LOW-CARB DIET PREVENTS CAVITIES; WHY WE DREAM; SURPRISING HEALTH BENEFITS OF TEQUILA; ALMODÓVAR’S MOTHER AS HIS INSPIRATION; ONLY CHILDREN SEEK DEEP FRIENDSHIPS; LONGEST HARVARD STUDY: WHAT MAKES A GOOD LIFE; WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS HELP PREVENT CANCER

Agate from Brazil

*
THE EMBASSIES

DEAL CRUSHING BLOWS
TO IMPERIALISM!
shouts the red banner billowing across
the pagoda roof of the Chinese embassy.
My boyfriend and I scan the anti-Soviet

snarls of Marxist grammar.
Deal crushing blows, we chant,
our chilled adolescent faces
glinting off photos of parades,
red flags like precocious tulips.

Next door, the Albanian embassy
shows off a full-bosomed woman,
captioned, “Folk products of Albania.”
tiny Albania, with colossal
statues of the fallen god, Stalin.

The Russians have a fenced-in fortress
guarded by a soldier in a long heavy coat,
a machine gun shadowing his shoulder,
his eyes the eyes of a mistreated dog.

We pass by not looking at the pictures,
already stamped forever into our minds:
the medal-hung Politburo
saluting a procession of tanks.

The American compound is a toothpaste-white
sprawling compound across from the Royal Park.
One can tell the Americans
by their clothes and loud laughter.
A Marine in short sleeves like a boyscout,
freckles, a smile as wide as the smile

of the President shaking hands in the photos
in the display case outside,
guides us to the reading room
rustling with Time and Life,
a day-old New York Times.

We who are so worldly walk under the clouds
to the puddles in front of
the Iranian embassy —
the Empress in starbursts of jewels,
the Shah as if someone
hired to pose with her.

In the avenues, coffin-like black limousines
fly miniature national flags.
I wonder if I could become
an ambassador's wife.
My boyfriend isn’t the type.

Every time we pass the embassies, I travel
away from him, toward
the world — photographed
and briefly captioned,

waiting for me, lying to me,
about to deal
crushing blows.

~ Oriana

**
DO WE STILL NEED EMBASSIES?

Students hurl snow at the US embassy in Moscow to protest the Vietnam War whilst Soviet police look on.

We all know what embassies are: grand houses where pompous people stand under chandeliers drinking champagne to no obvious purpose. Why should we waste our money on these overpaid toffs when modern technology allows instant communication between world leaders?

G.R. Berridge tackles the question in his history of the permanent diplomatic mission. It is a convoluted story, covering many continents and cultures, but Berridge has mastered the voluminous literature and the intricate detail. He is a fluent storyteller, though the story is overwhelming. It probably began in the Renaissance, when the Italian states decided to keep people in rival cities to handle business. The questions started immediately: did an ambassador need to be so grand? Or live in such an expensive house? Couldn’t the business be done by people sent from home?

For an answer you have to go back to the basics. Governments need to pass messages safely to their opposite numbers and understand the replies. That sounds simple, but it isn’t. Politicians have little idea how foreign minds think. The messages they send may make sense to them, less so to their correspondents. They need someone who can ensure each side understands the other and can mop up the tears when things go wrong – as they so often do. An ambassador can also be a convenient scapegoat.

Ambassadors can best acquire this kind of intimate knowledge by living among the people they deal with and learning their quirks and fears, domestic rivalries and likely intentions towards their own master. Time and again British ministers visited me in Moscow, briefed to the eyeballs, but still desperate to hear what Mikhail or Boris really wanted from them. That was true even of Mrs Thatcher, who numbered diplomats among her closest advisers, despite her public scorn for the Foreign Office itself.

Diplomacy is cheap compared with other ways of conducting relations between nations. David Frost allegedly called it ‘the art of letting other people have your way’. Sir Henry Wotton put it differently, describing the ambassador as an ‘honest man sent to lie abroad for his country’. Mendacity is only the most genteel of the methods used by nations to get their way, and ambassadors can’t avoid being caught up in the skulduggery. Locals usually regard even the most innocent ways of gathering information as espionage. It is a rare embassy that doesn’t provide cover for its country’s secret operators.

