only equal to driving a car 0.17 miles.

A 2016 report found that if the world went vegan, the planets food-related emissions would drop by 70 percent by 2050.

Animal-based diets are extremely water-intensive. According to UNEP, a bacon cheeseburger requires more than 3,000 liters of water to produce. In contrast, a vegan meat burger requires 75 to 95 percent less water.

Major meat publication Global Meat News admitted to animal agricultures impact on the planet last year. It stated that 92 percent of the planets water footprint is linked to agriculture, with livestock making up one-third of the figure. On a per gram of protein basis, beefs water footprint is six times that of pulses,Global Meat News wrote.

According to Water Calculator, someone following a vegan diet has half the total water footprint as a meat-eater.

Raising animals for food requires vast amounts of land and deforestation. The beef industry was blamed for the current Amazon fires since farmers intentionally burn down sections of the rainforest to make room for herds.

Oxford University researchers completed the most comprehensive analysis of farmings impact on the planet earlier this year. They looked at data from approximately 40,000 farms in 119 countries and found that beef production requires 36 times more land than plant-based protein like peas.

The researchers stated that if everyone were to go vegan, global farmland use would drop by 75 percent, freeing up landmass the size of Australia, China, the EU, and the U.S. combined.

A 2018 report published in the journalCurrent Biologydiscovered that 87 percent of the worlds oceans are dying.

Many people are doing their part to save the seas ditching plastic straws, bringing their own shopping bag to the supermarket, and choosing plastic-free produce. However, your diet could have more to do with the ocean; half of the plastic found in the ocean comes from fishing nets.

Overfishing is also impacting the oceans fish stocks. Some experts agree that the worlds oceans could be empty of fish by 2048. Even land-raised meat can harm the oceans. The pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers used on feed crops enter and pollute waterways. Factory farm runoff and livestock grazing is also a major contributor to river and lake pollution. According to Cowspiracy, animal agriculture creates 70 to 90 percent of freshwater pollution in western countries.

Often forgotten about but ever-important is honey. Following a vegan lifestyle means going without this ingredient, and this could have an impact on bee populations. Bees are widely considered to be the most important species on the planet. Approximately 250,000 species of flowering plants rely on bees for pollination. Without bees, fruit and vegetable stocks would deplete.

It takes more than 550 bees to gather 1 pound of honey from roughly 2 million flowers, according to the Apex Bee Company. Bees will fly 55,000 miles to make a gallon of honey. The average bee will make only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its life, and bees rely on this as their primary food source.

Thankfully for honey-lovers, there are plenty of vegan alternatives out there. Bee Free Honee makes ethical honey out of organic apples.Dvash Organics is the producer of what it claims is the worlds first sweet potato honey. You can also use maple syrup or agave nectar.

Not sure where (or when) to start? How about Monday? Ditching meat for one day a week can help make the transition seem a little less intimidating. It allows you to try new foods and reduce your impact on the planet. The more Mondays you have meatless, the easier it may be to add more days each week.

Its 2019, so the media we consume has a large impact on the choices we make. Documentaries are some of the most popular mechanisms for motivating people to go vegan. It took just 15 minutes of Dominion to convince a caf owner in Idaho to turn her business vegan. Called the scariest movie ever made, the 2018 film features hidden camera footage and uncovers the dark side of animal agriculture.

Kip Andersens What the Health looks at the link between diet and disease, and his 2014 documentary Cowspiracy unravels the environmental issues tied to animal agriculture.

Theres a vegan-focused documentary to suit everyone. You can check out a list of them here.

Not a film buff? A thought-provoking book could be your ticket. How Not To Die by Michael Greger considers food medicine. The New York Times bestseller studies how diet can cause or prevent disease.

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II also highlights the health benefits of healthy, plant-based eating. Jonathon Safran Foers Eating Animals looks at what it means to eat animals in a modern, industrialized world.

The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams explores the role of feminism within the meaty, dairy, and egg industries. Gristle: From Factory Farms to Food Safety (Thinking Twice About the Meat We Eat) by Moby and Miyun Park opens a conversation about how our food choices impact the world around us, including animals, workers, public health, and the planet.

Theres no need to go hungry on a plant-based diet. For every food you loved as a non-vegan, you can make or buy an animal-free version. Get your hands on some plant-powered cookbooks, like So Vegan in 5 by Roxy Pope and Ben Pook. This book has more than 100 cheap and simple recipes, including jerk tofu burgers.

But I Could Never Go Vegan! by Kristy Turner smashes the stereotype that vegan food is bland and boring. Cathy Fishers Straight Up Food is bursting with plant-based and gluten-free recipes, made with whole, unprocessed ingredients.

You could also invest in a meal planner. LIVEKINDLYs vegan meal planner offers nutrition tips, chef-inspired recipes, guidance from expert food coaches, smart grocery lists, and grocery delivery in select areas, so all youll have to focus on is enjoying great-tasting food.

Surrounding yourself with supportive, likeminded people is a great way to keep motivated during your vegan journey. Jump online and join some local vegan Facebook groups, which are perfect for recipes, tips on vegan living, and sharing memes.

Subscribing to a plant-based publication is a great way to stay in the loop and hear about the latest vegan news. It could also offer you daily reminders on why going vegan is important to you and how your choices can have a ripple effect, helping the planet and those inhabit it.

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15 Vegan Lifestyle Benefits That Will Make You Never Look Back

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What is a vegan lifestlye? We take an in-depth look at celebrities who follow the diet, the benefits of going plant-based, and some tips to get you started.

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Jemima Webber

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LIVEKINDLY

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Originally posted here:
15 Vegan Lifestyle Benefits That Will Make You Never Look Back - LIVEKINDLY

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

ALTAMONT The door to Keegan Prue and Olivia Cohen-Prues nursery, on the second floor of their Altamont home next to their master bedroom, is open.

It was closed for a while last year, after their first effort at in vitro fertilization ended in miscarriage right around Thanksgiving, about eight weeks into Cohen-Prues pregnancy.

A lot of people just close that door, and have it be like a symbol of the sadness, said Cohen-Prues husband, Keegan Prue, 32, who works for the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute.

After our first miscarriage, we had closed the door. It had become that sad door, he said.

Right before they tried IVF a second time, earlier this year, the couple made a conscious decision to change the energy, to open the door and move forward.

Your parents came and painted the walls, Olivia Cohen-Prue, 34, a paralegal, reminds her husband. We began to get furniture and to finish the room, little by little. The babys room is now about 75 percent complete, she said.

The door was also closed for about a day, Cohen-Prue said, after she miscarried for the second time, this time at 12 weeks, in the beginning of May.

The couple is now preparing for their third round of IVF.

The nursery walls are painted a pale blue and decorated with framed illustrations from a childrens book, a map of the United States, and a vintage railway travel poster featuring a bold illustration of a train. In the center of the room is an oval Scandinavian convertible crib they found secondhand that they explained is meant to grow with the child, going from crib to toddler bed and beyond.

The nursery is almost ready now for the child they are sure will come someday, one way or another.

If this third IVF cycle doesnt work, they have decided to stop trying for their own biological child and focus on adopting. They have already spoken to private agencies, where they would apply to adopt a baby; they are sure they would also be happy to become parents that way.

Either way, said Prue, even if the third cycle should work, they might still like to bring a second or third child into their family through adoption.

Having a crib and a carseat are requirements for adoptive parents hoping to get the call about an available baby, Cohen-Prue said.

What we recommend to people, Prue said, is to research what the choices are and figure out whats right for them. Some people say, If I cant have my own child, I dont want to do it, and then thats the right choice for them.

Along with the open door, the couple explained, they also decided to be open about telling people about their struggles. They had learned that about one in eight couples deal with infertility. Maybe hearing about the difficulties they had had would make someone else feel less alone, they decided. He wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor, published this week.

Its such a common experience, but people dont talk about it enough, said Prue.

He and Cohen-Prue also want people to know about a change that will come when the New York State budget enacted this year goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. From that time, Large Group insurance plans serving companies with 100 or more employees will be required to cover up to three cycles of IVF.

In addition, insurers in all commercial markets will be required to cover medically necessary fertility preservation medical treatments for people facing infertility caused by a medical intervention such as radiation, medication, or surgery. Presumably, this could cover banking sperm or freezing eggs.

Not everyone will be helped by this new requirement, said Prue. People who will not be helped include those at smaller companies and those at companies with more than 1,000 employees, as well as gay male couples. Gay male couples wont be helped because surrogacy remains illegal in New York State. Prue called the change in the law not perfect, but a step forward.

He and his wife both have good health insurance, Prue said, adding, I give both our workplaces a lot of credit for being so supportive and saying, Whatever you need, in terms of time off for doctors appointments and things.

The couple have friends whose insurance does not cover fertility treatments, who have paid $30,000 or $40,000 out of pocket for multiple IVF cycles, Prue said, and there are many people without insurance for whom IVF would not be an option, because of the cost.

The new law gives people one more option for trying to fulfill this most basic function, he said, and he and his wife want to raise awareness so more people know there is hope out there.

He has heard people undergoing fertility treatment compare it to The Hunger Games, Prue said with a knowing laugh, because there are so many steps at which the weakest eggs and embryos can be winnowed away.

The couple started seeing a fertility doctor after about a year of trying on their own. I was 31 when we got married. I wasnt old, but I knew time wasnt on our side, said Cohen-Prue.

After doing testing, the doctor told them that Cohen-Prues egg reserve was low. The doctor explained, she recalled, that if a woman has a lower egg reserve, the eggs are also not good quality.

When I first found out, she said, Your eggs arent what they should be for your age, its like a knife in your gut.

When she says that, her husband quietly reaches out a hand to touch hers.

Unlike men, who continue to produce sperm throughout their lives, a woman is born with all the egg-containing follicles in her ovaries that she will ever have. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, at birth a female has about a million follicles. By the time she reaches puberty, that number will have dropped to about 300,000. Of the follicles remaining at puberty, only about 300 will be ovulated during the reproductive years, with most deteriorating and being reabsorbed by the body and effectively lost. As the number of eggs diminishes, so does the average quality.

A womans best reproductive years are in her 20s. Fertility gradually declines in the 30s, particularly after age 35, according to the society. As a woman gets older, more and more of her eggs have either too few or too many chromosomes.

That means that, if fertilization occurs, the embryo also will have too many or too few chromosomes. Most people are familiar with Down syndrome, a condition that results when the embryo has an extra chromosome 21. Most embryos with too many or too few chromosomes do not result in pregnancy at all or result in miscarriage. This helps explain the lower chance of pregnancy and higher chance of miscarriage in older women.

A complete IVF cycle starts with hyperstimulation of the womans ovaries, so that she will produce a large number of eggs; this stage can be skipped, as the couple did in their second cycle, if there are frozen embryos left over from an earlier cycle.

The womans uterus is prepared for weeks by giving her estrogen to create a lining that is as thick as possible, to increase the chances that an embryo will implant there and grow. In addition, in the days leading up to the transfer, she takes shots of the hormone progesterone, meant to protect and maintain pregnancy.

Throughout this process, Cohen-Prue said, youre kind of an emotional basket case, full of anticipation, drugs known for their ability to produce rapid mood swings, and, leading up to the egg retrieval, eggs.

You actually have a bunch of eggs, you look pregnant, and feel awful, she said.

Egg retrieval following hyperstimulation might yield anywhere from about 2 to 40 eggs, Prue explained. This is followed by a process of combining the mature eggs with sperm and waiting to see if they fertilize and begin to develop.

The healthiest-looking embryo is then selected for transfer with a catheter through the womans cervix, into her uterus, in hopes that it will implant there. It is possible, the couple said, to do genetic testing of the embryos to discover which might have chromosomal abnormalities likely to produce miscarriage, but they did not do that testing before their earlier tries.

Cohen-Prue spent the days before and after last Thanksgiving in painful and unproductive contractions after being prescribed misoprostol. She was to take the drug to induce a miscarriage, since there was no heartbeat; her pregnancy was over at eight weeks. Because of the holiday, the clinic was unable to schedule a dilation-and-curettage surgery to scrape the uterus until about a week later, she said.

She wasnt burned by it, she said, adding, I was like, Lets get back on it. The silver lining was, the doctors were like, Well, we know you can get pregnant.

The couple started again with estrogen in January and did another transfer at the end of February, using an embryo they had frozen from the first round. At the nine-week ultrasound they saw a little embryo moving around, Prue recalled. We saw the arms, Cohen-Prue said, raising her hands near her face and waving her fingers.

At that point, their close friends and family knew. We were more cautiously optimistic than the first time, Prue said.

If all went well at the 12-week ultrasound, they planned to announce it more generally.

Twelve weeks is such a marker, said Prue.

Almost right away, Prue said, the ultrasound technician had been saying, I dont see a heartbeat; I dont see blood flow.

The baby had died the week before, Cohen-Prue said.

That was the worst day, she continued. You go from going to the doctor in the morning, to your world falling apart. She got an appointment for a dilation-and-curettage that same night, and, while waiting for it, told her husband, We have to talk to an adoption agency. I cant go through this again.

Fetal testing after Olivia Cohen-Prues second miscarriage showed Down syndrome. Her fertility doctor said that the presence of a chromosomal abnormality was a relief, since it would provide a potential reason for the miscarriage, and chromosomal testing of an embryo could be done next time, prior to transfer, to lessen the chance of a miscarriage.

We had a concrete reason this happened, Prue said.

They have had their embryos tested now, and have two chromosomally normal ones. One is from their recent egg retrieval, done in August, and the other the last remaining embryo from their earlier efforts.

The couple did look into private adoption and met with some really helpful adoptive parents from Adoptive Families of the Capital Region, Prue said, but decided after a three-month break to try IVF once more.

Weve heard of people whove done 10 rounds of IVF, 14 rounds, he said.

His wife added, You have to know your own limits, I think.

At about the end of October, they will transfer the more recent embryo, Prue said, because freezing embryos twice is thought to decrease the chance of implantation a tiny bit.

What are they doing, meanwhile, to keep calm?

Were no longer having conversations around, What if we dont have children? What if we dont become parents? said Prue. They take walks in the evening around Altamont, see close friends and go on little trips, and cook and bake their favorite foods.

Theyll find out by mid-November if they are at the beginning of a pregnancy.

If it doesnt work this time, they plan to start doing the paperwork for adoption by the end of the year.

See the original post here:
Keeping the door open to welcome a baby - The Altamont Enterprise

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

PEORIA People often think of breast cancer as a disease that exclusively targets women. While it is true that a great majority of breast cancer cases are women, Doctor Jessica Guingrich, a medical radiologist for OSF HealthCare and the Susan G. Komen Breast Center, says the disease doesnt discriminate against men.

Men and women both have breasts, so men and women can both get breast cancer. Its just significantly less common in a man because of the way their breasts develop, compared to the way a womans breast develops, said Dr. Guingrich.

Breast cancer in men is rare; about 1% of all breast cancers are diagnosed in males. According to the American Cancer Society, in 2019 about 2,670 invasive breast cancers will be diagnosed in men, and 500 men will die from the disease.

65 year old Allen Smith of Canton is part of that 1%. Smith, a prostate cancer survivor, was going through testing when a CT scan found an area of density in his chest wall. Doctors recommended a mammogram, which was a strange request to Smith.

I thought, everybodys going to look at me. Theres a guy coming in here, you know hes going to have a mammogram or whatever, and I felt a little odd, he said. I wasnt embarrassed by it, but I just felt a little odd because, you know this is kind of just like a new thing. I mean, you just dont hear of this.

Soon after his scan at the Susan G. Komen Breast Center in Peoria, Smith was diagnosed with stage zero breast cancer.

You could have knocked me on the floor with a feather, said Smith. I had no idea. I had no lump, I had no problem whatsoever there that I knew of.

Because of the rarity of breast cancer in men, many dont know the signs of a potential problem. Dr. Guingrich says a lump in the breast area, usually behind the nipple, is the main symptom for men to look for.

Its important to get that lump checked out because in a man, that lump, if it is a cancer, just has a greater chance of getting into the chest wall and into the muscle, into the nipple, into the lymph nodes much quicker than in a female because there just isnt much tissue buffer around a mass thats developing, she warned.

