The Ripples of War Are Only Beginning to Spread. Is America Ready?
There are now more than 1.9 million U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 50,000 were physically injured and around 15 percent have experienced PTSD. Perhaps all were exposed to burn pits and other toxins. What are the long-term impacts of the wars on those who fought them? (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - March 23, 2023 Category: Health Management Authors: Kayla M. Williams Source Type: blogs

Imagene Profiles Cancer Biomarkers in Real Time
Cancer therapies have proliferated over the past few decades, improving outcomes for many patients. But this variety requires accurate diagnostics and appropriate decision making to choose the optimal course of therapy. The current gold standard of identifying which cancer mutation is present is new generation sequencing (NGS), which provides a comprehensive genetic report, but can take up to six weeks to complete, requires a significant tumor sample size, and can only be done in an advanced laboratory at a high cost. Imagene, a company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, has developed AI-based image analysis software...
Source: Medgadget - March 22, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Diagnostics Exclusive Oncology Pathology biomarkers cancer biomarkers molecular profiling Source Type: blogs

Wednesday Bible Study: Cleanup on aisle 9
Chapter 29 is an extremely long winded way of saying that when Hezekiah became king, he repaired and restored the Temple, and removed stuff that shouldn ' t have been there, and restored the sacrifices to Yahweh. In the previous chapter, king Azah had established shrines to other gods and engaged in alien rites, but it doesn ' t mention anything about the Temple. 2 Kings 18 has a much briefer account of Hezekiah destroying Azah ' s shrines to other gods and quite bizarrely destroying a brass serpent that Moses had made (Numbers 21:9) which has not been mentioned since. That Yahweh had ordered Moses to make a graven image i...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 22, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

3 Ways to Develop an ‘Ever-Young’ Mind by Asking Ourselves Questions
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) was an exceptional thinker and mystic. One of the baffling features of his thought and discourse was his insistence on rejecting the traditional role of a spiritual authority and refusing to provide answers to his listeners. Participants in his public talks and dialogues were often surprised when Krishnamurti would pose questions such as ‘What is the meaning of life?’ negate all imaginable answers, and leave the questions hanging and his audience empty-handed. For Krishnamurti, this was his way of awakening the intelligence of his listeners, throwing them back on themselves. Ordinari...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - March 21, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Erin Falconer Tags: creativity featured happiness meditation motivation philosophy psychology self-improvement ever-young mind Source Type: blogs

Twenty Years After the Iraq War, a Q & A with RAND Experts
On the 20th anniversary of the war in Iraq, RAND experts discussed what the war means for the people of Iraq and the veterans who fought there, what lessons the U.S. military learned (or did not learn), and what effect it has had on the balance of power in the Middle East and the global reputation of the United States. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - March 21, 2023 Category: Health Management Authors: Michelle Gris é ; Michael J. Mazarr; Charles P. Ries; Kayla M. Williams; Jonathan P. Wong; Raphael S. Cohen Source Type: blogs

Sunday Sermonette: Worst apostasy ever
The story of Ahaz is told in 2 Kings 16. Although the facts largely overlap, it ' s a completely different version of the story. It ' s basically the same old idea -- Ahaz forsakes Yahweh, worships Baal, and Judah gets trashed. Somewhat unusually, one of the instruments of the trashing is the northern kingdom. However, a prophet persuades the " people of Israel, " oddly without mentioning their king or leadership, to release the Judean captives, essentially on the grounds that they have no right to enslave fellow Israelites.Ahaz goes on to humiliate Judah before the Syrian king Tiglath-Pileser, by bribing him with some of ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 19, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Platinum Anniversary
As some readers know, for many years I maintained the Today in Iraq blog, during the U.S. occupation. The invasion of Iraq was an illegal war of aggression, and U.S. troops and mercenaries committed innumerable war crimes. The result was an indescribable catastrophe for Iraqis, with a conservative death toll estimate of 800,000 and most likely far higher, at least as many people injured, and entire cities destroyed. (Notably Fallujah and Mosul.) The consequences for the U.S. were not as dire, but $8 trillion wasted and immense damage to the nation ' s international standing, along with 4,400 military dead and 32,000 w...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 18, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Wednesday Bible Study: Hit the snooze button
Thank the Lord, we ' re almost through Chronicles. Just a few more chapters to go. Jotham is mentioned very briefly in the Book of Kings, so that is not the source referred to at the end here. What is odd, however, is that the Chronicler usually refers to what appear to be two separate books, the book of the Kings of Judah and the book of the Kings of Israel. Here he refers to a single book, but it can ' t be the canonical Book of Kings because that does not include any additional detail about Jotham.Of course we get the usual absurd amounts of tribute.27 Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he re...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 15, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Be like Mike (Jordan) and build your personal doctor brand
Gatorade’s commercial featuring Michael Jordan from 1992 and its catchy song, “Like Mike,” is now part of pop culture history. The lyrics were likable. “I dream I move, I dream I groove, like Mike, if I could be like Mike, oh if I could be like Mike.” Let’s face it, growing up, many of us Read more… Be like Mike (Jordan) and build your personal doctor brand originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 13, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Primary Care Source Type: blogs