All this is intrinsically unglamorous, and done in uncomfortable and even threatening circumstances. Ambassadors need protection if they are to function which is why, as Berridge points out, they are surrounded by a body of immunities and understandings that have grown up over the centuries. There are now more diplomats than ever before, as the number of countries has rocketed since 1945.

So the diplomat is not yet an endangered species. The chandeliers and the champagne still twinkle in the larger embassies, but the toffs are fewer and there are far more women at the top. If you want to know what the life is really like, I recommend the BBC comedy Ambassadors, about a British embassy in a fictitious Central Asian country, Tazbekistan. Staff are beset by demanding visitors, including a royal duke promoting trade and a courageous human rights activist who has to be rescued from the dictator’s death cells. In their spare time the harassed ambassador and his wife tend to the demands of a teenager 6,000 miles away, while their bosses tick boxes in a ‘game of bullshit bingo’.

And yet despite the absurdities, most of us found the career stimulating. We were rarely bored. We never stopped learning. In retirement we felt that we had done the state some service. You could hardly ask for more than that. ~ Rodric Braithwaite was British Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1988-91).

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/review/outposts-diplomacy-gr-berridge-review?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=4943afd476-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_09_20_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fceec0de95-4943afd476-1214148&mc_cid=4943afd476

*
PEDRO ALMODÓVAR: LIFE NEEDS FICTION TO MAKE IT BEARABLE


The Spanish film maker on why his mother is his inspiration

One day when he was nine years old and living in a small Extremaduran town of makeshift adobe houses, steep slate streets and dusty, meagre horizons, Pedro Almodóvar caught his mother out in a lie.

The family had recently moved south from La Mancha and Francisca Caballero was making ends meet by reading and writing letters for her illiterate neighbors. As he read over his mother’s shoulder, Almodóvar realised the words on the page did not correspond to the words on her lips.

“She was improvising and saying things that weren’t in the letters,” he says. “My mum knew all the neighbours – she knew the grandmother and the granddaughter and how they got along. And so she made stuff up. For example, if she noticed that no one had asked after the grandmother, she’d say, ‘I hope Granny is very well and knows that I think about her a lot.’ That wasn’t in the letter.”

When they got home, he asked why she had made up the reference to the grandmother. His mother looked at him and replied: “Did you see how happy it made her?”

At the time, Almodóvar was most struck by the fact of the lie. But, as the years passed and he began writing stories on the Olivetti typewriter his mother gave him when he was 10, he came to understand the meaning of her actions. “I realized just what a huge lesson she’d taught me: that life needs fiction to make it bearable. We need fiction so that we can live a bit better.”

The truth his mother imparted that day lies at the heart of El último sueño, the short-story collection-cum-memoir now published in English as The Last Dream. Almodóvar, 74, has traveled an almost unfathomable distance from the house in Orellana La Vieja whose bare earth floors would turn to mud under his mother’s mop. The smart central Madrid offices of his production company, which sit near a yoga studio and a short walk from the neo-Moorish splendor of the city’s Las Ventas bullring, are lined with film posters – Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels, Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Volver – that describe a singular director now in the sixth decade of his career.

Cinema had long been an escape from the claustrophobic confines of his provincial upbringing. “I’d already learned from living in small communities that I was different,” he says. “People made me see that I was different. Life there horrified me. I started going to the cinema when we lived in Orellana and I continued going when we moved to a nearby village. From the moment I discovered cinema, I discovered a parallel reality that interested me far more than daily reality.”

Nowhere in The Last Dream is the intersection of literature and cinema clearer than in The Visit, which Almodóvar wrote shortly after finishing his baccalaureate, and which he would film 40 years later as Bad Education. The short story, rooted in fury at the director’s painful, deeply influential religious education in his “prison-school run by the Salesians”, is about a victim of child sexual abuse who tracks down the priest responsible. 