Men can also experience skin dimpling or puckering around the breast area, nipple retraction, redness or scaling of the nipple or breast skin, or even discharge from the nipple.

Dr. Guingrich also says, as in women, family history of breast cancer needs to be considered for men. Both Smiths mother and grandmother had breast cancer.

If a man has a really strong family history, or if a man maybe has a family member who is a BRCA gene carrier, its really important to be aware of that risk, said Dr. Guingrich. You need to talk to your doctor about what can be done. A man should consider having genetic testing perhaps if they have a very strong family history of breast cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, the best strategies for reducing the number of deaths caused by the disease is early detection and prompt treatment.

Smith says, there is no reason to delay if you think you have a problem.

If you think theres something wrong with you, follow up. Dont think youre going to bother the doctors, dont think youre going to be a pain, follow up. Get it checked, Smith urged.

Dr. Guingrich agrees.

I think the important thing is that if a man notices a change to just be reassured that the physicians at breast facilities are there to help and to solve problems and give reassurance that things are okay, and if something needs to be biopsied, then we biopsy it and try to make it as comfortable of an environment as possible, she said.

OSF Saint Anthonys HealthCare recently opened the OSF HealthCare Moeller Cancer Center at 2200 Central Ave., Alton.

Link:
Our Health: Breast Cancer in men: What you need to know - Alton Telegraph

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The local Association of Psychology is working to address some of the myths and misconceptions about ADHD during this, ADHD Awareness Month.

Dr. Janine Hubbard says despite extensive clinical and medical studies, many people still question whether Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a real medical condition.

She says ADHD conservatively affects about 5 per cent of the overall population and has a very strong genetic component.

Dr. Hubbard says ADHD is a chronic disorder affecting both males and females relatively equally that persists throughout a persons lifetime.

She says symptoms change over time, and the environments also change but you dont grow out of ADHD it just looks different.

She says that child who couldnt sit still in class might grow up to be someone who can sit when socially appropriate, but theyre fidgeting, clicking their pen or shaking their foot.

While many think of ADHD as manifesting in hyperactivity, brain scans show that the brain is actually less active. Dr. Hubbard says the disorder is best managed with medication if symptoms interfere with regular activities like school or work.

She says many people pour a cup of coffee if they want to help focus, stimulants prescribed for patients are similar in that they help to wake up the brain.

Dr. Hubbard says while a diagnosis of ADHD can mean that school or certain work environments might be more challenging for some, people with ADHD do succeed, especially when they choose a profession that keeps them engaged and stimulated.

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Association of Psychology Addressing Myths and Misconceptions about ADHD - VOCM

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Growing up in a family of entomologists, bankruptcy lawyer Mark Sterling was always interested in moths. He could never quite kick the habit despite being busy rescuing troubled businesses. Now, at 61, the retired Briton is back to chasing moths-and his pursuit has brought him to India.

Sterling is an (unpaid) scientific associate at the Natural History Museum, London. His current project is to look at certain material in the museum since British entomologist Edward Meyricks time which has so far remained uncurated and undescribed on the basis of morphological analysis and DNA sequencing.

Meyrick was an entomologist with a passion for butterflies and small moths. He is believed to have described more species than anyone and his collection of around 100,000 specimens is housed at the London museum.

The work that I am doing at the moment involves a group of which 25 species were described between 1894 and 1934, Sterling said. Almost all of them were described by Meyrick, in almost all cases in India and Sri Lanka except for a pest species described by another scientist from Japan.

Speaking to Mongabayon the sidelines of the recently-concluded Asian Lepidoptera Conservation Symposium at the Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, Sterling said this group is known as the Metathrinca group small white moths within the family Xyloryctidae.

Butterflies and moths make up the order of insects called Lepidoptera. Xyloryctidae is a family of moths contained within the superfamily Gelechioidea, described by Edward Meyrick in 1890.

Theres been very little work done on that group [Metathrinca] since, Sterling told Mongabay. The work so far shows that this is actually a very large group that occurs from New Guinea to Japan, including most of southern Asia, India, and China.

One aim of his Kolkata visit, said Sterling, is to find some modern material (specimens) from India.

There is no recorded specimen from India of any Metathrinca group moth since 1934, he said. I am hoping to find fresh specimens because the historic Indian specimens are too old to produce viable DNA sequences at a realistic cost, if at all. I am hoping to find live specimens from India which will allow me to sequence modern materials.

Sterling observed it is impossible to know exactly what type of habitats the old Indian materials were collected from. All we know from their data is that they were collected from Meghalaya/the Khasi Hills/Shillong but from this, we can assume that they are classical northeast Indian hill and forest species, he said.

However, the British NHM also has species from southern Asia, in the 1970s and 1980s, which are a mixture of hill and forest species including a number of mangrove forest species, so Sterling said he is hoping to find some modern Indian specimens at the forest site in Dalma and the mangrove forest site in the Sunderbans.

Whether I find any is largely a matter of luck as I have no real insights into the exact sorts of habitats in which these species occur, said Sterling, describing what he calls a hit and miss approach. So I will be putting out light traps at night, as the males, in particular, are attracted to light. I am hoping I may find a few females. I will be putting out my lights hoping for the best but, if I dont find at least some specimens on this trip, I will be disappointed, given the diversity of the group and the richness of the Indian species. If I find the material I will need to collaborate with scientists in India in order to sequence and/or describe them and will undoubtedly need to find an excuse to come back to Kolkata in order to find further materials.

Sterling said he is keen on examining the genetic difference between the described Indian species and the species he is describing from the rest of Asia.

If I can find fresh Indian specimens which are morphologically identical to already described Indian species I will be able to obtain sequences from the fresh specimens and form a view as to the genetic divergence of the Indian species from the species from other parts of Asia, he said.

Sterling acknowledged that discovering and describing moth species may not be a huge benefit to mankind, but knowledge of biodiversity is critically important.

Its not something which will make the difference between economic riches for large corporations and it is not something which will improve agriculture so I cant claim it will be a huge benefit to mankind, argued Sterling. But knowledge of biodiversity is critically important. Biodiversity in itself should be regarded as an important resource in its own right and we will be contributing to the knowledge of biodiversity.

He also stressed on balancing conservation with real needs.

We need to conserve biodiversity but that cant be the only aim of the government; you have to balance conservation with very real needs of feeding a massive population, elaborated Sterling. You need to know how to conserve, what is most important to conserve, and how to do it and in order to do that as a starting point, you need to understand what the biodiversity is, and to understand the biodiversity you need to know what species are in a place.

Sterling grew up in England, Germany, and Belgium in a family of lepidopterists and has always been interested in moths and smaller moths because butterfly diversity in England is very low. There are only 64 species of resident butterflies in England, he said. Moths are more of a challenge and interesting and smaller moths were not very well known when I was younger so they were an obvious area of interest.

Unlike other family members, Sterling became a lawyer but always kept an interest in moths. When I became a partner in my firm I was sent to Hong Kong to set up an Asian bankruptcy business so I started working on smaller moths of Asia in my spare time, he recounted. I never managed to kick the habit. Now that I am retired I can go back to the family passion.

The older brother of well-known entomologist Phil Sterling, lead author of the acclaimed micro-moth guide The Field Guide to the Micro-moths of Great Britain and Ireland, Mark Sterling finds smaller moths challenging.

Smaller moths are challenging because there are very few people working on them, compared to larger moths and even more so if compared to butterflies, Mark Sterling noted. For example, if I go out on the field somewhere in Hong Kong, Malaysia or North East India I will expect that 50% to 80% of the smaller moths I see will be undescribed species.

Sterling says there could be at least 20,000 to 30,000 species of Lepidoptera waiting to be discovered only in India.

In India, there are about 10,000 species of Lepidoptera described, he said. Published estimates range between a further 10,000 to 20,000 which are undiscovered. On the basis of old historical records in NHM on which I am working, I would have thought the 10,000 to 20,000 number is a significant underestimate so there could be at least 20,000 to 30,000 species [of Lepidoptera] only in India.

But with a dearth of taxonomists, how do you get people to take an interest in conservation?

Sterling believes an appreciation of the natural environment and biodiversity should be an important part of everyday life. In some countries, this is beginning to happen. For example, in England, membership of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds exceeds the aggregate membership of the three main British political parties. Appreciation of moths and butterflies should be an important and exciting recreational activity open to everyone, he emphasised.

Seeing a rare beautiful butterfly or moth ought to be as exciting as watching [Indian cricketing legend] Sachin Tendulkar score a century, observed Sterling. The starting point is introducing people, children who want to do recreational activities in the evening, when they are not working, to the spectacular diversity of moths and butterflies.

If they are regarded as something to be treasured then research into them is going to be much easier to find funding so the starting point is educational and proselytization of natural resource as something which is there to be appreciated and enjoyed as a relaxation from what we do in our working lives, Sterling signed-off.

This article first appeared on Mongabay.

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A Briton chasing moths comes to India: Its as exciting as watching Tendulkar score a century - Scroll.in

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Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women. And surgery is the most common form of treatment.

In the Silver Cross Breast Center, patients can see a highly skilled surgeon for diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and other abnormalities.

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For more information, visit http://www.silvercross.org

Continued here:
Breast cancer care close to home - The Herald-News

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Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement, the most sacred day on the Jewish calendar, sees hundreds of people admitted into the emergency room and many others who "suffer" through fasting.

Whether fasting is healthy for them or not, many believers cling to the custom even despite medical recommendations, until their condition worsens.

Consult you attending physician before fasting (Photo: Shutterstock)

So, we take a look at who shouldn't fast under any circumstance, how to take medication correctly, which medical services will be avialable in Israel during the holiday, what women going through fertility treatments should do and whether you should take birth control pills as usual.

Prolonged fasting like on Yom Kippur might put patients with chronic diseases could cause a slew of medical problems, such as high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, renal and liver failure and malignant diseases.

Patients suffering from these conditions are not recommended to fast on Yom Kippur at all and since fasting could cause a wide range of life threatening conditions such as sharp drops in blood pressure, fluctuations in the body's salt-water levels, acute drops in blood-sugar levels, cardiac arrhythmias and even strokes.

Patients taking fixed medication due to chronic diseases, especially when it comes to different medication, are not recommended to stop the permanent treatment without consulting a physician first.

In any case, if it is decided to pause the treatment for the 25-hour fast, consult your physician to set your medication times and mealtimes before and after the fast accordingly.

The treatment shouldn't be stopped under no circumstance if given for life threatening conditions.

In milder conditions such as strep throat and urinary tract infection, consult a doctor and ask them for their approval to take the medicine at the last meal before Yom Kippur and then again at the end of Yom Kippur.

Women taking birth control pills face no problem at all as they can take the pill at the last meal before fasting and then again at the end of the fast the next day.

Psychiatric patients not advised not to stop their treatment due to real life-threatening concerns.

If you still wish to halt a psychiatric treatment, consult your attending physician first.

For patients with Inflammatory bowel diseases, it is advisable to keep yourself hydrated and avoid fully fasting for the entirety of Yom Kippur.

Additionally, it is important to note that some medicines require food or drink, therefore, it is advisable not to decide this on your own, but to consult your doctor about each specific pill - whether you can swallow it with or without liquids.

In the past, people with diabetes were strictly prohibited from fasting, but since there are two types of diabetes and treatments are quite diverse, each patient should consult their attending physician to pick the right treatment and determine if fasting is permitted and under which circumstances.

Fasting could indeed cause headaches, mainly due to dehydration causing blood vessels to expand, very similarly to a migraine.

Apart from taking medicines such as Paracetamol, Ibuprofen and Dipyrone, you can consult your doctor about using Arcoxia.

Arcoxia, used to treat arthritis, was also found to be helpful in preventing headaches during fasting.

It should be noted that some medication must be taken on a full stomach in order to reduce damage to the stomach lining.

Additionally, some medications have alternatives in the form of rectal candles, which solve the eating issue.

Women in high-risk pregnancies are prohibited from fasting. Healthy women can usually fast during pregnancy, if they do not suffer from anemia, weakness, dehydration and only after consulting a gynecologist.

Women in high-risk pregnancies are prohibited from fasting (Photo: Shutterstock)

In any case a pregnant woman feels dizzy or nauseous, she should drink a quarter-cup of a sweetened drink every few minutes until the weakness goes away.

In general, pregnant women are advised not to go to the synagogue but to stay at home in an air-conditioned room.

Fastng is not advised for women breastfeeding full time without any baby formulas.

Breastfeeding women should alternately drink water throughout Yom Kippur to prevent a decrease in breast milk production.

If the woman combines breastfeeding with formulas, there is no prohibition on fasting, however, it is advisable to stay in an air-conditioned place and avoid unnecessary efforts.

In any case, pregnant women must consult the attending physician about fasting.

Women going through fertility treatments, requiring a series of hormone injections and must receive them at predetermined dates and times, will be able to call emergency services - if necessary - in order to set up an appointment at the nearest first-aid station.

When arriving at the station for an injection, bring the medication to be injected as well as your attending physician's referral with the date and time of injection, dosage, location and manner of injection (intramuscular or subcutaneous).

Paramedics will inject the medication only to patients who have already received at least one injection of the same drug before.

Fasting might dehydrate the body this condition increases the risk of damaging various body systems and can lead to the formation of kidney stones.

Dehydration is a medical emergency that is expressed by weakness, sleepiness, headaches, blurred vision, failure to urinate for more than10 hours, nausea, loss of consciousness and convulsions.

Infants and small children, who don't fast anyway, are at a higher risk, alongside pregnant women and seniors.

To avoid dehydration, those fasting must stay in shady and air-conditioned places as much as possible.

Call emergency services in any condition suspected as dehydration.

In case of emergency, call emergency services. In any other case, you can turn to the main urgent care centers, which keep operating on a limited scale that day.

Chronic patients need to make sure that they have enough medication for the day of fasting.

It is advisable to make sure that there are also basic non-prescription drugs available, such as antipyretics and analgesics.

If necessary, there are emergency pharmacies available, which can be found on your municipality's website or hotline.

Continue reading here:
Who should and who shouldn't fast on Yom Kippur? - Ynetnews

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TULSA, Okla. The door frame that Cathy Carter leans against is all that separates her from the fate suffered by her great aunt in the 1930's.

Carter has been diagnosed with anxiety and agoraphobia, and she believes her ancestor suffered similarly or worse. For her great aunt, that meant being hauled away to a California insane asylum, as they were called at the time a trip that did nothing to ease her condition or help her life.

Carter, still leaning in her doorway, pauses in telling the family story. For her, the outcome has been different.

More than 600 miles southeast of Colorado Springs, in the boom-or-bust oil town of Tulsa, exists an effort to tackle mental illness not just with therapists or pharmaceuticals, but with four walls and a roof.

Spearheaded by the Tulsa-centered Mental Health Association of Oklahoma and backed by tens of millions of dollars from wealthy, oil-made philanthropists, the initiative provides hundreds of housing units to people battling mental health and substance abuse problems often both. Hundreds more units have been set aside by the nonprofit for affordable housing as a preventative measure to keep people from descending into homelessness and in need of even more acute mental health care.

For Carter, that means an apartment. Her apartment. No psychiatric hospital visits needed.

Here, were accepted, she says.

The Tulsa program is earning a growing reputation for addressing mental health's many tendrils even among some nonprofit leaders in Colorado Springs. And it centers on a hard truth for any community seeking to finally tackle mental illness: Making meaningful headway is impossible without addressing the societal factors that play into a persons well-being.

So often, housing ranks at the top of that list.

Its the deal maker or the deal breaker, said Mike Brose, the nonprofits CEO, over dinner at a downtown diner. Its all the difference in the world. If you dont have a place to live, you cant get anywhere.

And its not like Broses nonprofit is starting from a place of privilege.

The Sooner state has one of the worst mental health care systems in the nation, ranking 41st in Mental Health Americas most recent report.

Chief among those concerns for social service providers is the fact that Oklahoma has yet to expand Medicaid benefits to impoverished and low-income adults without children. It was a key benefit of the Affordable Care Act that the states Republican leaders eschewed in a show of defiance against President Barack Obamas signature health law.

