Inspiration Doesn ’ t Run Out
Recently I saw a NaNoWriMo participant complaining of running out of inspiration. Their writing had hit a wall, and the lack of inspiration was to blame.
That strikes me as an odd and hugely misleading way to think about inspiration, like it’s a resource that can run dry. Truthfully it never runs dry.
Saying you’ve run out of inspiration is like saying you’ve run out of sights or sounds. You could become blind or deaf, but the sights and sounds are still present. There are visuals to look at and sounds to be heard, and they don’t run out – or at least they won’t run out during your lif...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - November 14, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Health Lifestyle Productivity Source Type: blogs
SoundWatch Alerts Deaf Users of Nearby Activity
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a watch that can monitor a user’s environment for important sounds, such as a fire alarm or a microwave beeping, identify the sounds, and then inform the user through a subtle vibration.
“This technology provides people with a way to experience sounds that require an action – such as getting food from the microwave when it beeps. But these devices can also enhance people’s experiences and help them feel more connected to the world,” said Dhruv Jain, a researcher involved in the study, who is himself hard of hearing. “I use the wat...
Source: Medgadget - October 29, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: ENT Rehab Source Type: blogs
Promoting equity and community health in the COVID-19 pandemic
Editor’s note: Second in a series on the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, and responses aimed at improving health equity. Click here to read part one.
In early March 2020, as COVID-19 was declared a public health emergency in Boston, Mass General Brigham began to care for a growing number of patients with COVID-19. Even at this early stage in the pandemic, a few things were clear: our data showed that Black, Hispanic, and non-English speaking patients were testing positive and being hospitalized at the highest rates. There were large differences in COVID-19 infection rates among communities. Across the river f...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 22, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Sarah Wilkie, MS Tags: Coronavirus and COVID-19 Health Health care disparities Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 19th 2020
In conclusion, we found that regardless of the presence of multimorbidity, engaging in a healthier lifestyle was associated with up to 6.3 years longer life for men and 7.6 years for women; however, not all lifestyle risk factors equally correlated with life expectancy, with smoking being significantly worse than others.
A Hydrogel Scaffold to Encourage Peripheral Nerve Regeneration
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/10/a-hydrogel-scaffold-to-encourage-peripheral-nerve-regeneration/
The nervous system of mammals is poorly regenerative at best. The use of implantable scaffold materials is one of th...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 18, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
“Under the radar” – Ongoing Lassa Fever Outbreak
By Dr. Stephen A. Berger
Nigeria is battling the largest recorded Lassa Fever outbreak to-date
Lassa Fever in Nigeria is a paradigm for Infectious Disease outbreaks that continue to threaten massive populations “under the radar” during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of October 3, 2020, a total of 1,112 fatal cases of COVID-19 had been reported in Nigeria.
In terms of population size, the statistical likelihood of dying from this disease in Nigeria – or in Singapore – is exactly the same. But then…nobody in Singapore is dying these days from Lassa Fever.
WHAT IS LASSA FEVER?
The disease was ...
Source: GIDEON blog - October 13, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Kristina Symes Tags: Epidemiology News Outbreaks Source Type: blogs
Loss of Sense of Smell as an Early Biomarker for Brain Aging
Alzheimer's disease begins in the olfactory bulb, with evidence suggesting that this is related to failing drainage of cerebrospinal fluid from that part of the brain. It has been noted that a faltering of the sense of smell takes place with aging. This may be a useful way to assess the overall state of the brain on the path towards neurodegenerative conditions, but, considered as a whole, comparatively little work has taken place on this aspect of sensory decline with age.
Olfaction, from an evolutionary aspect, is the oldest of our senses. Across different species, it modulates the interactions between an organi...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 13, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A Caregiver ’s Struggle: Balancing an Elder's Sense of Purpose with Their Safety
Photo credit Zubair Khan
...This post really struck a chord with me. Most seniors need to feel useful to enjoy a high quality of life. They maintain a sense of purpose by sticking to their everyday routines and engaging in activities and hobbies they enjoy. But if caregivers believe an elder’s actions are risky or downright dangerous, when should they step in? As caregivers, we walk a thin line between keeping our loved ones safe and helping to preserve their independence. One of my first experiences with this concept occurred with my elderly neighbor and first care recipient. Joe was in his 80s and lived in his own home...
Source: Minding Our Elders - September 7, 2020 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Neuralink: Thumbs up or down so far?