But the rage he felt when he wrote The Visit – a deliberate and angry attempt “to twist and challenge what I’d been taught” – evolved over the years, and Bad Education eventually became “a noir that I combined with other things that interested me at the time”.

It is impossible to overstate the influence of that Salesian education in the early 1960s. “In my case, it was very much like something out of a book,” he says. “I was captured by a lay sister. My sister used to go to sewing classes taught by the lay sister in the village and I used to go and collect my sister. The lay sister kept an eye out for children who might be suitable for schooling. One day, when I’d gone to pick up my sister, the woman said to me – and I quote, because it really stuck in my head – ‘This child must be God’s’.”

The lay sister contacted one of the priests who roamed the region in search of boys suitable for education, and the young Almodóvar was given a grant and packed off to school, where he soon learned about survival – and socioeconomic divisions.

“The idea – and it was all very odd – was that they’d give you a grant so you could study at school in order to become a priest. And yet in the same school, there were other children – kids you played with; kids you studied with – who weren’t on grants because their families could afford to pay. Those kids weren’t destined to become priests. That kind of grant was how most Spanish people went to school.”

So he was, in effect, bagged by a kind of soul-snatcher? “Yes! When you’re a kid and you see all that and you see how they choose you and how they spoil you, it’s … ” Pretty odd? He switches to English. “It’s creepy! Creepy!”

Gael García Bernal in Bad Education (2004)

The death of his mother in 1999 led Almodóvar to turn his gaze backwards – and inwards. The shift towards the personal and autobiographical, which is evident in his more recent films – not least 2019’s Pain and Glory, which deals with a film director facing his past – is mirrored in his later stories, which are full of uncertainty and solitude. His new film, meanwhile, The Room Next Door, is his first full-length feature in English and stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as two old friends grappling with illness, regret, family and mortality.

That autumnal, autobiographical approach is most apparent in the collection’s titular story,The Last Dream,  which sees Almodóvar seeking to make sense of his mother’s life, death, and the epiphany contained in her embellished letter readings. The Last Dream is also a letter of love, gratitude and a belated effort to settle an old debt.

“My mother always used to get very worked up when people talked about Pedro Almodóvar or just Almodóvar,” he remembers. “She used to say, ‘You’re Pedro Almodóvar Caballero because I’m the one who gave birth to you!’ She wanted me to use my full name in my films, and I used to say, ‘No, Mum, you can’t use such long names’. But she was a little miffed that I didn’t use her surname.”

Better late than never – the six pages that make up The Last Dream are signed: Pedro Almodóvar Caballero.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/sep/07/pedro-almodovar-life-needs-fiction-to-make-it-bearable?CMP=share_btn_url (this is a brief excerpt from a long article)

*
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. ~ Orson Welles

*
DEMOCRATS USE TRUMP’S DEADLIEST WEAPON AGAINST HIM

In Trump in Exile, her recent book on the former president’s life after losing power, the reporter Meridith McGraw describes how aides to Donald Trump set about destroying Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who threatened to lure Republican voters away.

“One Trump adviser referred to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals,” McGraw writes. “Rule number five: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

Alinsky was a Chicago community organizer who died in 1972 but is still influential on the left and demonized on the right. Trumpworld put his fifth rule – which also says: “It infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage” – into concerted action.

DeSantis was ridiculed for his lack of height and his heightened sanctimoniousness but most effectively for his simple weirdness: a discomfiting public manner the Trump camp indelibly linked to an alleged incident on a donor’s jet in which, lacking a spoon, the governor chose to eat a cup of chocolate pudding using his fingers.

DeSantis disintegrated. Trump swept to the nomination.

With Joe Biden as his opponent, it seemed Trump would once again dominate with nicknames and ridicule, based on “Sleepy Joe’s” (even more) advanced age. But then Biden dropped out, and something unexpected happened. Kamala Harris and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, turned fierce ridicule back on Trump and his VP pick, the Ohio senator JD Vance, deriding both for their simple weirdness: personal, social and of course political.

If polling is any guide, the tactic has worked like a dream.