Tulsa and Oklahoma City also routinely rank disproportionately high in evictions, meaning more people are at risk of homelessness, and in turn, at higher risk for new or exacerbated mental illnesses brought on by living on the streets.

In the face of those obstacles, mental health advocates in Tulsa got creative.

Unable to woo more clinicians to the area or single-handedly shift the states prevailing political winds, they focused on the fundamentals the social determinants of health. Issues like crime, employment and access to healthy foods can play an outsized role in a persons overall well-being, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

And housing ranks among the most important of those factors.

Its a fact that Carter, 67, knows all too well.

She leans away from her doorway, shuffling unsteadily back to her wheelchair, and invites visitors in for a tour. The linoleum flooring looks like paneled wood, the kitchen is quaint, there are two bedrooms in the back. Two cats one white behemoth named Snowball and a nimble tabby named Jack lay on cushions in her living room. Her old service dog rests nearby.

At the moment, her walls are white and empty shes only lived in this apartment for a week, because her last unit flooded in a storm. But shes been a tenant of the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma for six years.

She still struggles with agoraphobia a condition that can cause her to feel overwhelmed when shes overstimulated, such as when she leaves her house. And she still grapples with anxiety a particular problem, given that she also suffers from a rare neurological disorder that becomes exacerbated when her stress spins out of control.

But backward as it may sound, having a place to live has helped keep her from becoming isolated from the rest of the world.

There are other people around who maybe have the same disorder," says Carter, her voice soft and calm. If I have panic or problemswith agoraphobia, I know Im not the only one.

Theyre not going to freak out if I'm freaking out, with panic or the agoraphobia. Thats not going to bother them."

The Mobile Medical team of physician assistant Whitney Phillips, center, and licensed practical nurse Jacki Sauter examine a homeless woman on the streets of Tulsa

. The medical team is one of the many services the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma provides to the homeless population in Tulsa. The

team also decreases trips to the emergency room by the homeless, lowering overall medical costs.

The nonprofit owns and manages about two dozen apartment complexes all across Tulsa, a sprawling city bisected by the Arkansas River. Those buildings contain 1,435 units about three times the number possessed by Colorado Springs largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing. That's despite Tulsas population being slightly smaller.

There are streets lined by Art Deco architecture. Downtown is brimming with reinvestment, including a Woody Guthrie museum, new restaurants and a minor league baseball stadium. A downtown arena hosts national concert tours, and a nearby theater recently captured dates from a touring production of "Hamilton." A Bob Dylan museum is on the drawing board.

Just a short walk from all of it is the Altamont Apartments a 1930s-era brick building purchased by the nonprofit to use as affordable housing, complete with a quiet gazebo in back and an interior that recently underwent millions of dollars in renovations.

And there is the newly constructed Yale Apartments, tucked beside Interstate 244 east of downtown, home todozens of formerly homeless people.

Each of the units comes with a caseworker who to seeks to connect tenants to whatever health care is needed and available, as well as job and food assistance.

The reason is simple, says Greg Shinn, the nonprofits chief housing officer.

The bottom line is that when people are on the street, or in a homeless shelter, they could not stabilize and go into recovery mode to be successful," he said. "Theyre in survival mode."

Shinn himself became a believer in the early 2000s. After spending years running a homeless shelter in downtown New York City, he heard aboutthe Tulsa nonprofit's plan to provide housing.

Immediately, he thought: Well, thats the solution.

Lets give them choice of where to live, if you can do that, Shinn said. And then that empowers them to choose where they wantto live to get out of their homeless situation. And then to offer them flexible services they feel they need to recover. And then thatll give them a head start on recovery in the housing where they could be successful.

Most importantly, he says, once people are housed, they don't often return to the streets.

Through the end of August, 82 percent of the people with mental illnesses who have received apartments from the nonprofit remain there. It's a retention rate that has remained relatively steady for years, and one the nonprofit proudly boasts as proof of its success.

A resident waits outside Yale Apartments

on Aug. 27 in Tulsa

. Yale is one of the 28 apartment buildings owned and managed by the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma. It provides 1,435 units of affordable housing, three times the number of Colorado Springs largest provider, despite Tulsas population being slightly smaller.

Housing as key to recovery

The concept stems from the Housing First ethos. And it is rooted in a growing pile of research on the social determinants of health.

For decades, researchers have grown increasingly confident that a persons health both physical and behavioral is swayed by far more than doctors or therapists. Myriad triggers can push a persons well-being for better or worse including crime, racial discrimination and poverty, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The connection is simple, says Vickie M. Mays, a professor of psychology and health policy and management at the University of California, Los Angeles. Those issues all cause toxic stress otherwise known as the hormone cortisol to build up inside a person, deteriorating their health and causing a cascade of mental health problems.

Often, housing ranks at or near the top of those social determinants, Mays said. Without it, how can anyone kick an addiction? And how can anyone maintain their hygiene well enough to find or keep a job?

"So if you want to know how to enhance people's well being, to motivate them, you need to think about housing as a very significant social determinant, Mays said. "And to think about building our houses in ways in which while theyre affordable at the same time, they really allow some communities to be able to thrive.

In Colorado, the situation is no different.

A recent report by the Colorado Health Institute warned of a connection between the states rising housing costs and the negative health outcomes that may result.

Housing costs across the state increased by 77% over the last decade as newcomers have flocked to the state, causing the Front Range two swell with new houses and prices in scenic mountain towns to skyrocket. Meanwhile, wages have inched up a mere 4.5% in that same time, the report found.

More than a quarter of the states households are now cost burdened, meaning more than a third of their income goes to housing costs. Its a problem thats even worse for minorities.

"One of the big connections between housing instability and mental health is around chronic stress, said Sarah Barnes, manager of special policy initiatives for the Colorado Childrens Campaign, which is helping lead a group that's using the report to help spur policy solutions.

Shinn, the Tulsa nonprofits housing leader, says he sees the benefits of housing day in, and day out.

More affordable housing means fewer people living paycheck to paycheck and strapped for cash, reducing the generational cycles of poverty that often cause traumas that lead to poor mental health, he said.

And fewer evictions mean children can change schools less, meaning a better education and eventually better jobs, lower incarceration rates and fewer tax dollars spent on emergency room visits and lockups.

This leads to sustainable neighborhoods and higher quality of life for everybody else, Shinn said. The housing needs being met in the community has a direct impact on the overall mental health of the community. You can connect the dots all day long. Some of them are direct, some of them are indirect. But every community in the country needs more affordable housing.

Resident Glen Bailey, 64, dust mops the first-floor hallway Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2019, at Yale Apartments in Tulsa, Okla. Bailey, who lived off and on the streets for several years, has lived in housing owned by the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma for 10 years.

Alyssa Orcutt knows that reality all too well.

Black tattoos crisscross Orcutts arms and back etchings of a past she chooses not to forget.

Theres the four-leafed clover with the words But for the grace of God a throwback to the moment she got sober in 2014, on St. Patricks Day.

And theres a picture of lady justice, her scales resting even to represent the vast criminal record she accumulated while homeless and on the streets of Tulsa that she's since overcome.

It takes a lot of courage to live the life I lived, Orcutt said.

Her life is a case study in the mental toll that homelessness can take and the power of housing to heal those invisible scars.

She descended into homelessness when her abusive husband went to prison leaving her with nothing, because the house and car were in his name. A man groped her the first time she visited a homeless shelter, so she never went back. Instead, for two and a half years, she camped at a local park.

I just gave up all hope and I turned to street drugs to help cope with the pain of what you go through on the streets, Orcutt said. Because its very violent; theres a lot of violence that happens when you're living outside.

You cant focus on mental health when youre just trying to survive the day, Orcutt added. I just wanted to make it to midnight to live another day. When I wanted to live."

She racked up a slew of charges, ranging from what she calls survival crimes for stealing food and clothes to violent felonies. But a prison diversion program helped her finally get sober, she said.

Then came years of therapy to unpack the tangled web of mental illness that became exacerbated on the streets.

"I lived 24 years without anxiety and depression and PTSD," she said. "And after two and a half years on the streets, now I have these diagnoses.

She's an example ofthe Mental Health Association's culture of inclusivity. She's now a case manager for the nonprofit's Denver House a day center for some of the most mentally ill people living on the streets of Tulsa.About 60 percent of her fellow employees at the association also have diagnosed mental illnesses. More than one-third of the employees have a history of addiction. And a quarter experienced homelessness.

A key step in Orcutt's journey: An apartment provided to her and her two children.

Some people in Colorado Springs have taken notice.

Three years ago, several local nonprofit leaders visited Tulsa and toured the nonprofits program.

They saw first-hand the Tulsa nonprofit's strategy: Purchase and refurbish declining or dilapidated apartment complexes and motels across the city. Then, rent them at affordable rates often to people suffering from mental illness.

The reason for relying on existing buildings was simple: Keep costs relatively low while maintaining the citys affordable housing stock, said Brose, the nonprofits CEO.

Under the nonprofits auspices, the buildings wont get razed to make way for a new development, or flipped by developers seeking to gentrify an area and raise rents.

At some point, youve got to not only create more affordable housing, but preserve affordable housing, Brose said. A lot of our properties we only have one new construction theyre all existing apartment complexes that we purchased and own.

Theyre not fancy, he said. "But we certainly want them to be safe and affordable and to be decent.

And, Brose adds, theyre often available to people who wouldnt be accepted anywhere else people with histories of evictions, drug use and homelessness.

We refer to ourselves as benevolent landlords, Brose said. Sometimes people fail in our housing. But as a benevolent landlord, we'll give them repeated chances to come back.

A year later, Brose himself visited Colorado Springs and spoke at a conference hosted by the Pikes Peak Continuum of Care, which is focused on addressing homelessness.

The Tulsa nonprofit made an impression.

They understand that homelessness and health are so intricately related, said Shawna Kemppainen, who went on the trip as executive director of The Place, a youth homeless shelter in downtown Colorado Springs formerly known as Urban Peak. Its really interesting that its the largest mental health association there in the state that's actually doing homeless housing, and is very productive with it.

Chris Garvin, deputy executive director for the El Paso County Department of Human Services, agreed.

It was pretty impressive in that they were able to garner community support, Garvin said. And the fact they would buy maybe a defunct apartment building, or an apartment building that was pretty riddled with crime or drugs. And they were able to go in there and I dont want to say gentrify it but they brought it up a notch. And it kind of improved the neighborhood.

Brose's visit to Colorado Springs helped lead Tulsas fire department to adopt a Colorado Springs program called CARES. Its a partnership of the Colorado Springs Fire Department, AspenPointe and other agencies.

Its goal is to create a team to act as a special service to people who are known as super utilizers people who call 9-1-1 at a disproportionate rate, using it more as a medical service than an emergency line and tying up resources while jacking up health-care costs in the region.

Now, some wonder whether Colorado Springs could learn a lesson or two from Tulsa.

For his part, Greg Shinn, the Tulsa nonprofit's chief housing officer,called the organization's model inherently transferrable." And he urged for local leaders also to consider tax increases, arguing such investments could pay off in spades.

Any locality can do it its a nonpartisan issue, Shinn said. Nobody wants to waste money locking up people who are homeless that could be in housing. Nobody wants to waste money with law enforcement emergency runs or emergency hospitalizations that could be avoided if these people were in housing with the services that they need.

Lets stop throwing away money.

A belief in 'doing what's right'

Several Colorado Springs nonprofit leaders who saw the Tulsa program first-hand a few years ago said one factor stands above the rest in limiting Colorado Springs from taking a similar approach: Funding.

The presence of multiple well-heeled philanthropists in Tulsa and those donors penchant for giving substantial sums of money to the social service sector is what separates that city from others.

Most of the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma's units were purchased over the last 10 years, after the nonprofit raised $65.5 million.

Three-quarters of those donations came from private donors. And nearly half $30 million came from a single philanthropic organization: The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation.

Henry Zarrow was the son of a Jewish immigrant who fled to the U.S. escaping the Russian pogroms, according to accounts in the Tulsa World. He started his first company at the age of 22 and became a powerful player in the oil and gas industry then gave away much of his wealth at the behest of his wife, Anne Zarrow.

Homelessness and mental health have been top priorities for them, as well as for Henrys brother, Jack Zarrow.

Only Jack Zarrow's widow, Maxine, remains alive. But the Zarrows' philanthropy lives on in the foundations established in their names.Both families are really social justice-minded, said Nancy Curry, program officer for the Zarrow Family Foundations. And really kind of believe in doing whats right.

Excerpt from:
Fighting mental illness with affordable housing: What can Colorado Springs learn from this Tulsa nonprofit? - Colorado Springs Gazette

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GE Healthcare and Theragnostics have struck up a global commercial partnership around the development and sale of the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT imaging agent, GalliProst.

The scan indicates whether the disease is within the prostate gland, spread to the local lymph nodes or spread with more distant metastasis. Theragnostics will head development of the radiopharmaceutical, while GE will oversee all pre-approval commercial preparations, as well as all subsequent commercial and distribution tasks following the tracers approval.

"We believe GE is one of a few companies that provide a global reach into every market in the world. They also have the ability to access both generator-produced Ga-68 as well as cyclotron produced Ga-68," Greg Mullen, CEO of Theragnostics, told HCB News. "Ga-68 is the radioisotope in GalliProst that allows it to be visualized on the PET scanner."

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Derived from Gallium-68, the new tracer provides clinicians with "heatmap-style" images that show the precise location and intensity of PSMA, which is expressed on the surface of prostate cancer cells. A phase II clinical study that met its primary and secondary endpoints showed that clinicians who used GalliProst ended up modifying treatment plans for one third of newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients and over 50 percent with biochemically recurrent disease. This change in patient management rose to 75 percent in a post-radical radiotherapy environment.

"The scan provides the physician with an indication as to whether the disease is within the prostate gland, spread to the local lymph nodes or has spread with more distant metastasis," said Mullen. "Conventional imaging (CT or bone scan) has difficulty in detecting small volume disease outside of the prostate. Therefore, GalliProst can help determine whether curative therapy (surgery or targeted radiotherapy) or systemic treatment (hormone/chemotherapy) is the most appropriate treatment."

The agreement follows another orchestrated last month in which AstraZeneca granted Theragnostics a license to operate globally in the diagnostic field of certain selected radionuclide-labelled PARPi (Poly (ADP-Ribose) Polymerase inhibitors), with an option to an exclusive license for freedom to operate globally in the therapeutic field of certain selected radionuclide-labelled PARPi.

Both GE Healthcare and Theragnostics will be on hand to discuss their findings from October 12-16 at the European Association of Nuclear Medicine 2019 Congress (EANM) in Barcelona.

Link:
GE Healthcare and Theragnostics partner on PSMA PET/CT tracer - DOTmed HealthCare Business News

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Theres broad consensus that genetically modifying humans isnt a good idea, at least not anytime in the near future. But it seems Russia has less qualms about the idea, which could leave it to determine the future of the technology.

After Chinese geneticist He Jiankui announced he had used CRISPR to genetically edit two human embryos there was widespread outrage from both the scientific community and authorities at home and abroad. But it took less than a year for Russian scientist Denis Rebrikov to announce his desire to carry out similar experiments that edit germline DNA, which refers to changes that will be passed on to future generations.

Condemnation from the international community was again swift, but it appears Rebrikov may be finding a more receptive audience at home. Bloomberg reports that a secret meeting of top Russian geneticists and health officials was convened over the summer to discuss the proposals.

And the meeting had a significant guest: Maria Vorontsova, an endocrinologist and daughter of the man likely to make the final call on Russias position on gene-editing President Vladimir Putin.

Bloomberg reports there was a back and forth between opponents and proponents of the idea, but Vorontsova said scientific progress cant be stopped and suggested such research should be controlled by state-run institutions to ensure oversight.

While thats a long way from an official endorsement, the Russian governments response to Rebrikovs plans has certainly been tepid compared to those in the US, where politicians recently renewed a ban on germline editing, and in China, where Hes work quickly led to a tightening of regulations around human gene editing.

