America was founded by people escaping European norms, like government control of religion and economies. Such culturally inherited individualism has served us well but government is now claiming that loneliness may be a problem.
Not a problem like California manufactures with its claims about 'toxic stress' but because people are a lot more mobile. Fewer work in trades so they may not stay close to home, they go where lifestyles and jobs are, at least until they decide they want to buy a house.
Risk factors like salt and sugar intake and high blood pressure for heart attacks and disease need constant rethink if they are going to be more than folk wisdom.
Low-salt and sugar-free have too many vested interests to get critical thinking on how valid population-level statistics are for individuals, and 'high' blood pressure rarely gets questions about how reliable the correlation was that picked 130/85 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) as high blood pressure for everyone. Thosa blood pressure numbers are the clunkily-named systolic on top over the diastolic below. The top is the pressure in arteries as the heart beats while the bottom is the pressure at rest.(1)
If humans in space are happening any time soon, it will be despite government involvement rather than because of it. NASA couldn't even build a telescope without going 25 years and 1,000 percent over budget. By the time all cultural parties pick away at a manned space program, it will be so expensive and time-costly it won't be worthwhile, and the private sector will throw all that baggage out and just do it.
The James Webb Space Telescope program showed NASA is incapable of doing Big Engineering now, but they can put cute robots on other planets, and fund smaller projects, like how we might grow plants. Early results for how monitors that plants can wear and will stretch as plants grow are due to a NASA grant, and that is a very good thing.
If my son watches Lord of the Rings, and decides to take up a pipe, he can't do it until he is 21, even though a pipe is, by any scientific measure, absolutely harmless. Government says he is too immature until then to decide for himself.
What about taking Supprelin LA, with some real positives - it blocks puberty for young people who do not feel like their sex at birth - and unknown negatives? England is taking the precautionary principle about it and National Health Service has banned puberty blockers for cases of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence in minors. They're instead going to somehow conduct trials.
Humans and five whale species are the only mammals known to go through menopause. Why is unclear but a new
study sought answers.
Scientists found that females of short-finned pilot whales, false killer whales, killer whales, narwhals and beluga whales and experience menopause live around 40 years longer than other female whale species of a similar size and speculation is that by living longer without extending their reproductive lifespan they have more time to help their children and grandchildren, without increasing the “overlap” period when they compete with their daughters by breeding and raising calves at the same time.
At a recent meeting of the board of editors of a journal I am an editor of, it was decided to produce a special issue (to commemorate an important anniversary). As I liked the idea I got carried away a bit, and proposed to write an article for it.
Like old media such as newspapers and televisions, content on social media is tailored toward audience engagement. Television and newspapers have long known that 'dead bodies sell' but in social media it can be sold in real-time. It has sped up information - and cynicism. Fifteen years ago Reuters was caught augmenting photos of an Israeli attack on terrorists so it looked like more smoke and destruction than actually occurred and few in media were bothered, more recently outlets pulled a photo of British Princess Kate of Wales because it had been retouched. Only after the audience flagged it, though.
If a small
survey in California is indicative of young physicians nationwide, emergency room culture will need to change for younger residents to have interest.
The news comes at a worrisome time. Increased government control of health care has meant plummeting interest in emergency medicine among graduating medical students. Women are even less likely to enter the field and instead opt for a culture that requires less assertiveness and self-advocacy, according to the survey.
Advances in technology in recent decades have obviated the need and desire for humans to move. Many of the world’s population sit for long periods throughout the day, whether in front of a computer at work or in front of a TV at home. Given that the human body is made to move, all this sitting is clearly bad for our health. A new study from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), confirmed this – and then some.
A total of 5,856 female participants aged 63 to 99 years were asked to wear an activity monitor on their hip for seven days at the start of the study. The researchers then followed them for a decade, during which 1,733 participants died.
If you have acne, and are worried about benzene because corporate media is touting that an "independent" lab - which happened to be paid by a group representing lawyers who want to sue - found elevated levels of it, you can relax.
In 2018, an International Agency for Research on Cancer did discuss benzene, but the levels were 10,000X safe levels. And they do not ever show what causes cancer, all they do is target chemicals and look at rows and columns of data from surveys and other papers, and try to claim correlation.