To Molly Jong-Fast, a podcaster and MSNBC commentator now touring Politics as Unusual, a live show with the Republican operative turned anti-Trump organizer and ridicule merchant Rick Wilson, Trump, Vance and the rest of the GOP are simply easy targets.

“They’ve just gone so far afield, this Republican party, that you can mock it all because it’s just so weird,” Jong-Fast said. “All this stuff about women’s reproductive cycles” – support for abortion bans, Vance attacking women who do not have children, endless tangles over IVF – “that stuff is quite weird from an adult man, and so it does lend itself to mockery.

“I also think they got so high on their own supply that they didn’t pause and think, ‘Well, perhaps people won’t like this,’ you know?”

Ridicule certainly worked for Trump in the past. In 2016, the Texas senator Ted Cruz was “Lyin’ Ted”, the Florida senator Marco Rubio was “Liddle Marco”, and, most infamously, Hillary Clinton was “Crooked Hillary”. Fair or not, the labels stuck.

Eight years later, though, Trump “just can’t do it”, Jong-Fast said. “Maybe because he’s almost 80. Maybe because he just doesn’t have it any more.”

Trump has road-tested nicknames for Harris but nothing has stuck. He tried “Kamabla”, arguably racist, and “Comrade Kamala”, alleging communist leanings. He tried more.

Jong-Fast said: “‘Laffin’ Kamala?’ It just doesn’t do it because their whole plan of attack was that she laughs and somehow that makes her unserious, and being unserious is somehow bad for being president. But the problem with Trump is that his whole thing was that he was unserious, right? Like, you were supposed to vote for him because he was a reality television host, not because he was some genius.

“I think Trump is just tired. He’s been running for president for a decade, and he’s just scared [of defeat and potentially jail in four criminal cases] and sick of it. One of the things that Trump was able to do really well was ridicule. He would pick these nicknames and you would always be a little bit horrified by them but a lot of times they actually were right … he was very good at summing people up.”

Now, not so much.

Compounding Republican problems, under Harris and Walz – whose decision to call Trump and Vance weird on TV did much to put him on the ticket – Democrats have abandoned the political squeamishness, or just good manners, that long deterred them from firing back in kind.

“I think Biden was in a different generation of politics and he just couldn’t meet the moment in the same way,” Jong-Fast said. “He wouldn’t let his people do that aggressive stuff. I think of Democrats now as trying to push back aggressively, which they have to, right? I mean, it’s completely asymmetrical otherwise.”

As Walz led in ridiculing Trump and Vance, so party grandees followed. At the Democratic convention in Chicago last month, Barack and Michelle Obama mocked Trump from the podium. The former president even appeared to question the size of Trump’s penis. It was all a long way from “When they go low, we go high”, Michelle Obama’s 2016 appeal to purity of political action and thought.

“They know it gets him mad,” Jong-Fast said. “Part of what’s happening here is this ‘audience of one’ idea, which is they know it gets Trump kind of upset when you make fun of him, so they’re doubling down. They know the way to beat him is to get him so agitated that he acts out and alienates voters.”

Trump has certainly been acting out – and Jong-Fast’s colleague Wilson, a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, is well-practiced in making him do so, attracting threats to sue. Asked about Wilson’s insult-comic style, ridiculing Trump onstage and on the Fast Politics podcast and his own platforms, Jong-Fast laughed and said: “It makes for good podcasting. I think it would make for scary live television.”

Probably true. Nonetheless, live television will host the next huge campaign set piece, the debate between Trump and Harris on ABC on Tuesday. Ridicule seems sure to be on the menu. Saul Alinsky’s ghost will watch with interest.

Recently, David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, pondered Harris’s likely tactics.

“I would offer the same advice to Harris as I did to Biden,” Corn wrote. “Deride, deride, deride. But it looks as if she got the memo.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/08/trump-harris-walz-election-insults

*
LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES WATCH DIFFERENT SHOWS

There’s been a lot of concern about how conservatives and liberals consume their news from sources that merely confirm their preexisting beliefs. The result, supposedly, has been a disintegration of a shared reality and a fracturing of the nation’s political life.