Sunday Sermonette: Do not mess with the guys who wrote this
The story of Uzziah, including his transgression and consequential leprosy, is told briefly in the Book of Kings, embedded in a much longer discussion of goings on in the northern kingdom at the time. The Chronicler as usual has no interest in the northern kingdom, but he has a great deal of interest in the prerogatives of the priesthood so he makes that the focus. There have been instances in the past when the priests have put kings in their place, although in the early part of the Deuteronomistic History kings sometimes made sacrifices and apparently it was okay.  The Chronicler wants to be very clear that kings can...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 12, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

The benefits of facing mortality: How Bruce Springsteen and other rock stars prove productivity can increase with age
According to Chris Jordan, a New Jersey shore native who writes about music and entertainment, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed “like their lives depended on it” when they recently kicked off their 2023 tour in Tampa, Florida early February. The tour will keep the 73-year-old Springsteen on the road for six months, playing Read more… The benefits of facing mortality: How Bruce Springsteen and other rock stars prove productivity can increase with age originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 10, 2023 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Psychiatry Source Type: blogs

Wednesday Bible Study: A shaggy dog tale
(Posting late today because I had a meeting all morning.)  Portions of this story are told in 2 Kings 14 but it seems to come largely from a different source, or in this case sources, the lost Chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. Amaziah ' s big mistake is to get involved with the northern kingdom, which is out of favor with the big guy in the sky, and that seems to be the main point of this. Why the Chronicler is so obsessed with trashing the northern kingdom is hard to fathom since it had long since ceased to exist by the time he wrote this. But whatever.25 Amaziah was tw...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 8, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

What Would John Henry Rauch Do Today As A HIT Entrepreneur?
BY MIKE MAGEE Health entrepreneurs today tend to give themselves very high grades, and seem surprised when their creations fall short of expectations due to a disconnect with funders or regulators with legal authority. But Medicine isn’t fair, and genius is not that common. What other conclusion can you draw from the thousands of references and citations featuring Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush and his wild ideas on how to heroically treat Yellow Fever in 1793, but likely never heard of Dr. John Henry Rauch. The former signed the Declaration of Independence but directly or indirectly contributed to many an un...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 8, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Health Tech Benjamin Rush John Henry Rauch Mike Magee public health sanitation Source Type: blogs

The Clean Water Act Gives States Freedom To Experiment
Thomas A. Berry andIsaiah McKinneyCongress enacted the Clean Water Act (CWA) to create a federal system for pollution control. But Congress wanted that federal system to leave room for the states as well. That ’s why the CWA encourages “cooperative federalism” between federal and state enforcement. Under the CWA, states can create their own water quality standards, as long as these meet federal requirements. The same is true for permitting regimes. And states are free to create their own administrat ive procedures for handling CWA violations.In addition to federal and state enforcement, the CWA also permitspriva...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 7, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas A. Berry, Isaiah McKinney Source Type: blogs

The Iraq War, 20 Years Later
John MuellerOn Thursday, March 16, we reach the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Saddam Hussein ’s Iraq under the George W. Bush administration. There will be an afternoon ofpanels on that day at Cato reflecting on the event.As the invasion loomed, there was quite a bit of protest both in the United States and around the globe, and a popular placard at some of the protests was one reading, “A village in Texas is missing its idiot.”In his impressive newbook,Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq (Oxford University Press), historian Melvyn Leffler takes strong exception to that...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 6, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: John Mueller Source Type: blogs