Rebrikovs proposal potentially has more merit than Hes. Rebrikov initially planned to target the same gene as He, which is believed to determine susceptibility to HIV. Switching this gene off was criticized for being an unnecessarily complicated and dangerous way of ensuring the disease wasnt passed from parent to child.

Now he plans to use CRISPR to switch off a rare gene that leads to deafness. He is working with couples who are both deaf due to the condition, but dont want to pass it on to their children. Theres still very little understanding of what the potential side effects of this kind of intervention could be, which has led many to call for a moratorium on the technology.

Both the World Health Organization and an international commission set up by the US national academies and the UKs Royal Society are trying to develop guidelines for human gene editing technology, but scientists leading these efforts admit theres little they can do to prevent this kind of research at present.

And while Rebrikovs proposals may sound fairly benign, the way he talks about the technology should give serious cause for concern. In the Bloomberg article he openly discusses starting small and the prospect of parents genetically enhancing their children, while seeming to invoke the Soviet Unions pursuit of nuclear weapons as a justification for developing a technology that can be used for both good and evil.

So far, most of the discussion around germline editing has been focused on safety. But writing in Scientific American Mildred Solomon, president of bioethics institute The Hastings Center, says we need to start tackling questions that go beyond safety before its too late.

That will inevitably include discussions around the ethics of genetic enhancement, but its becoming increasingly clear that there also needs to be consideration of the geopolitical ramifications of the technology.

Putin has already voiced his concerns about genetically-engineered soldiers, and in todays hostile international climate its easy to see the worlds great powers worrying about being left behind by their adversaries. Rebrikov alluded to this train of thought in his comments to Bloomberg, saying hes sure embryo gene-editing is happening in clandestine dark sites.

Despite Chinas forceful public response to Hes research, theres evidence the government was actually funding it, and bioethicist James Giordano told National Defense that its highly unlikely the scientist was a rogue actor in a country where government, academia, and industry are so deeply entwined.

Were still a long way from the kind of capabilities required for doomsday scenarios like super-soldiers or genetically-targeted biological weapons, but recent developments suggest theres a real danger of a genetic arms race developing. Exactly what can be done to stop it remains far from clear, but there needs to be a major push to ensure the fundamental basis of our humanity doesnt end up being governed by realpolitik.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

Go here to read the rest:
Russia Could Take the Lead on Human Gene Editing - Singularity Hub

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Human Nature is a documentary created by Emmy award-winning producer Adam Bolt with the help of NC State professors that explains what CRISPR is and the impact it could have on society.

CRISPR is a gene-editing tool that allows humans to modify the genetic code of organisms. With this technology, it is possible to cure diseases, create new foods or redefine human life. How can such a thing be possible? Can we as humans be trusted with this technology? These are the questions the documentary answers.

Rodolphe Barrangou, assistant professor of food science at NC State and Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Scholar in probiotics research* and an active participant in the creation of the documentary, spoke about the project over email.

In my opinion, the documentary captures the high potential of genome editing for the benefits of humankind, and also brings up critical questions about the ethical issues that must be assessed, and the importance to capture the many voices of all involved and impacted, Barrangou said.

Barrangou was one of the first people from NC State to be part of the filming process and is considered the driving force behind getting NC State in the documentary. He worked with the film crew to help select the people to feature and the early design of the story.

We spent 11 days on campus and in RTP to feature work underway at NC State in CALS and CVM and also at Syngenta, Barrangou said in the email.

Another example of a voice that can be found in the documentary is that of Jorge Piedrahita, a professor and the director of the Comparative Medicine Institute at NC State. His lab created genetically modified pigs for biomedical research, specifically to carry organs for human use. Piedrahita spoke about the fun experience of working with a professional film crew and how important he believed the CRISPR technology is.

You need to be aware of it because the more you understand it, the more you understand the benefits, the more you understand the risks," Piedrahita said. "You start to understand that the benefits vastly outweigh the risks.

One of the topics Piedrahita discussed was the democratization of the technology and the regulations that would follow it. This would ensure that it wouldnt just be billion-dollar biotech companies with state-of-the-art labs working with CRISPR. The technology would be available to governments and labs worldwide.

CRISPR lies within an ethical gray area, and a large part of the documentary looks objectively at the good and the bad the technology can do. In the documentary trailer, there is a video of Vladimir Putin describing how the technology could be used to create soldiers that would fight without fear or pain. Then, within the same minute, it shows a parent saying, Anything that will stop my child from suffering, Im for.

Piedrahita spoke about the growing importance of CRISPR and its possible impact.

I think it will be crazy for someone not to understand CRISPR, because it will be such a big part of our lives, every single facet of our lives, in the next ten years, Piedrahita said.

From the food people eat, to the way disease is treated, to even the future generations of people, CRISPR will impact everything, which is what makes Human Nature so impactful. The film premiered at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival, and its general release will be on Nov. 7.

* Editor's Note, Oct. 8, 2019: [and Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Scholar in probiotics research] was rephrased for clarity.

See the article here:
'Human Nature': A Film on the Technology Defining the Future - N.C. State University Technician Online

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Whencoauthors Ann Lin and Christopher Giuliano, then at Stony Brook University in NewYork, saw their lab results, they were worried. We were both undergrads at thetime, said Lin. It was our first CRISPR experiment, and we were like, is thisour fault, or is this real?

Using CRISPR, Lin and Giuliano had knocked out the gene for MELK, a kinase reported to be essential in multiple cancer types, and of particular interest in triple-negative breast cancer. Surprisingly, they found that breast cancer cells grew happily even without MELK. Even more strangely, the cells lacking MELK remained vulnerable to OTS167, a MELK inhbitor.1Their advisor, Jason Sheltzer, PhDwho is a fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratorywasnt inclined to blame the odd results on undergraduate incompetence. They began pursuing the hypothesis that the drug must exert its killing activity through other proteins or through some other mechanism.

Fourclinical trials are currently underway testing OTS167 in human cancers yet thedrugs mechanism of action may be misunderstood. Its a real problem: targetedtherapies for cancer overwhelmingly fail clinical trials, according to a recentanalysis,2 with only some 3% to 4% of candidates earning approvalfrom the US Food and Drug administration (FDA).

Thisstatistic startled the researchers and prompted them to broaden theirinvestigation. They tested 10 cancer drugs that targeted 6 different proteins,looking to confirm the published mechanisms of action. The target proteins wereHDAC6, MAPK14/p38, PAK4, PBK, PIM1, and CASP3/caspase-3.

Mostof the evidence implicating these proteins as essential for cancer growth camefrom RNA-interference (RNAi) screens, in which short RNA molecules designed tosilence the gene successfully impaired cancer cell growth. In each case, asmall-molecule inhibitor targeting the protein exists, with demonstratedcancer-killing ability. They intentionally selected drug-target pairs that hadno published resistance-granting mutations, which would unequivocally validatethe mechanism of action.

Whenthey knocked out the genes with CRISPR, Lin and Giuliano found that in everycase, inactivating the gene did not diminish the cancer cells survival. Upontesting 4 of the original RNAi constructs that had been used to identify theproteins as essential, the constructs still hampered the cells growth evenwhen the targeted gene of interest had been knocked out.

Go here to read the rest:
Some Targeted Therapies May Miss the Mark - Cancer Therapy Advisor

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

The Women's Breast Health and Imaging Center at Aiken Regional Medical Centers upgraded their equipment this year with the addition of new 3D mammography units. The technology plays a crucial role in the early detection of breast cancer.

Unlike 2D mammograms, which take four photos, the new 3D mammogram technology is capable of taking 300 photos within four seconds and penetrating dense tissue, according to Dr. Jill Enter, a general surgeon with Aiken Surgical Associates.

"It makes a compact disc selection of 300 images of the breast, so it allows the radiologist to scroll through that dense breast tissue better and it decreases the amount of false positives that we have," Enter said. "It also allows for earlier detection of breast cancer."

The Women's Breast Health and Imaging Center obtained its first 3D mammography unit in March 2019. Three other units were obtained in July.

Enter, who previously worked at Aiken Regional and returned recently after working for the Doctor's Hospital of August for five years, said she frequently does breast cancer surgeries, as most of her female patients seem to prefer a female doctor in the area of breast health.

She said that, even with the constant improvements in medical technology, patient education and awareness of the disease is key in the battle against breast cancer.

"It's always changing," Enter said. "Even in the last 10 years since I've been in private practice, it has dramatically turned on its head."

Enter said women need to do self-exams more frequently, as breast cancer normally presents as a small lump in the breast. She said women at risk for the disease also need to pay more attention to their family history especially on their father's side.

"Fifty percent of your genetics comes from your dad's side, too," Enter said. "Breast cancer is not just a female-oriented thing."

She also said regular mammograms are extremely important, and patients with a family history of breast cancer should begin screenings several years before the age of 40, when most patients are scheduled for their first mammogram.

"Don't not have a screening because you don't have insurance," Enter said. "Don't ignore it."

For those without insurance, some grants can be provided for those who qualify to help offset the cost of breast cancer screenings. Best Chance Network, which is based in Columbia, is one such organization.

For more info about the Women's Breast Health and Imaging Center, visit aikenregional.com.

Kristina Rackley is a general assignment reporter with the Aiken Standard.

See original here:
New 3D mammogram technology crucial in early detection of breast cancer - Aiken Standard

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

It was a disastrous blow to ranchers both in loss of livestock, genetics and cattle they had been raising for generations, as well as a huge financial loss.

I was in the Black Hills speaking at an agricultural event with South Dakota ranching women attendees. My plan was to drive to my next speaking event in western North Dakota. But instead, I was stranded at a lodge, without electricity, with 30 or so female ranchers and women in agriculture (and a few husbands) plus a national tour group waiting to see Mount Rushmore.

Every early fall I think of the storm, a couple of days of no electricity, no heat other than the fireplace in the main lobby of the lodge and lodge staff preparing food for guests on the one gas stove in the lodge, using ingredients and meat from what was supposed to be prepared into a feast for a weekend outdoor wedding. Instead, it fed those of us stranded.

There were no generators or snow blowers and all roads and our vehicles were covered in 38 inches of snow. We had two shovels and worked together when the snow stopped. We flagged down a road crew to help.

The messy memories arent what I recall annually though.

Its the people who made the difference in Storm Atlas. The ranchers who sat around, unable to leave, but trying to get ahold of their families at home to check on their livestock.

The losses would be deep for these families I knew. You could expect them to be bitter at the circumstances they had no control over, and instead, they chose to be better.

As we sat in front of the fire at the lodge, the group of ranch and farm women planned outreach and fundraising to help those in agriculture who would need a hand up in the months to recover from Storm Atlas.

They didnt grab headlines but raised awareness and aid that positively impacted others in need. Ranching women chose to better together.

At the same time, I remember a tour group attendee demanding she get a ride to the airport and saying she was leaving South Dakota. The staff tried to explain there were no flights and absolutely no way to get her out of the closed highways of the Black Hills. The woman couldnt change her circumstances and bitterly expressed her frustration.

Here we are, in another set of devastating circumstances for many in agriculture in our region. Its not from one storm event but most likely the wettest early fall on record.

Water fills our farm fields and the anticipation for harvest fades for some as worry or anxiety sets in. Its been a limited growing season with numerous setbacks.

We cannot control the weather. We can care for one another. We can choose to support one another through communication and awareness, and create a path that gives others an outlet to show support. You do not have to be in a specific industry or be an expert in anything to support and encourage those struggling in a season of difficulty.

Communicate about the setbacks your region is faced with, not just grumbling over coffee with your family or the neighbors, but with your elected officials, online and offline.

Reach out to the media (thats us) with a unique experience or story your farm or community has never experienced before this season.

Check-in on your farming friends and neighbors. Help plan or volunteer at a community event. Youre not alone in difficult times. Choose to be better from a time that could make us bitter. There will be more storms, blizzards, droughts and then too much rain in our lives. We cannot control the rain, the sunshine or frost date.

We can be better through outreach to one another and communication to make sure agricultures story is shared with those nearby and far from our fields.

See the rest here:
The Pinke Post: When we could be bitter, choose to be better - The Daily Republic

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Two recent papers- The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia ( Vageesh Narasimhan et al) and An Ancient Harappan Genome lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers (Vasant Shinde et al) - have sparked different interpretations on what they reveal about the genetics of ancient Indians. The papers were authored by a team of geneticists from Harvard Medical School working with Indian scientists. They studied ancient DNA from sites in Europe, Central Asia and South Asia, including a sample from the Indus Valley Civilisation site of Rakhigarhi, before drawing their conclusions. One of which was the contested claim that descendants of pastoralists from Eurasian steppes migrated to the Indian subcontinent in the first half of the second millenium BCE, "almost certainly" bringing Indo-European languages. Their studies also claim the Steppe migrants eventually contributed 0-30% of the genes of groups living in India today. In an email interview, Harvard geneticist Prof David Reich breaks down the findings. Excerpts.

1) What are the big takeaways from the 2 recent studies you co-authored - Vasant Shinde et al 2019, and Narasimhan et al 2019?

1. At least some of the people of the ancient people of the Indus Valley Civilization were a mixture of south/southeast Asian-related hunter gatherers and Iranian-related hunter-gatherers. I say Iranian-related because their ancestors may actually have lived in South Asia rather than the Iranian plateau for many thousands of years before the time of the IVC. We just dont know yet where they lived because of lack of ancient DNA from the relevant times and places.

2. A population like the people we call the Indus Valley Cline - consisting of a Harappan individual from the site of Rakhigarhi, plus 11 individuals who were buried at the sites of Gonur in Turkmenistan and Shahr-i-Sokhta in Iran and as likely migrants from the Indus Valley Civilization is the primary source population of both North and South India.

3. Some time in the first half of the second millennium BCE, descendants of Steppe pastoralists entered South Asia from the north, eventually contributing 0-30% of the genes of groups living today (varying depending on the present-day group), and also almost certainly bringing Indo-European languages. There is no evidence that the actual people who brought these genes to South Asia were pastoralists by occupation - their ancestors were pastoralists.

2) What more can you tell us from your studies about this Steppe migration? Mostly male? Was it a significant number - so as to make such drastic changes in the gene pool of such a large area?

It is entirely plausible, and in my opinion even likely, that the movement of people bringing this ancestry to the Indian subcontinent was not sex-biased, and involved both males and females. However, the process by which people carrying this ancestry mixed with people with ancestry like the individual from Rakhigarhi, was a sex-biased one, whereby most of the Steppe ancestry to mixed population was contributed by males. Note that according to our paper, in the Swat Valley, Steppe ancestry mixes into South Asia in a sex-biased way but in the REVERSE pattern, that is, most of the Steppe ancestry is coming from females.

"In the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age individuals of the Swat Valley, we detect a significantly lower proportion of Steppe admixture on the Y chromosome (only 5% of the 44 Y chromosomes of the R1a-Z93 subtype that occurs at 100% frequency in the Central_Steppe_MLBA males) compared with ~20% on the autosomes (Z = 3.9 for a deficiencyfrom males under the simplifying assumption that all the Y chromosomes are unrelated to each other since admixture and thus are statistically independent), documenting how Steppe ancestry was incorporated into these groups largely through females (Fig. 4). However, sex bias varied in different parts of South Asia, as in present-day South Asians we observe a reverse pattern of excess Central_Steppe_MLBArelated ancestry on the Y chromosome compared with the autosomes (Z = 2.7 for an excess from males).

These differences could be explained by a non-sex-biased migration from Central Asia into South Asia of people carrying Steppe ancestry, followed (at some point later) by preferential incorporation of females from this population into the Swat Valley peoples, and preferential incorporation of males from this population into the ancestors of most present-day South Asians.

3) When did they reach the Indian subcontinent?

We know this rather precisely from our analysis: the first half of the second millennium BCE.

4) Was this the 'collision' that formed present day Indian populations?