Preferences of ‘Blues,’ ‘Purples’ and ‘Reds’

For the study, we surveyed more than 3,000 people using a national sample designed to represent the U.S. population.

Respondents were asked about their entertainment preferences, viewing behaviors and their feelings about specific television shows. They were also asked about their happiness, political beliefs, voting history and personal traits.

In each of these studies – including our most recent one – we found that people with different political beliefs seem to be drawn to different types of TV entertainment.

But in the most recent study, there was also a distinct overlap: certain shows that appealed to everyone across the political spectrum. These programs, we found, tend to have a quality that, at the very least, hints at some shared values in a polarizing age.

Using a statistical clustering analysis, we identified three ideological groups in the United States that share common attitudes and values, regardless of voting history or political party preferences.

Blues, who have liberal attitudes toward abortion, the environment, guns, marriage and immigration, make up 47 percent of the population. This group has the most women and the largest number of African Americans. They’re also the least satisfied with their lives.

Purples, a swing group comprising 18 percent of the population, hold positions across the political spectrum. This group has the largest share of Asians and Hispanics, and those in it are the most religious and the most satisfied with their lives.

Reds make up 35 percent of the country and hold conservative views on most issues. They’re sympathetic toward the police and skeptical about affirmative action, immigrants and Islam. Reds have the highest proportion of senior citizens.

Each group demonstrated its own particular taste in media and entertainment.

Blues like many more TV shows than Reds and are open to viewing foreign films and TV series, as well as content that doesn’t reflect their values. Many Blues enjoy watching “Modern Family,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Simpsons,” “South Park” and “Law & Order: SVU.”

Purples are the most voracious TV viewers and enjoy more about the viewing experience than other groups. They appreciate the educational value of TV programming and are the most likely to say they take action based on what they learn about politics and social issues from fictional movies and TV shows. Their favorite shows include “The Voice” and “Dancing with the Stars,” but they also like “Saturday Night Live” – a favorite among Blues as well – and “Duck Dynasty,” which is preferred by Reds.

Reds say they seldom watch entertainment TV, but when they do, many claim they watch for an adrenaline boost. They prefer the Hallmark, History and Ion channels far more than others, while their favorite show is “NCIS.”

The Shows That Bring Everyone Together

And yet there was some significant overlap.

Five shows that all three ideological groups watched include “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” “Bones,” “Criminal Minds,” “MythBusters” and “Pawn Stars.” Four of these shows were well-liked, but “Pawn Stars” was actually one of the least-liked shows in our sample of 50. (We concluded that “Pawn Stars” had the dubious distinction of being the most hate-watched show in America.)

In a cultural moment defined by moral panic around fake news and alternative facts, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the neutral ground Americans of all political stripes have chosen is storytelling devoted to finding the bad guy, debunking the myth and exposing how silly humans can really be.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/liberals-and-conservatives-have-wildly-different-tv-viewing-habits-but-these-5-shows-bring-everyone?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

*
US FERTILITY RATE DROPPED TO A RECORD LOW IN 2023

The US fertility rate has been trending down for decades, with particularly steep dips after the Great Recession of 2008. An uptick in 2021 spurred theories about a Covid-19 “baby bump,” but the birth rate has quickly returned to its more consistent downward pattern.

In 2023, the US fertility rate fell another 3% from the year before, to a historic low of about 55 births for every 1,000 females ages 15 to 44, according to final data published Tuesday by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Just under 3.6 million babies were born last year, about 68,000 fewer than the year before.

Since 2007, when the fertility rate was at its most recent high, the number of births has declined 17%, and the general fertility rate has declined 21%, according to the new report.

There’s not one particular reason why fertility rates are on the decline in the US, said Sarah Hayford, director of the Institute for Population Research at The Ohio State University. A number of social and economic factors are probably coming into play, she said.

A “package of demographic changes” – people getting married later and less often, spending more years in school and taking longer to get economically established in a steady job, to name a few – align with birth rate trends, said Hayford, who was not involved in the new report.