Elon Musk’s Neuralink is neuroscience theater (MIT Technology Review):
Rock-climb without fear. Play a symphony in your head. See radar with superhuman vision. Discover the nature of consciousness. Cure blindness, paralysis, deafness, and mental illness. Those are just a few of the applications that Elon Musk and employees at his four-year-old neuroscience company Neuralink believe electronic brain-computer interfaces will one day bring about.
None of these advances are close at hand, and some are unlikely to ever come about. But in a “product update” streamed over YouTube on Friday, Musk, also the founder of SpaceX ...
Source: SharpBrains - August 31, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: SharpBrains Tags: Cognitive Neuroscience Technology Brain-Computer Interfaces electrochemical Elon Musk FitBit Neuralink skull Source Type: blogs
Covid-19 and Deafness: Why the Protocols Fall Short
I am hard-of-hearing; I wear two hearing aids, and Covid-19 has made all forms of human interaction extraordinarily difficult.
The post Covid-19 and Deafness: Why the Protocols Fall Short appeared first on The Hastings Center. (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - August 21, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Susan Gilbert Tags: Health Care communicating COVID-19 disability Hastings Bioethics Forum Social Distancing syndicated wearing masks Source Type: blogs
Telehealth and Telework Accessibility in a Pandemic-Induced Virtual World
Blake E. Reid (University of Colorado), Christian Vogler (Gallaudet University), Zainab Alkebsi (National Association of the Deaf), Telehealth and Telework Accessibility in a Pandemic-Induced Virtual World, U. Colo. L. Rev. Online (Forthcoming, 2020): This short essay explores one dimension of... (Source: HealthLawProf Blog)
Source: HealthLawProf Blog - August 19, 2020 Category: Medical Law Authors: Katharine Van Tassel Source Type: blogs
White Fragility
Earlier this week I read the book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, which is about how resistant white people can be when it comes to discussing and learning about systemic racism.
I thought the book had some interesting insights, although it was more academic and less emotional than I expected. I was expecting something punchier and more story-based whereas sometimes this book felt like a corporate training manual. I also thought it was a bit short relative to the weightiness of the topic. Overall I still found it worth reading, so I’d recommend it if you’re curious about it.
I took the main lesson to b...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - August 15, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Relationships Values Source Type: blogs
Balancing an Elder's Sense of Purpose with Their Safety
Photo credit Zubair Kahn
...As caregivers, we walk a thin line between keeping our loved ones safe and helping to preserve their independence. One of my first experiences with this concept occurred with my elderly neighbor and first care recipient. Joe was in his 80s and lived in his own home. He was completely deaf, so to communicate with each other, he would speak and I would write on a large legal pad. One day, I hurried into his house at my typical visiting time and immediately sensed that something was off. Joe would usually sit at his kitchen table waiting for me to arrive, but this time there was no sign of hi...
Source: Minding Our Elders - August 10, 2020 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
Betrayal
Tweeteth Il Duce: “With Universal Mail-in Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE& FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote??? ” [sic]Steven Calabresi, a founder of the Federalist Society (the rightwing lawyers ’ outfit that’s sent Trump all his unqualified but young and ideologically pure judicial nominees), who voted for Trump and previously argued against his impeachment, referred to the tweet as “fascistic” and called it grounds for impeachment. There ’s exac...
Source: Surgeonsblog - August 5, 2020 Category: Surgery Authors: Sid Schwab Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 3rd 2020
In this study, we examined the effects of oxytocin on the Aβ-induced impairment of synaptic plasticity in mice.
To investigate the effect of oxytocin on synaptic plasticity, we prepared acute hippocampal slices for extracellular recording and assessed long-term potentiation (LTP) with perfusion of the Aβ active fragment (Aβ25-35) in the absence and presence of oxytocin. We found that oxytocin reversed the impairment of LTP induced by Aβ25-35 perfusion in the mouse hippocampus. These effects were blocked by pretreatment with the selective oxytocin receptor antagonist L-368,899. Furthermore, the treatment with the...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 2, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Age Related Hearing Loss is Caused by Damage to Hair Cells
Researchers here provide evidence for age-related deafness to be caused by the loss of viable hair cells in the inner ear, rather than other possible mechanisms. As pointed out, this is perhaps the best outcome for such a study, given the numerous approaches to hair cell regeneration or hair cell replacement that are underway in the scientific community. While it is interesting to compare this result with earlier data suggesting that hair cells survive in old individuals, but are disconnected from the brain, it nonetheless boosts the prospects for near term reversal of age-related hearing loss.
Scientists have dem...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 27, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