This is one of at least four major collisions we now know about:

a. The mixture of Iranian-related ancestry and South/Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry that formed the Indus Valley Cline on average 7400-5700 years ago.

b. The mixture of people on the Indus Valley Cline with people from the southeast carrying relatively more South/Southeast Asian hunter-gatherer-related ancestry after the decline of the mature Indus Valley Civilization around 4000-3000 years ago

c. The mixture of people on the Indus Valley Cline with people from the north carrying Steppe ancestry after the decline of the mature Indus Valley Civilization around 4000-2000 years ago

d. The mixture of these two mixed populations (b and c)

There are surely more collisions yet to be discovered!

5) And what was the route to the Indian subcontinent? From the Yamnaya culture in Eastern Europe to the Central steppes (BMAC) and then to South Asia?

The exact routes are currently unknown. Almost certainly it started in far eastern Europe more than 5000 years ago (with the Yamnaya or their close relatives), then 4500-4000 years ago moved possibly west to east-central Europe (but this westward-before-eastward deviation is not certain), and then moved far to the east across the Urals to the central Steppe (Kazakhstan) and Central Asia (places like Turkmenistan) before moving into South Asia 4000-3500 years ago.

It is likely, based on our analysis, that the population that contributed genetic material to South Asia was (roughly) ~60% Yamnaya, ~30% European farmer-like ancestry, and ~10% Central Steppe hunter-gatherer ancestry.

6) What difference, according to your study, did it make to the Indus Valley Civilisation gene pool ?

This ancestry admixed with people like those we sequenced from the Indus Valley Civilization, eventually contributing 0-30% Steppe-derived ancestry to present-day populations.

7) Was it the contrast in the genetic profiles of later Indian (South Asian) people and that of the 2600 BC Rakhigarhi woman and the 11 other Indus Valley people (discovered at sites related to IVC) that helped you get this picture?

Yes. With these individuals, we for the first time found ancient people who could serve as a statistically fitting genetic source for the largest component of ancestry in South Asian (the Iranian-related ancestry)

8) Does your Rakhigarhi study 'An Ancient Harappan Genome lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers' in any way contrast the findings of your other ( Narasimhan et al) study 'The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia'.

The two studies are fully consistent. I am confident that there are no contradictions.

9) Digs at the Indus Valley site Rakhigarhi, from where the woman's skeletal remains were discovered show an archaeological continuity. No signs of destruction. Is it possible to have a shift in a population and even possibly a change in civilisation without a disruption in material culture? Have you see that happen elsewhere?

This is entirely possible. We discuss this explicitly in our paper by making an analogy to a major and slightly earlier cultural and genetic transformation in western Europe, where we know more accurately what happened because of a richer ancient DNA record

If the spread of people from the Steppe in this period was a conduit for the spread of South Asian Indo-European languages, then it is striking that there are so few material culture similarities between the Central Steppe and South Asia in the Middle to Late Bronze Age (i.e., after the middle of the second millennium BCE). Indeed, the material culture differences are so substantial that some archaeologists report no evidence of a connection. However, lack of material culture connections does not provide evidence against spread of genes, as has been demonstrated in the case of the Beaker Complex, which originated largely in western Europe but in Central Europe was associated with skeletons that harbored ~50% ancestry related to Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists (18). Thus, in Europe we have an unambiguous example of people with ancestry from the Steppe making profound demographic impacts on the regions into which they spread while adopting important aspects of local material culture. Our findings document a similar phenomenon in South Asia, with the locally acculturated population harboring up to ~20% Western_Steppe_EMBAderived ancestry according to our modeling (via the up to ~30% ancestry contributed by Central_Steppe_MLBA groups)

10) You've said that people who formed the population of the IVC is the single largest genetic contributor to people living in South Asia today? Can you elaborate?

The great majority of present-day South Asians are a mixture of two source populations that formed after the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization: the Ancestral South Indians (ASI) and the Ancestral North Indians (ANI). In our paper (Figure 4D), we show that the ASI and ANI both have high proportions of Indus Valley Cline ancestry (similar to that of the Rakhigarhi individual). Depending on the particular model used, this number could range from 30-60% for the ASI, and very roughly around 70% for the ANI. Since present-day South Asians are largely a mixture of ANI and ASI who in turn both have major proportions of Indus Valley Cline-type ancestry, this is the largest source of ancestry in present-day South Asians.

Go here to read the rest:
Steppe migration to India was between 3500-4000 years ago: David Reich - Economic Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

0

Mathew Knowles breast cancer: What are the symptoms, treatment for male breast cancer

Mathew Knowles, the father and former manager of singers Beyonc and Solange Knowles, revealed last week that he has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

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Knowles, a music executive, made the announcement during an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Around 2,670 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and 500 of them die from the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Knowles, 67, pointed out in the "GMA" interview that the key to a positive outcome with male breast cancer is, like other cancers, early detection and treatment.

He said he first realized something was wrong in July when he noticed a "dot" of blood on his shirt. He said he could not find out where the blood came from, but after a few days, he decided to check his breast and discovered some discharge from his nipple.

"So, I squeezed my nipple and sure enough, a little discharge came out, bloody discharge," Knowles told The New York Times. "I immediately called my doctor."

Knowles had a test done on the discharge, then a mammogram which revealed he had stage 1A breast cancer. He had a mastectomy just weeks after. During the mastectomy, Knowles also had three lymph nodes removed from under his arm to determine if the cancer had spread from the breast. It had not, Knowles was told.

Women are 10 times more likely to develop breast cancer than are men, but the rareness of the disease in men is a problem in early detection and treatment, according to the American Cancer Society.

"Finding breast cancer early improves the chances that male breast cancer can be treated successfully. However, because breast cancer is so uncommon in men, there is unlikely to be any benefit in screening men in the general population for breast cancer with mammograms or other tests," the ACS said.

Here is a look at the signs and symptoms of male breast cancer, treatment options and who is more likely to get the disease.

How common is male breast cancer?

It is uncommon for men to develop breast cancer. Male breast cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all cancer diagnoses. On average, 1 man in 833 will develop breast cancer over a lifetime.

What are the symptoms?

The symptoms of male breast cancer are similar to the symptoms of female breast cancer. They include:

What risk factors increase a man's chance of developing breast cancer?

The risk factors that increase a man's chance of developing breast cancer are:

Who is likely to get breast cancer?

While men can be diagnosed with breast cancer at any age, breast cancer is very rare in men under the age of 35. Most breast cancers in men are found when they are between the ages of 60 and 70. A lump in the breast area at any age needs to be evaluated by a physician.

Black men are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than are white men.

What happens when breast cancer is suspected?

Your doctor will ask you some questions about your medical and family history if you come to him or her with breast cancer symptoms. After that discussion and a breast examination, a combination of medical tests will likely be ordered.

Those tests include:

What is the treatment?

Treatment for breast cancer depends on the stage of the cancer or if the cancer has spread beyond the breast. Among treatment options are:

What is the prognosis?

The outcome of cancer treatment depends on many factors. If the cancer is detected early before it has had a chance to spread, the five-year survival rate is 100%. Almost half of all male breast cancers are diagnosed at this stage, according to cancer.net.

The five-year survival rate for men with stage II disease is 87%, for stage III disease is 75% and for stage IV disease, when the cancer is advanced and has spread to other parts of the body, 25%.

2019 Cox Media Group.

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Mathew Knowles breast cancer: What are the symptoms, treatment for male breast cancer - WSB Atlanta

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

As part of a series of pragmatic recommendations to tackle the difficult issue of surplus male production animals, four leading veterinary bodies say that high welfare UK veal and goat meat should be promoted to help replace the need for the slaughter of unwanted male calves and goats.

In a joint policy position, launched today (9 October 2019), the British Veterinary Association (BVA), British Cattle Veterinary Association (BCVA), Goat Veterinary Society (GVS) and the British Veterinary Poultry Association (BVPA) look at the issues associated with surplus male offspring in animals produced for dairy and eggs.

The position calls for solutions based on the overarching principle that quality of life should take precedence over lifespan, with the longer-term aim to move away from the production of unwanted animals all together. In the meantime, further research into solutions to reduce numbers of additional male offspring and to make sure that on-farm methods of killing surplus animals are humane, could be invaluable.

Current estimates suggest that around 95,000 calves, 30 million chicks and 3,000 Billy kids are affected per year. The dairy and egg industries have been advised to adopt a 3Rs (reduce, replace, refine) approach to the rearing and slaughter of animals which are surplus to the requirements of the specific industries. Reduction recommendations include selecting for sex (a technology used quite frequently within the dairy farming community) and increasing the length of time that an animal can produce milk through selective breeding. In the absence of these options, the position recommends raising male offspring for meat. Feeding into BVAs #chooseassured campaign, this recommendation comes with the caveat that calves and billy goat kids should be raised within UK high welfare schemes only.

In the absence of any reduce or replacement options, veterinary experts advise that killing should be undertaken in the most humane way and that all the animals welfare needs must be addressed prior to slaughter.

In line with BVAs sustainable animal agriculture position, this policy recommends that when animals are killed, every effort should be made to make sure that the carcass is used. For example, the carcasses of male chicks killed by controlled atmospheric stunning can be used in animal feed, such as for reptiles and birds of prey.

Commenting on the new position, BVA Junior Vice President, James Russell said:

Unwanted male production animals in the dairy and meat industries are an ethical challenge on a number of levels. Firstly, for the producer who may have animals with little or no commercial value. Secondly, for the consumer who may find the notion of these unused animals a difficulty. Our new joint position is based around the principle of a life worth living and looks at ways that the veterinary profession can work with the farming community to reduce the numbers of animals that this affects and ensure that high welfare is always front and centre.

If slaughter of affected animals is undertaken humanely, it is not a welfare harm per se, but greater measures should be taken to make sure that these decisions are made with minimal carcass wastage and an eye to the economic, emotional and environmental impact at a farm level.

With greater public understanding of ethical and animal welfare issues faced by the industry, the promotion of farm assurance schemes and further research into alternative breeding options such asselective sex technology, we hope to reduce these numbers and improve the welfare of the animals involved.

BCVA President, Professor David Barrett said,

The number of unwanted male dairy calves has fallen substantially in recent years, due in part to more efficient milk production meaning we now need fewer dairy cows to produce the same volume of milk, as well as the use of breeding technologies that mean we can select for female calves. Nevertheless, surplus males are still produced. Provided these calves welfare is protected they should become part of the meat production supply chain either as high-quality UK farm assured veal or beef.

As we strive for improved sustainability and increase efficient use of resource in food production, we need to use every product from dairying, including calves that can be reared for meat. Our entire industry needs to work together to create a robust supply chains for high quality, farm assured British dairy beef and veal and we need to help consumers understand they should embrace these products. They are very different from intensively reared veal of the type produced in systems previously banned in the UK.

GVS President, Nick Perkins said,

Commercial dairy goat producers have made considerable strides in recent years to address the problem of surplus male production which can be particularly acute in the industry as most dairy goats are naturally prolific breeders.

The GVS applauds the progress already made but also commends the sector to pursue the principles of reduce, replace and refine further, through improved breeding techniques with genetic selection, and developing new markets for high health and welfare goat meat (a naturally lean red meat), while always ensuring any necessary humane destruction is done diligently and correctly to prevent avoidable suffering.

BVPA Junior Vice President, Richard Jackson said,

The BVPA is committed to ensuring that animal welfare is at the heart of all that we do. We continue to work with poultry keepers, commercial and research organisations and government to ensure high standards of flock health and welfare are maintained and developed, including on the issue of surplus male production animals.

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Vets put high welfare veal back on the table to help reduce surplus male production animals - PoliticsHome.com

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Scientists now know that genetics, although important, are not everything and what people are exposed to in the environment matters a great deal for predicting disease risks and overall health. There is reason to believe its especially vital for pregnant women and babies, so much so that its driving a new emerging field of study known as exposome research,or the investigation of human exposures as they relate to health. New data indicates that children may be at risk for everything from early puberty, male infertility, high blood pressure, certain cancers, autoimmune diseases, and even autism, depending on what they come into contact with in the womb.

There is probably a genetic component to autism, but its pretty clear that autism happens somewhere during fetal development at some critical time, says Dr. Michael Snyder, a medical doctor and geneticist. Understanding what the pregnant mom is exposed to and how that might lead to autism is a big deal and the answer is not really known. A lot of stuff is happening and its really important to know what moms are being exposed to. Prenatal exposures are very under-studied and very important to study.

The good news is that recent advances have made studying environmental exposures more possible than ever before. The challenge is, they have a lot of work to catch up on.Snyder, who also teaches and runs the Snyder Lab at Stanford University, is currently working with his colleagues to catalog as many relevant chemical and biological compounds in order to figure out exactly what it means for parents and their developing children. Here, he sharedwhat we know about how the environment, how it can hurt babies, and how much more there is left to be learned.

Its probably safe to say the field of exposome research is not well understood by the general public. What can you tell me about how this research works and how the data is developing?

Exposures can fall into different types. There are biological exposures, like allergens and things like that, and there are chemical exposures, called particulates. Were just starting to classify them, but we havent broken down the composition so much. Whats special about our work is that were trying to understand it in more detail what were exposed to, and on an individual level. Most research before would just put a device in a neighborhood to see the exposures as a whole, but what were doing is trying to tell the difference between my exposure and yours.

Do you have any examples?

How did you receive the flu shot?

Needle

Nasal Spray

Jet Spray

Thanks for the feedback!

One of the most obvious examples of this is smoking. We tell pregnant women not to smoke because of the clear chemical carcinogens that are going to be dangerous to the fetus. Clearly, most pregnant women dont smoke but theyre obviously exposed to lots of other things and I dont think we know what all those things are.

And youre seeing growing public interest in this research. Why?

People are realizing that autism is on the rise and its not just a matter of increased diagnosis anymore. Its reasonable to think that environmental exposures might contribute to that.People are starting to care about chemical exposure in the environment now because were learning it affects their kids, but also they are making the connections between things like polluted rivers and cancer. Data on people getting cancer living near toxic dumps is really quite clear. That awareness helps.

What else are you finding in the research that parents should know about.

What we and others are finding is that plastics are everywhere, certain carcinogens are everywhere, VEET which is found in bug sprays is everywhere. Having said that, their concentrations range from one place to another. Weve been able to show that location is probably the number one factor, but seasons are also a factor, especially when it comes to biological exposures, but to some extent chemicals as well.

Your exposure is pretty dynamic, meaning when you go from one place to the next there are very different exposures, some are chemical, some are more fungal. Some areas are loaded with more pesticides than others. If we can understand this better, we can reduce some of the exposures in bad areas.

What about plastics? Is the growing concern about the impact of plastics on our health warranted?

Most of us grew up during a time when plastic was everywhere and just assumed to be inert, meaning it didnt move. But clearly there is stuff that leaks out of plastics, and its only been realized more recently that that stuff is getting into what we eat. That is a recent phenomenon compared to even a few years ago because now we can measure it. From our work, it was very eye-opening to see that plastics were in nearly every sample we looked at. I certainly didnt expect that and it does raise concerns.

People hypothesize, but dont conclusively know, that girls are going through puberty earlier. Its been suggested that a lot of the stuff out there looks like estrogen related compounds that could be influencing that. A lot of these things are very similar to plastics.

What scientific advances have made it more possible to measure exposures?

Advances in DNA and RNA sequencing have helped us better identify the biological compounds its getting cheaper and easier to do that. After wearing a device for two years, I was exposed to over 2,000 different strains and we can pick that up and quantify all that now. Same goes for chemical compounds. Mass optometry is getting more and more sensitive and our ability to detect and identify these chemicals has gone up. Those technologies have been very powerful in finding whos been exposed to what.

Exposome research is getting a lot more attention in Europe and international communities. Why is the U.S. seemingly falling behind?

The European Union is rolling out a big initiative of environmental exposures. Theyre just awarding grants now, but we havent seen, anything like that in the United States. China is very concerned about it as well. I think part of it is just how funding has gone for this. Most of the funding in the U.S. comes from the NIEHS, The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and thats a very small institute compared to the overall National Institutes of Health. Most of the funding for biomedical research comes from NIH, but it doesnt fund environment research, because that is funded by NIEHS, and that is much smaller. Its just the way the funding is set up in the U.S.