“People are waiting to have children. And on average, when people wait longer to have children, they end up having fewer children,” she said. “I think there’s also greater social acceptance of not having children or having a smaller family. So as that has become more acceptable, people are more carefully weighing their decision to become parents.”

The CDC data shows that births have continued to shift to older mothers; the birth rate was highest among women ages 30 to 34, with about 95 births for every 1,000 women in this group in 2023.

The data also shows that the teen birth rate dropped to a record low in 2023, with about 13 births for every 1,000 girls ages 15 to 19.

Longstanding trends aside, women in the US have also been facing a massive upheaval of reproductive care in the years since the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and revoked the federal right to an abortion.

National-level data may obscure some effects that state abortion bans have had on local birth trends. But an analysis from last year suggests that states with abortion bans had an average fertility rate that was 2.3% higher than states where abortion was not restricted in the first half of 2023, leading to about 32,000 more births than expected.

“The relationship between abortion rights and birth rates is complicated. We’re still seeing the recent trends in abortion policy play out in terms of demographic impact,” Hayford said. “But it turns out abortion access changes people’s plans for having children.”

People’s broader experiences with reproductive health can also shape these decisions, she said.
And the new CDC report shows a worrying trend.

Most pregnant women – about three-quarters – did receive prenatal care starting in their first trimester last year. But the share of women who receive care later – or not at all – has been ticking up in recent years. About 2.3% of pregnant women had no prenatal care in 2023, up 5% from the year before. Nearly 5% of women had prenatal care in only their third trimester, according to the new report.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/20/health/us-birth-rate-fertility-final-data-2023/index.html

*
MEANWHILE, THE DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS IN RUSSIA

According to Rosstat, a record low number of children were born in the first half of the year in Russia: 599,600. It’s 16,600 fewer than a year earlier, which was the worst year since 1999.

At the same time 49,000 more people died compared to the same period last year.

The Russians are going extinct like Amur Tiger. Another century and we all gonna disappear like Dodo birds clubbed to death by our rulers and intelligence agencies.

A third of the polled Russian women said they don’t want to give birth because of war. This is ironic because Putin wants them to give birth precisely because of war.

Russians don’t want to die for Putin and don’t want to make babies for Putin. That insight contradicts the purported 87% support for the president.

There’re rumors that the contract signing payment will be bumped to $100,000 in Moscow to plug in the depleted forces.

This will hardly stimulate any significant number of men to sign up to die. I mean would it matter to you that you died for fifty grand or an hundred grand? You still die. And it’s still not gonna make your family millionaires.

It means that the inevitable is going to happen soon: the second mobilization. In that case you gonna die for free. ~ Misha Firer, Quora

*
ONLY CHILDREN YEARN FOR DEEP FRIENDSHIP

If you grew up as an only child, you’ve likely heard some of these stereotypical phrases at some point in your life: “That’s sad you grew up all alone.” “Your parents must’ve spoiled you.” “Do you have a hard time making friends?”

Yet recent research shows that many of these portrayals of only children are inaccurate. And even though the single-child family structure used to be a rarity, it’s now the fastest growing family unit in the United States. About 20% of households with children have one child, according to Pew Research Center.

Even though growing up without siblings is becoming more common, there’s still a long-lasting stigma around only children. We talked to therapists about the most common issues they hear only children bring up.

“Therapy can be a healthy space … to learn about themselves and how they interact with the world around them” as only children, Altheresa Clark, a licensed therapist and owner of Inspire4Purpose, told HuffPost.

In therapy, adult only children sometimes share that they feel lonely because they come from a smaller family and don’t have any sibling relationships.

“They have fewer family members to rely on for support than someone who has multiple siblings,” explained Rebecca Greene, a mental health therapist and author of “One & Done: The Guide to Raising a Happy & Thriving Only Child.” “Holidays can be especially lonely for some only children because they often don’t have the big family gatherings that you see in movies and on TV.”

As adults, many only children will seek out close friendships that feel like family members to fill that void, Clark said.