So how long will it take for the research to catch up with the environment? How many years off are we from knowing how exposures affect people, especially developing babies?

In fairness were still just cataloging this and our work is incomplete. Step one is to identify all these things and then step two is that were doing most of these studies with mice, which is helpful, but we need to start doing them with humans and were still a few years away.

Estimating an exact number of years is tricky because that can change, but I do think it will take a long time, at least several years, to get everything cataloged. Then to test their effects is going to take many more years, so it will take some time. Maybe a decade, but there will certainly be things we learn between now and the next ten years. There will just more to learn after ten years. If we knew the answers, it wouldnt be science. Regionally, most of this will take 10 years or more, but I sure hope we can catalog everything in the next few years, and then once you know what youre exposed to, you can determine its effects.

Based on what we currently know what are the safest places and seasons for pregnant women?

We dont know much about seasons. Where we live in the Bay Area, we know that pine and eucalyptus peak in the late spring, early summer. So people with severe allergies may have a problem. But we know that there are other fungi that come in the fall, and if youre allergic to that, it wont be a good time for you. People in the northeast may avoid some of this in colder temperatures in the winter because they stay inside. Then there was a time when we heated homes with kerosene, and that wasnt good for our health either. But we dont know what this means for pregnancy.

Assuming its the same for fetuses everywhere, living near highways in cities, there are clearly a lot more particulates in the air, and that is generally perceived as bad. Toxic dump sites are not good either, and anywhere there is excessive amounts of pollution would be a place to avoid. But the reality is that most people dont have a choice where they live. They cant go buy a new house somewhere and theyre stuck where theyre stuck.

Its very nuanced and I dont think we know the effects all of these exposures have on peoples health. For all we know there is a major health hazard going around and no one is doing anything about it. It is all very concerning to me.

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Want to Know About Your Baby and Fetus Health? Know Your Exposome - Fatherly

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There are any number of ways to quantify the astonishing things that Jos Altuve has wrought as a 66-inch-tall ballplayer wielding a 33-inch-long bat.

Statisticians can testify that Altuve has hit 11 postseason home runs a record for Major League Baseball second baseman including three in the just-completed American League Division Series.

High-speed cameras can document that Altuves Thursday night home run, the final blow in the Astros 6-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays that wrapped up the hard-fought, best-of-five series, traveled 405 feet and left his bat at 103.6 mph with a launch angle of 26 degrees.

Biomechanics analysts can postulate that Altuves success derives from a relatively high strength to body mass ratio, fast-twitch muscular interaction and exceptional ability to translate energy through adjacent body parts.

But it takes the words of a witness such as Justin Verlander, armed only with his two good eyes and an appreciation of the skills required to play big-league baseball, to provide an adequate summary of what these elements represent to anyone playing with or against Altuve.

The stamp of an incredible ballplayer is when you know immediately, after playing with them a week or two, how special they are, Verlander said before the Astros open the American League Championship Series against the Yankees on Saturday at Minute Maid Park.

Altuve beats you in every facet of the game, he added. He beats you with his legs. He beats you with his arm. He beats you with his contact. He can hit the long ball. He has range at second base that is unbelievable. He does everything extremely well, and when you put it all together and add in that clutch gene that he has, it makes Jos Altuve.

Astros fans have marveled at Altuve for a decade, through his arrival in 2011 with teams that lost at least 100 games three years in a row through the ballclubs rebuild with three straight 100-win seasons, the 2017 World Series title and Altuves selection with Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt as Sports Illustrateds 2017 Sportspersons of the Year.

However, his recent power surge, with a career-high 31 home runs in MLBs year of the long ball, plus three more in the Division Series, has focused new attention on the astonishing things that Altuve can perpetrate upon an incoming baseball.

Truth be told, those who study baseball, strength training and biomechanics say that Altuve, with 11 homers in 165 postseason plate appearances, succeeds because of the same elements that powered Babe Ruth, who at 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 215 pounds had 15 homers in 167 World Series plate appearances.

Its our expectations, they say, that are befuddled by Altuves excellence.

He has signals that go to his brain to his arms quicker than other people, and he can react to them, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said. He sees things like no one else sees things. It involves eyes, the way people are wired and their physical abilities.

Hes one of the elite athletes of the world. I dont think we can explain why Michael Jordan did what he did or what LeBron James does or what any elite athlete does. They just have the ability to do it.

Altuves relatively small size has long been the subject of some humor. Witness the website howmanyaltuves.com, where users can calculate distances in units paired to Altuves height (which the website says is 5 feet, 5 inches); 100 yards, for example, is 55.38 Altuves.

Height, however, is not a liability in baseball to the degree that it is in other team sports. Wee Willie Keeler, Rabbit Maranville, Phil Rizzuto, Joe Sewell and Hack Wilson all were selected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame despite standing 5-foot-6 or shorter, and Wilson in 1930 hit 56 home runs with an MLB record 191 RBIs.

Dr. Glenn Fleisig, research director for the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., said one of baseballs singular virtues is that players of any stature can excel given certain other attributes.

Biomechanics is a fancy word for technique, which is the proper sequence of different motions. When do you rotate your hips? How much do you rotate them? When do you twist your trunk? When do you extend your elbow? he said. The guys who succeed can consistently fire body parts at the right time with the right amount of flexibility and power.

You have to have the right combination. Its not genetics, its not conditioning, its not training. Its everything. You have to have all three. You cant have just two. And proper mechanics is the same for the big guys and the little guys.

Matthew Mahar, director of the School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences at San Diego State University, said Wilson may be the Hall of Famer who most resembles Altuve in terms of body composition.

My visual analysis suggests that they both used relatively large bats and were able to generate great bat speed, which would lead to the force needed to hit the long ball, Mahar said. They both appear to use enormously strong lower bodies to generate bat speed.

Duane Knudson, a professor at Texas State University in San Marcos who is president of the International Society of Biomechanics in Sports, said certain physical forces favor a player of Altuves size.

The larger person has more body mass to fling around to swing a bat, Knudson said. Think about Arnold Schwarzenegger having to twist his trunk to hit a baseball. Now think about Simone Biles and the amount of strength that she has relative to her body mass.

Strength researchers talk about relative strength. I would imagine that Jos Altuve has a very high strength to body mass ratio, and hes able to make the most of his stature.

Astros shortstop Carlos Correa may lack up-to-date knowledge of biometric analysis, but, like Verlander, he knows what he sees when it comes to Altuves relative strength.

Pound for pound, he is the strongest guy in the clubhouse. He is a strong human being, Correa said. Hes fast. His legs are strong. He can squat more than anybody in the weight room. He can do maybe 20 pullups in a row, and nobody else can do that in here.

His power is insane, and he can transfer it to the ball. Call it what you want, but the man is good.

In 2011, when Altuve made his Astros debut, a story on the website FanGraphs.com said that based on his height and the attributes he displayed during his early career, he most resembled those of Bip Roberts, who at 5-foot-7 played 12 years in the big leagues and was a career .294 hitter with 30 home runs and an on-base percentage of .358 with 264 stolen bases and an on-base plus slugging percentage of .737.

Through nine seasons, however, Altuve has 128 homers with a .315 batting average, 254 steals, a .364 on-base percentage and an OPS of .827.

In other words, hes trending less toward Bip Roberts and more toward Joe Morgan, who began his career in Houston and made the Hall of Fame despite a modest 5-foot-7 stature.

Morgan said during a recent trip to Houston that he believes Altuve is the best player in the game.

I love Altuve. What is there not to love? Morgan said. He hits as many home runs as the guys theyre saying are better than him, he drives in runs, he scores runs. He can do anything, and what makes him special is that hes shorter than me.

To say that he has exceeded expectations, said his former minor league manager Rodney Linares, now a coach with the Rays, is a modest assessment.

I never thought he would hit more than 15 or 20 homers a year, Linares said. He deserves a lot of credit. He works more than anybody. He has the short limbs and quick hands, and if he can get to a ball, he can do something with it.

Altuve acknowledges that he has changed his game over the last few years to emphasize power.

Now, Im just looking to drive the ball, Altuve said earlier this year. Using that little adjustment has impacted my game big-time.

Still, the subject of homers makes him cringe.

I dont like talking about homers, he said earlier this week. Yes, I ended up with a lot of homers, and it makes me happy because youre helping your team.

I think as you get older you become, maybe, a little bit smarter. You know what theyve been doing to you the last couple of years. You know what youve got to go to look for. Last year theyve thrown me a certain pitch, and I was taking it. Now, I start swinging, so I think thats why maybe Im hitting some homers.

Biometrics has made more advances in the art of pitching than hitting, since the pitcher initiates the action and therefore has fewer variables to deal with than the batter receiving the pitch. The sum of a player such as Altuve, however, clearly is greater than the parts.

A body is a linked mechanical system, said Knudson, the Texas State professor. We transfer energy between body segments, and some of that force is hard to track because force is three-dimensional. If you apply it in the wrong direction, it can be counterproductive.

Hitting a baseball may be one of the most difficult things to do in sports. Its a complex, three-dimensional movement. Trying to understand it may be one of the most important questions in biomechanics. But the science is accelerating, and eventually well get there.

david.barron@chron.com

twitter.com/dfbarron

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Jose Altuves hitting is art, but its science, too - Houston Chronicle

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the first ever "Community Health Heroes" were announced by Life Extension and Reader's Digest. "Community Health Heroes" is a companion program to Reader's Digest's search for 2019's "Nicest Places in America." The three organizations and individuals chosen this year exemplify what it means to live a healthy life and give back to those in their community. This year's "Community Health Heroes" honorees are Camp Sweeney in Gainesville, Texas, People's Health Clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah and Mariano "Nano" Corona from Okeechobee, Fla.

"We are thrilled to be able to announce our three 'Community Health Heroes' honorees," said Dr. Michael Smith, Life Extension education director. "Each one of these organizations and individuals highlight the best in our country and our local communities. In addition, each honoree exemplifies Life Extension's core values of providing a human connection in all that we do and our passion for excellence."

The 10 finalists for "Community Health Heroes" were selected from the more than 1,000 submissions received this year for Reader's Digest "Nicest Places in America" program. Of those, the three that had the most powerful health impact on the most people were selected as the "Community Health Heroes" honorees. "Community Health Heroes" also features an online hub of custom content filled with inspiring true stories and advice about people living healthier and happier lives, part of Life Extension's sponsorship of "Nicest Places in America."

As a health organization, Life Extension knows first-hand how customers' personal lives have improved through the knowledge and services provided by Life Extension. These three stories of people helping others in need resonated deeply with the judges.

Camp Sweeney is a camp for children with diabetes in Gainesville, Texas. Camp Sweeney opened in 1950 and since then has helped 30,000 children from over 10 different countries and 40 states to make diabetes education a top priority. What began as a camp for children with type 1 diabetes has become the largest camp of its type in the world making it a dream destination for children with the condition.

The People's Health Clinic in Salt Lake City, Utah, was created in 1999 when a Catholic priest, a physician and a local businessman decided to hold a health fair out of a rented van in a parking lot. More than 700 people showed up and it was then they knew something more must be done for the underinsured of their community. Today, the clinic provides primary care, pediatrics, women's health services (free pap smears and mammograms included), prenatal care, chronic illness treatment and even vision, dental and mental health services, all for free.

The final "Community Health Heroes" honoree is Mariano "Nano" Corona of Okeechobee, Fla. Nano Corona is the founder of the "Ride for the Fight," a fundraising effort to make certain that no local family facing a cancer diagnosis has financial needs that go unmet. "Ride for the Fight" is a rodeo competition in which the proceeds pay for anything someone with cancer might need: groceries, copays for medication, gas money to get to chemotherapy treatments, or school clothes for the children whose parents are sick. Corona was inspired to create "Ride for the Fight" after he had a brush with cancer himself in 2010.

In addition to announcing the "Community Health Heroes," Reader's Digest today named Columbiana, Ohio, as the 2019 "Nicest Place in America". This year's nationwide search received more than 1,000 submissions of stories of places across America where people are kind and civility is winning. From these submissions, Reader's Digest editors and a panel of judges selected the 50 "Nicest Places in America"one for each state. After a nationwide vote, Reader's Digest editors and the panel of judges selected Columbiana, Ohio, as the "Nicest Place in America."

If you would like to learn more about the inspiring stories of each "Community Health Heroes" honoree visit https:/www.rd.com/communityhealthheroes.

About Life ExtensionFort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Life Extension is the health solutions expert that is translating scientific research into everyday insights for people wanting to live their healthiest lives. For nearly 40 years, Life Extension has pursued innovative advances in health, conducting rigorous clinical trials and setting some of the most demanding standards in the industry to offer a full range of quality nutritional vitamins and supplements and blood-testing services. Life Extension's Wellness Specialists provide personalized counsel to help customers choose the right products for optimal health, nutrition and personal care. To learn more, visit LifeExtension.com.

AboutReader's DigestReader's Digest, a Trusted Media Brands, Inc. brand, simplifies and enriches consumers' lives by discovering and expertly selecting the most interesting ideas, stories, experiences and products in health, home, family, food, finance and humor. Reader's Digest is available online at RD.com; in print; via digital download on iPad, mobile apps and tablets; and can be accessed via its social media channels:Facebook,Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.

About Trusted Media Brands, Inc.Trusted Media Brands, Inc. comprises a network of engaged, active readers who genuinely connect with its blend of uplifting and enduring expertly-curated family, food, health, home improvement, finance and humor content digitally, via magazines and books, social media, and events and experiences. Founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace as Reader's Digest Association, one of the first user-generated content publishers, Trusted Media Brands, is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit TMBI.com.

SOURCE Life Extension

http://www.lifeextension.com

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Life Extension and Reader's Digest Unveil the First-Ever "Community Health Heroes" Honorees - PRNewswire

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Key point: The Next-Generation Air Dominance program has moved to the prototype stage.

The Navy is currently analyzing air frames, targeting systems, AI-enabled sensors, new weapons and engine technologies to engineer a new 6th-Generation fighter to fly alongside the F-35 and ultimately replace the F/A-18.

The Navy program, called Next-Generation Air Dominance, has moved beyond a purely conceptual phase and begun the exploration of prototype systems and airframes as it pursues a new, carrier-launched 6th-Gen fighter to emerge in 2030 and beyond, service officials explained.

Some important areas of consideration include derivative and developmental air vehicle designs, advanced engines, propulsion, weapons, mission systems, electronic warfare and other emerging technologies, Navy spokeswoman Lt. Lauren Chatmas told Warrior earlier this year.

A formal Analysis of Alternatives, expected to complete this year, is weighing the advantages of leveraging nearer-term existing technologies such as new variants or upgrades to cutting edge weapons, sensors and stealth configurations - or allowing more time for leap-ahead developmental systems to emerge.

The current analysis follows a now-completed Initial Capabilities Document detailing some of the sought-after requirements for the new aircraft, or family of aircraft, Chatmas explained.

Anticipated decisions about a 6th-Gen fighter balance themselves upon the as-of-yet unknown maturity of various promising new weapons and technologies nearing a threshold of operational possibility.

For instance, some now-in-development next-gen stealth technologies, including new radar-evading configurations, coating materials and advanced thermal-signature reduction are fast-approaching levels of combat readiness. Yet, absent a clear timeframe when, for example, new stealth or AI enabled sensors can ensure overmatch for decades to come, Navy developers are thinking it may make sense to push the current art-of-the-possible to the maximum extent. (To Read Warrior Maven's Report on Air Force 6th-Gen Prototyping - CLICK HERE)

This challenge, explored by a Naval Postgraduate School essay called The 6th-Generation Quandry, poses the question as to whether it might be equally if not more effective to postpone formal 6th-generation development until truly breakthrough advances emerge, while pursuing advanced variants of current, yet upgradable platforms in the interim.

The 2016 paper, from the Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program, cites a handful of current systems showing significant long-term promise. The paper sites new models of the F-35 optimized for air combat, the emerging B-21, drone-launching C-130 mother ships and weapons truck arsenal planes are positioned to optimize current technological progress.

These systems, including a B-52-like arsenal plane, unmanned fighter jets, AI-empowered sensors and new weapons with unprecedented range are designed to accommodate new iterations of AI, processing speeds, software upgrades and other incremental improvements.

According to this logic, there simply might not be enough of a margin of difference in performance between the best upgraded platforms of today - and something entirely new which could be built in the next 10 years or so.

Could these upgradable systems, fortified by new-iterations of stealth technology now being woven into the B-21, themselves be sufficient to propel naval aviation superiority for decades? This would alleviate the risk and expense of pursuing something truly breakthrough in the near term, potentially freeing up funding and resources to explore paradigm-changing air-fighter technologies for the long term.

Furthermore, current sensors, avionics and weapons systems are increasingly AI-reliant, a circumstance which makes it easier to greatly improve performance by integrating new algorithms, analytics or processing speed. In effect, all of this raises the question as to whether an entirely new airframe is truly needed to achieve overmatch in coming decades? By 2030?

These questions seem to be informing the current Navy rationale, which is to look at both new airframes as well as adaptations of the best of whats available. The latter option brings its own advantages, because various industry developers are already building prototypes of 6th-Gen fighters with newly designed, stealthier airframes. Looking at applications of AI, miniaturized long-range sensors, targeting technology and drones operating with ever-increasing levels of autonomy - some contend that perhaps some of the most essential ingredients of long-term transformational technologies are, in effect, already here. This would be the basis upon which a nearer-term aircraft, drawing from some off-the-shelf-items, would be pursued.

Some of these decisions are also expected to be impacted by the success with which the Navy is able to keep extending the combat service life of the F/A-18. The Navys F/A-18 Service Life Extension Program has already extended the aircrafts initial plans to fly 6,000 flight hours to 8,000 hours through a series of upgrades. Now, looking at the airframes and the state of cutting-edge avionics, the service is hoping to push its fleet of F/A-18s to 10,000 hours.

Navy officials tell Warrior these upgrades are significant and, in many cases, can bring the F/A-18 combat performance well into the future. Some of the adjustments start with the airframes themselves; Service Life Assessment Programs look to possibly replace the center barrel of the airframe and analyze the fatigue of the Nacelle (engine coating or skin), service officials say.

The F/A-18 upgrades also add new navigation technology, digital memory devices, mission computers, helmet-mounted cueing systems, Electronically Scanned Array Radar and an advanced targeting sensor called Infrared Search and Track, As a passive sensor, IRST enables better targeting while not emitting a signal, making it vulnerable to enemy electronic warfare attacks.

All Paths Point to 6th-Gen AI

There is widespread consensus that applications of AI appear to provide the framework for the most defining expected technological progress. In fact, a 2017 paper from a 16-nation NATO conglomerate of analysts, called the Joint Air Power Competence Center, raises questions about when, and how, AI may outpace the human ability to keep up. The essay, titled Air Warfare Communication in a Networked Environment, quotes Air Force Acquisition Executive William Roper from his previous role directing the Pentagons Strategic Capabilities Office, saying AI is progressing beyond the human ability to interface with it.

For instance, smart sensors able to gather, analyze and organize vast volumes of combat information in milliseconds, using AI-fortified algorithms, are now being built into airframes themselves to combine new sensing technology without increasing an aircrafts radar signature. The absence of an external antenna, pod or structured array of some kind removes otherwise more radar-detectable structures from an airframe.

Smart sensors and smart antenna arrays with adaptive properties would be embedded into the structure of an aircraft, an essay from Jain Universitys International Institute for Aerospace Engineering states. ( Sensor Technology and Futuristic Of Fighter Aircraft, Jain Univ).

At the same time, while massive increases in sensor ranges, data-sharing and long-range connectivity will continue to bring as-of-yet unprecedented advantages to warfare operations, there are also challenges which emerge as combat becomes more networked. Referring to this phenomenon as creating clusters of embedded ISR, the Joint Air Power Competence Center paper warns of security risks and what it calls hyper-connectivity.

New much-longer range sensors and weapons, incorporating emerging iterations of AI, are expected to make warfare more disaggregated, and much less of a linear force on force type of engagement. Such a phenomenon, driven by new technology, underscores warfare reliance upon sensors and information networks. All of this, naturally, requires the expansive "embedded ISR" discussed by the paper. Network reliant warfare is of course potentially much more effective in improving targeting and reducing sensor-to-shooter time over long distances, yet it brings a significant need to organize and optimize the vast, yet crucial, flow of information.

Not everybody in the network needs to see and hear everything. There needs to be a hierarchy, and a backup architecture for degraded network operations, the paper writes.

These types of challenges, wherein vast amounts of ISR data needs to be aggregated, analyzed and organized, are precisely what AI and high-speed processing can address. Using advanced algorithms and real-time analytics, computing power can instantly identify and disseminate key moments or items of combat relevance, thereby establishing priorities and massively quickening the human decision cycle.

AI-informed combat decisions, enabled by accelerated real-time analytics, allow human decision makers to draw upon otherwise inaccessible pools of data. Algorithms can integrate new information, instantly compare it against vast amounts of stored data, and come to informed conclusions without requiring human intervention. Often referred to as easing the "cognitive burden," AI and iterations of man-machine interface, can perform time-consuming or otherwise impossible information-analysis tasks, all while a human functions as ultimate decision-maker in a command and control role. While AI is quickly advancing toward being able to discern and organize seemingly subjective information, there are many decision-making abilities and problem solving faculties regarded as unique to human cognition.

Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army - Acquisition, Logistics& Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at National TV networks. He has a Masters in Comparative Literature from Columbia University. This first appeared earlier in the year.

Image: Reuters.

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Will The Navy's 6th Generation Fighter Jet Be The End Of the U.S. F-35 and F-22? - The National Interest Online

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

One of Chaskas most noticeable landmarks has had the wind knocked out of it.

A turbine, located near Pioneer Ridge Middle School and just off of Highway 212, has been shut down and bladeless since Sept. 10 for refurbishment, according to a Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (MMPA) official. The repair of the blades is part of a refurbishment and life extension project.

It is scheduled to be fixed over the next couple months and will regain its gusto in November, according to City Administrator Matt Podhradsky.

The turbine is connected to Chaskas local distribution system and produces up to 160 kilowatts of energy per hour from the wind.

The agency owns and maintains it, and each city has their own turbine that exists within their city, Podhradsky said. There are 11 other cities in the MMPA.

Last year, the agency started providing energy to Elk River, which is the only city that still needs a wind turbine built, Podhradsky added.

The turbine in Chaska has been in operation for almost a decade and now needs to be refurbished as part of its maintenance cycle, according to an email from Krystal Knutson, a senior associate at MMPA. The project includes replacing the hydraulic hoses and pumps, replacement of all control systems, and cleaning and painting of the turbine tower.

The 10 other turbines in the other member cities are also down for routine maintenance, according to Podhradsky.

Turbines have a six-month maintenance schedule and the one in Chaska works during the winter. However, it is turned off occasionally because of ice buildup or if it is below approximately -4 degrees, according to Knutson.

The wind turbine was built near Pioneer Ridge so students could learn about wind power. It is located near a trail for residents to check it out. An informational sign explains how wind is converted to energy.

Additionally, MMPA (Chaskas wholesale electric provider) sponsors an energy education program that buses fourth-graders from member communities to MMPAs Faribault Energy Park power plant every May. At the plant, students rotate through three stations that provide educational information about energy efficiency, renewable energy (including visiting an on-site wind turbine), and power generation and distribution, according to Knutsons email. Students from both Clover Ridge Elementary and St. Johns School in Chaska participated in the program this year.

The maintenance cost of the turbine is covered by MMPA, according to Knutson. When asked what the price of the maintenance would be, Knutson wrote in an email, MMPA does not want to provide to this information.

The cost would not be directly billed back to the city, Podhradsky said, adding that it is supported by rates paid by residents in the member communities.

MMPA also has 24 turbines in Blooming Prairie and 39 in Sauk Centre.

The 80-foot turbine was one of 11 shipped to Minnesota from California, for $300,000 each in 2009.

In 2009, parts for the wind turbine were delivered to Chaska and after delays from the cold winter, it was up and operational the next year.

Initially, energy from the wind turbine was spotty. The turbine had to be repaired three times in 2010. Once because it was creating loud noises, and again almost four months later after a malfunctioning brake at the Faribault site triggered the shutdown of all MMPA turbines.

Last year, MMPA installed solar panels near Clover Ridge Elementary as part of its Hometown Solar Energy program.

The idea was to put the panels near a school so teachers could tie it back to their science curriculum, Podhradsky said.

The purpose of the grant program is to provide an educational asset to our member communities and to help teach local youth first-hand how sunlight is converted into electricity, as well as the unique characteristics of solar power, according to MMPAs website.

Currently, 11 of the 12 member communities have solar panel installations.

MMPA is mandated to have a quarter of its electric utilities supported by renewable energy by 2025. Currently, the agency is on track at about 21-22%, Podhradsky said.

More here:
No spin here: Wind turbine going through refurbishment - SW News Media

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

Sorry, we cant help you, said the Apple store Genius. My AirPods were dying. After just 15 minutes of use, the wireless headphones I use daily chirp a sad little battery-depleted alert. I came to Apple to get them repaired.

The employee said there were lots of people like me, with $159 AirPods purchased in 2016 and 2017 that now cant hold a charge. But even though Apple promises battery service, the store had no way to fix my AirPods. It didnt even have a way to test them.

Cupertino, we have a problem: AirPods are comfortable and convenient headphones that have attracted tens of millions of customers. But each one of those white sticks contains a rechargeable battery marching toward an untimely death in as little as two years. Apples plan to deal with that reality is just to sell us new ear buds. When your AirPods day comes, the only option is to ask Apple for discounted replacements but youll need to know its code word to even get that.

Not long ago, headphones were among the most universal, long-lasting electronics. We shouldnt let Apple turn them into expensive, disposable electronics. Its hurting our wallets and the environment.

Apple doesnt dispute that the lithium-ion batteries inside AirPods wear out. All rechargeable batteries have a limited life span and may eventually need to be serviced or recycled, Apple says on its website. Replacing batteries is very common on phones and laptops. In 2018, Apple stores got deluged when the company offered to replace the batteries in older iPhones for $29.

But with AirPods, Apple offers far less help. First, theres no way to determine the health of the batteries in the ear buds or their charging case. Apple wont even share guidelines on their life expectancy. AirPods are built to be long-lasting, said Apple spokeswoman Lori Lodes, without specifics. Mine went for 34 months; others have reported they die as soon as 18 months.

When your AirPod batteries finally go, even Apples employees are confused about your options. Across three separate support encounters in the store and online, they told me I had to buy a replacement pair for $138, nearly the price of a whole new set. But I remembered Apple had once told me it would service depleted batteries for $49. I reported that, along with my recommendation to buy AirPods. So what gives?

After weeks of back-and-forth with Apple and refusing to take no for an answer at the store I finally got answers:

If your AirPods are less than a year old and the battery is not performing up to the promised five hours of listening time, an Apple store will replace them at no cost.

Apple recently began selling its AppleCare+ warranty for $29, which covers the battery, too. But this extended warranty lasts only two years which wouldnt have been long enough to save my AirPods.

If your AirPods are out of warranty, Apple will replace them for $49 per stick so in reality, $98 total. A replacement for the charging case, which doesnt wear out as quickly, is also $49. The key phrase to say is battery service. (Apple is providing additional training to customer service representatives on that point, but if you still have trouble, show them this link or this column.)

A $98 battery fix is still mighty expensive. Apple will replace the battery on an iPhone for as little as $49. An Apple Watch battery costs just $79. What makes AirPods so different? Because Apples battery service for AirPods is code for throwing it away. Apple isnt repairing AirPods its just replacing the ear buds and recycling your old ones.

To understand why, I performed an autopsy on a dearly departed pair. Inside, I found the design of AirPods makes them inevitably obsolete.

What could be so hard about replacing the battery in an AirPod? I dont ordinarily go CSI on gadgets, so I sought advice from some folks who do.

Kyle Wiens, the CEO of repair website iFixit, offers instructions on how to disassemble electronics and sells replacement parts. The first time Wiens tried to get inside an AirPod, he cut himself and bled all over it. Another time, the battery combusted in a poof of smoke on his team.

AirPods were never meant to be opened, Wiens warned me.

But I wanted to see for myself. With Wiens watching, I began the operation with the silver cap at the end of the AirPod stick. You might think it unscrews to let you get inside. No such luck. Its glued in there, and I couldnt yank it out even after carefully heating the AirPod to loosen the glue. That meant I had to cut in and to save my fingers, Wiens loaned me a special vibrating knife that slices plastic.

Inside the AirPod, I found so much glue I couldnt even tug out the now-exposed end of the battery with tweezers. So I cut very carefully along the edges of the AirPod stick, to crack open a section like the top of a coconut. There, at last, was the battery, about as thick as a large spaghetti noodle.

I had avoided spilling blood, but after all the cutting I still had a problem: My AirPod was now a Humpty Dumpty in so many pieces Id never be able to reassemble it again. Wiens said hed tried this five times, across both the first- and second-generation AirPods, and awarded AirPods a repairability score of zero out of 10. There is no way we can feasibly understand taking the battery out without completely destroying the AirPod, he said.

I asked Apple whether that was true. It didnt answer.

The cause of death on my AirPods was clear: bad product design.

Earlier this year, the website Vice called AirPods a tragedy of disposable wealth. I see them as a symptom of Apples preoccupation with thin products. Its the tech-world version of fashions fixation on skinny models, where Apple sets the trend and other manufacturers feel pressure to follow.

Excessive thinness isnt healthy for gadgets, either. Apples desire to shave a few millimeters off designs has resulted in MacBook keyboards that fail, iPads that catch fire at recycling centers and now millions of AirPods that will probably end up in the trash.

Sealing up electronics with glue instead of screws and latches can help make devices lighter and more resistant to moisture and dust. But great ear buds even ones tiny enough to sit in your ears dont have to be impenetrable. iFixit found a way to pop open Samsungs $129 Galaxy Buds, so replacement batteries can slip in kind of like on a watch. Samsung doesnt officially offer this repair option, but iFixit sells a pair of replacement batteries for $29.

Apples disposable AirPod design is expensive for us. But its doing permanent damage to our environment. Thats not how Apple talks about it, though.

Apples products are designed with the environment in mind, said Lodes, the Apple spokeswoman. Everything from the materials we select to the way we approach recycling is meant to leave the world better than we found it.

How exactly are AirPods designed with the environment in mind? Because you can bring them to Apple to be recycled. We work closely with our recyclers to ensure AirPods are properly recycled and provide support to recyclers outside of our supply chain as well, said Lodes.

Thats like saying your daily paper coffee cup habit is good for the environment because you always put it in the recycling bin. AirPods may actually be worse than that: Theyre so small, theres isnt much material that can be recycled from them. Significant energy, water and materials go just into the process of making AirPods.

The golden rule for helping the earth is to produce less new stuff. Electronics companies can do that by making their products last as long as possible through repair and reuse which are all but impossible with AirPods.

In the Greenpeace 2017 Guide to Greener Electronics, Apple got a B- grade overall because of its commitments to using renewable energy and efforts to create a closed-loop supply chain. But the environmental group gave Apple a D in the category of product life extension, because it has consistently made it more difficult for customers to repair their devices, replace their batteries, or upgrade the devices so that they continue to stay in use.

Apple isnt the only tech company guilty of pushing consumption over repair. New $130 headphones from Amazon called Echo Buds contain batteries that cant be repaired, the company told me. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Microsoft says it would also replace an entire unit when the battery fails on its $249 Surface Earbuds.

Before this trend continues, lets agree on a common-sense rule suggested by Wiens: The life span of an expensive, resource-intensive gadget shouldnt be limited to the life span of one consumable component. You wouldnt buy an electric toothbrush where you couldnt replace the brush. Or a car with glued-on tires.

Apple kept fundamentally the same design for AirPods between its first- and second-generation of the headphones, which debuted in March. Now, the Apple rumor mill has lit up with hints of forthcoming third-generation AirPods in pre-release code for iOS 13.2.

Lets hope this time around, AirPods really are designed with the environment in mind. Not to mention our wallets.

Tens of millions of people own AirPods, Apples most successful new product in years. But each one of those white buds contains a rechargeable battery marching toward an untimely death in as little as two years. (REF:pacecornsilkj / The Washington Post)

The rest is here:
Everyones AirPods will die. Weve got the trick to replacing them. - The Seattle Times

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

In many industries, theres usually one or two companies that become nearly synonymous with their particular market. One of the most obvious examples is Coca Cola (KO). Think about it: We still refer to a soda as a coke, even though the soft drink manufacturer allegedly abandoned using cocaine in its formulation long ago. In emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, its more difficult to pinpoint a clear leader in many cases. Nvidia (NVDA) is still the obvious choice for AI chips. After that, there are very few household names that represent anything close to a pure play in AI technology. However, one name has emerged in the last few years that has become the face of AI drug discovery: Insilico Medicine.

Regular readers will certainly recognize the startup as a key player in the longevity industry. Weve profiled the company on several lists here and here related to drug discovery, as part of our ongoing coverage of life extension science. September was a particularly good month for the Rockville, Maryland startup. At the beginning of the month, it published a paper in Nature Biotechnology that detailed its efforts to design and validate a drug candidate for treating fibrosis and other diseases in just 46 days, shaving off months if not years from the discovery process, not to mention saving millions of dollars. A week later, the five-year-old startup completed a $37 million Series B, bringing its total disclosed funding to $51.3 million.

Insilico Medicine co-founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov

We recently caught up with Insilico Medicine co-founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, who is on a crusade to prove that automation will be a big part of the future of healthcare. We talked about the companys recent achievement in accelerating the drug discovery process; its open challenge to big pharma; Insilicos numerous partnerships and joint ventures; the difficulties in getting funding for longevity therapy research and development; and the AI hype surrounding healthcare in general.

We wont spend too much time dissecting Insilicos latest achievement, as thats already gotten plenty of press. You can find a good deep dive into the paper and its significance by Margaretta Colangelo, a managing partner at Deep Knowledge Ventures, which made some of the first investments in the company about five years ago. It wasnt just the fact that Insilico Medicines new AI platform, called Generative Tensorial Reinforcement Learning (GENTRL), accomplished the feat of designing and validating a drug in such a short timeframe. It was also the first time anyone had combined two AI techniques known as generative adversarial networks (GANs) and generative reinforcement learning for drug discovery. Both Colangelo and Zhavoronkov refer to the achievement as pharmas AlphaGo moment, referring to Google DeepMinds defeat of a professional Go player.

Insilico Medicines AI platform, called Generative Tensorial Reinforcement Learning (GENTRL), combines two AI techniques known as generative adversarial networks and generative reinforcement learning for drug discovery. Credit: Insilico Medicine

Zhavoronkov first presented the paper at a conference in Basal, Switzerland, hometown to two of big pharmas biggest players Roche and Novartis. The choice of venue was obviously intentional, as Insilico has actively sought the spotlight since it was founded in 2014 in order to prove the value of AI to improve human health and quality of life. In 2015, for example, a group of Zhavoronkovsstudents and colleagues founded, Youth Laboratories, listing him as an adviser. It was a machine vision company that focused on aging and skin health which made headlines in 2016 for hosting an online beauty contest, Beauty.AI, that was judged solely by machines and attracted a bit of controversy for picking mostlyfair-skinned people. That led to yet another project, Diversity.AI, an effort to use machine learning to make sure we all have an equal opportunity to be spied on marketed to. Last year, the company was named to CB Insights prestigious AI 100 list.

But back to Insilicos primary focus: defeating age-related disease. Zhavoronkov believes his companys AI platform has advanced to the point where it could automate drug pipeline development from end to end and produce a marketable drug within 24 months or less with the right kind of backing. So while its efforts have focused on pre-clinical activities like identifying drug targets and developing therapeutic molecules around those specific disease targets, Insilicos AI also boasts predictive powers.

Insilico Medicine applies artificial intelligence throughout the drug development pipeline. Credit: Insilico Medicine

We also work with some of our pharma partners on predicting clinical trial outcomes; we also analyze clinical trials data, said Zhavoronkov, who is looking to partner with a major pharmaceutical company on an XPRIZE-type challenge where Insilico races against the clock to develop the first drug fully developed using artificial intelligence and one that targets a rare disease. If no contenders emerge, Zhavoronkov said he still believes it will be possible to develop a viable drug using AI within four or five years.

He noted that investment banks are also interested in Insilicos AI predictive analytics around clinical outcomes. The reason for the attention is obvious: If investors can leverage a tool that can better predict the chance of success or failure of a particular drug, that would surely influence how much money if any they are willing to put into a particular project or company. Weve noted previously that venture capitalists are increasingly turning toward AI to guide their investments into the hottest startups.

While Insilico awaits to see what big pharma company will emerge to take up its challenge, it has plenty of other partnerships and ventures to juggle. In fact, the company just announced today a new collaboration worth up to $200 million with one of Chinas biggest pharmaceutical companies, Jiangsu Chia Tai Fenghai Pharmaceutical Co. The goal of the collaboration is to accelerate drug discovery for triple-negative breast cancer using artificial intelligence.

We actually started making those kind of advanced partnerships where we would plan to take products into [clinical trials] only recently, Zhavoronkov said, for about the last year or so.

He noted that his company has about 16 ongoing collaborations, including several with one of the key players in the longevity industry Juvenescence. One of the more advanced joint ventures with Juvenescence is with a company called Generait Pharmaceuticals that is targeting senescent cells, which are cells that have stopped dividing but continue to secrete inflammatory molecules that damage nearby cells and tissues, leading to disease and an earlier death. Generait has already identified several disease targets but Zhavoronkov could not go into details at this time.

A sampling of some of the deals and partnerships brokered by Insilico Medicine. Credit: Insilico Medicine

Another joint venture between Juvenescence and Insilico, which also includes the nonprofit Buck Institute for Research on Aging, is Napa Therapeutics. Insilico has already done its part and Napa is now working on several potential drug molecules that could help boost the levels of an oxidized compound called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which is involved in getting the power plant of the cell called the mitochondria revved up again. So far, the molecules look very good, Zhavoronkov said.

Many [partnerships] are with smaller companies, you know, where we do get less money up front, but we do get the data, he noted. We need their pre-clinical data so we can train [our algorithms].

While Zhavoronkov is obviously pleased to have just pocketed $37 million from investors like Chinese AI tech giant Baidu and a pharmaceutical firm like Eli Lilly and Company, he feels that respect for the longevity industry is still lacking. For example, few of Insilicos major investors backed the company because they are specifically interested in life extension science, according to Zhavoronkov.

They invested not because of longevity. I actually need to divest of some of my longevity-focused programs, he explained. They invested because of the generative chemistry. It works; they know it works. Thats a major disruption. So thats why they invested. They didnt consider longevity; longevity is not being perceived as credible in financial circles yet.

Legitimacy is also difficult to build when there is so much hype around artificial intelligence.

There are lots and lots of scientific charlatans very often re-positioning very old technology as AI, he said. Suddenly, every statistician within big pharma became an AI scientist.

In terms of direct competitors, Zhavoronkov noted that he deeply respects the work being done by San Francisco-based Atomwise, but the technology from others is mostly smoke and mirrors. Thats why Insilico is focused on publishing its work in peer-reviewed journals in order to back up its claims. The company has published about 60 papers in the last five years.

Thats because Zhavoronkov believes that there is nothing more important than longevity, whether youre talking about the big-picture economics of healthcare or living more productive, healthier years in the twilight of life.

The goal is to create the longevity economy, he said. So, in the next couple years, as we ingest a little bit more data and develop more advanced algorithms, we will be able to go after more complex problems.

If the longevity industry does live up to its lofty goals of becoming the biggest industry in human history, Insilico Medicine will likely play a major role in that success. Even if we dont all end up living as old as Moses, the potential to cure some of humanitys most debilitating diseases is too good to ignore. And, right now, no one is ignoring Insilico Medicine.

We thinkthis AI-powered weight loss app could be a multi-billion dollar business - not because it's backed by the world's most sophisticated investors- but because it works. If you want to lose weight and keep it off for good, check out Noom. People who use Noom lose weight and keep it off for good.

Read more:
Insilico Medicine Becomes the Face of AI Drug Discovery - Nanalyze

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith

AirPod batteries are sealed inside, so you need to cut in to access them. CREDIT: Washington Post photo by James Pace-Cornsilk

"Sorry, we can't help you," said the Apple store Genius. My AirPods were dying. After just 15 minutes of use, the wireless headphones I use daily chirp a sad little battery-depleted alert. I came to Apple to get them repaired.

The employee said there were lots of people like me, with $159 AirPods purchased in 2016 and 2017 that now can't hold a charge. But even though Apple promises "battery service," the store had no way to fix my AirPods. It didn't even have a way to test them.

Cupertino, we have a problem: AirPods are comfortable and convenient headphones that have attracted tens of millions of customers. But each one of those white sticks contains a rechargeable battery marching toward an untimely death in as little as two years. Apple's plan to deal with that reality is just to sell us new ear buds. When your AirPods' day comes, the only option is to ask Apple for discounted replacements - but you'll need to know its code word to even get that.

Not long ago, headphones were among the most universal, long-lasting electronics. We shouldn't let Apple turn them into expensive, disposable electronics. It's hurting our wallets - and the environment.

Apple doesn't dispute that the lithium-ion batteries inside AirPods wear out. "All rechargeable batteries have a limited life span and may eventually need to be serviced or recycled," Apple says on its website. Replacing batteries is very common on phones and laptops. In 2018, Apple stores got deluged when the company offered to replace the batteries in older iPhones for $29.

But with AirPods, Apple offers far less help. First, there's no way to determine the health of the batteries in the ear buds or their charging case. Apple won't even share guidelines on their life expectancy. "AirPods are built to be long-lasting," said Apple spokeswoman Lori Lodes, without specifics. Mine went for 34 months; others have reported they die as soon as 18 months.

When your AirPod batteries finally go, even Apple's employees are confused about your options. Across three separate support encounters in the store and online, they told me I had to buy a replacement pair for $138, nearly the price of a whole new set. But I remembered Apple had once told me it would service depleted batteries for $49. I reported that in The Post, along with my recommendation to buy AirPods. So what gives?

(c) 2019, The Washington Post Geoffrey A. Fowler

Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler takes apart an airport in an attempt to understand the batteries. CREDIT: Washington Post photo by James Pace-Cornsilk

After weeks of back-and-forth with Apple - and refusing to take no for an answer at the store - I finally got answers:

- If your AirPods are less than a year old and the battery is not performing up to the promised five hours of listening time, an Apple store will replace them at no cost.

- Apple recently began selling its AppleCare+ warranty for $29, which covers the battery, too. But this extended warranty lasts only two years - which wouldn't have been long enough to save my AirPods.

- If your AirPods are out of warranty, Apple will replace them for $49 per stick - so in reality, $98 total. A replacement for the charging case, which doesn't wear out as quickly, is also $49. The key phrase to say is "battery service." (Apple is providing additional training to customer service representatives on that point, but if you still have trouble, show them this link - or this column.)

A $98 battery fix is still mighty expensive. Apple will replace the battery on an iPhone for as little as $49. An Apple Watch battery costs just $79. What makes AirPods so different? Because Apple's "battery service" for AirPods is code for "throwing it away." Apple isn't repairing AirPods - it's just replacing the ear buds and recycling your old ones.

To understand why, I performed an autopsy on a dearly departed pair. Inside, I found the design of AirPods makes them inevitably obsolete.

What could be so hard about replacing the battery in an AirPod? I don't ordinarily go CSI on gadgets, so I sought advice from some folks who do.

Kyle Wiens, the CEO of repair website iFixit, offers instructions on how to disassemble electronics and sells replacement parts. The first time Wiens tried to get inside an AirPod, he cut himself and bled all over it. Another time, the battery combusted in a poof of smoke on his team.

AirPods were never meant to be opened, Wiens warned me.

But I wanted to see for myself. With Wiens watching, I began the operation with the silver cap at the end of the AirPod stick. You might think it unscrews to let you get inside. No such luck. It's glued in there, and I couldn't yank it out even after carefully heating the AirPod to loosen the glue. That meant I had to cut in - and to save my fingers, Wiens loaned me a special vibrating knife that slices plastic.

Inside the AirPod, I found so much glue I couldn't even tug out the now-exposed end of the battery with tweezers. So I cut very carefully along the edges of the AirPod stick, to crack open a section like the top of a coconut. There, at last, was the battery, about as thick as a large spaghetti noodle.

I had avoided spilling blood, but after all the cutting I still had a problem: My AirPod was now a Humpty Dumpty in so many pieces I'd never be able to reassemble it again. Wiens said he'd tried this five times, across both the first- and second-generation AirPods, and awarded AirPods a repairability score of zero out of 10. "There is no way we can feasibly understand taking the battery out without completely destroying the AirPod," he said.

I asked Apple whether that was true. It didn't answer.

The cause of death on my AirPods was clear: bad product design.

Earlier this year, the website Vice called AirPods a "tragedy" of disposable wealth. I see them as a symptom of Apple's preoccupation with thin products. It's the tech-world version of fashion's fixation on skinny models, where Apple sets the trend and other manufacturers feel pressure to follow.

Excessive thinness isn't healthy for gadgets, either. Apple's desire to shave a few millimeters off designs has resulted in MacBook keyboards that fail, iPads that catch fire at recycling centers and now millions of AirPods that will probably end up in the trash.

Sealing up electronics with glue instead of screws and latches can help make devices lighter and more resistant to moisture and dust. But great ear buds - even ones tiny enough to sit in your ears - don't have to be impenetrable. iFixit found a way to pop open Samsung's $129 Galaxy Buds, so replacement batteries can slip in kind of like on a watch. Samsung doesn't officially offer this repair option, but iFixit sells a pair of replacement batteries for $29.

Apple's disposable AirPod design is expensive for us. But it's doing permanent damage to our environment. That's not how Apple talks about it, though.

"Apple's products are designed with the environment in mind," said Lodes, the Apple spokeswoman. "Everything from the materials we select to the way we approach recycling is meant to leave the world better than we found it."

How exactly are AirPods designed with the environment in mind? Because you can bring them to Apple to be recycled. "We work closely with our recyclers to ensure AirPods are properly recycled and provide support to recyclers outside of our supply chain as well," said Lodes.

That's like saying your daily paper coffee cup habit is good for the environment because you always put it in the recycling bin. AirPods may actually be worse than that: They're so small, there's isn't much material that can be recycled from them. Significant energy, water and materials go just into the process of making AirPods.

The golden rule for helping the earth is to produce less new stuff. Electronics companies can do that by making their products last as long as possible through repair and reuse - which are all but impossible with AirPods.

In the Greenpeace 2017 Guide to Greener Electronics, Apple got a "B-" grade overall because of its commitments to using renewable energy and efforts to create a closed-loop supply chain. But the environmental group gave Apple a "D" in the category of product life extension, because it has "consistently made it more difficult for customers to repair their devices, replace their batteries, or upgrade the devices so that they continue to stay in use."

Apple isn't the only tech company guilty of pushing consumption over repair. New $130 headphones from Amazon called Echo Buds contain batteries that can't be repaired, the company told me. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Microsoft says it would also replace an entire unit when the battery fails on its $249 Surface Earbuds.

Before this trend continues, let's agree on a common-sense rule suggested by Wiens: The life span of an expensive, resource-intensive gadget shouldn't be limited to the life span of one consumable component. You wouldn't buy an electric toothbrush where you couldn't replace the brush. Or a car with glued-on tires.

Apple kept fundamentally the same design for AirPods between its first- and second-generation of the headphones, which debuted in March. Now, the Apple rumor mill has lit up with hints of forthcoming third-generation AirPods in pre-release code for iOS 13.2.

Lets hope this time around, AirPods really are designed with the environment in mind. Not to mention our wallets.

Follow this link:
Everyone's AirPods will eventually die. We've got the trick to replacing them - cleveland.com

Recommendation and review posted by Bethany Smith