“There’s a saying [that] if you don’t have family, then make your own family — and I believe this wholeheartedly,” she said. “In building your community, find friends, organizations and community work where you can find like-minded individuals who can provide support to you that feels like family.”

Additionally, it can be beneficial for only children to invite close friends to celebrate holidays and big milestones with them, Greene added.

“They can also help their own kids make close friends who are like first cousins,” she said.

They may feel solely responsible for their parents’ elder care

“Many adult only children feel overwhelmed and stressed being the only person in their family to handle all the elder care responsibilities for their elderly parents,” Greene said.

If they live in the same area, this can include taking their parents to medical appointments, helping with meal preparation and assisting with financial management. It can be especially difficult when an only child lives far from their parents, Greene pointed out.

When possible, she recommends getting help with these types of responsibilities from geriatric care managers, social workers and companions for the elderly. She also emphasized the importance of planning ahead.

“Only children can talk with their parents as well as their own spouse or partner to discuss plans for their parents’ elder care ahead of time so that everyone is on the same page,” she said.
They may put pressure on themselves to be perfect

Though having lots of attention from parents can lead to closer relationships with them, some only children may also feel like their every move is being watched.

“Only children can experience extreme pressure from their parents to excel in different areas of their lives that can lead to perfectionism or a type-A personality,” Clark said. “[This] can lead to living their lives in fear of disappointing people.”

Just understanding this association and having a safe space, such as therapy, to process these experiences can help only children not be as hard on themselves.

They may feel very independent in their relationships

“Growing up as an only child can create a large sense of independence, which can be both a strength and a weakness,” said Priya Tahim, a licensed professional counselor and the founder of Kaur Counseling.

In terms of strengths, only children are often skilled at being self-reliant, entertaining themselves and feeling content in their own company,

“They are often take-charge kind of people who make great leaders and get things done in an innovative way,” Greene said. “However, others may sometimes view them as bossy or wanting to do things their way.”

Focusing on collaboration skills, such as clear communication, can help with this.
“One of the most effective ways to improve communication skills with others is to use ‘I’ statements,” Greene suggested. “This is a way of phrasing your feelings or needs that puts the emphasis on how you feel.”

In addition, Tahim suggests asking questions and listening to other people’s reasons for why they may have certain viewpoints.

They may feel misunderstood and judged for being an only child

This is a common issue that only children bring up, particularly in support groups, Greene said.

“There is definitely still a stigma around being an only child because families with two to three children are still more of the norm in this country,” she said. “Having siblings is more of the typical family experience for most people.”

Further perpetuating these stereotypes, only children are often portrayed negatively in movies and TV shows, such as being spoiled, selfish and having poor social skills, Greene added.

“We need more positive portrayals that focus on the strengths and benefits of being an only child,” she said. “And we need for people to not judge only children just based on their lack of sibling status.”

If you’d like to connect with and seek support from other adults who grew up without siblings, Greene recommends joining support groups on Facebook for only children. (There are support groups available for parents of only children as well.)

“These have thousands of members and are a great place to ask questions, get resources and gain insights,” she said.

Therapy can also be an effective place to explore how your childhood is shaping who you are — no matter what your birth order is.

“Whether you are an only child, [oldest child], middle child or [youngest] child, there are pros and cons to each,” Tahim said. “It’s how we choose to grow, learn and adapt … that truly matters.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-only-child-brings-up-most-in-therapy_l_66d778f1e4b09a3ee66cb844?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

*
BENEFITS OF HAVING JUST ONE CHILD

As a parent of one child, you’re often met with surprised, dismissive or pitying comments from others. The assumption is that anyone with one kid must be unable to have more children, is unhappy with their family arrangement or will eventually change their mind.

It’s true that there are many only-child parents out there who do long to have more kids but ultimately can’t because of infertility or other medical or financial reasons. But there are also plenty of folks who happily chose the “one-and-done” path. And there are those who always figured they’d have more kids, but end up being quite content with one.

Many negative stereotypes about only children persist — that they’re lonely, spoiled or socially awkward — even though “most contemporary studies don’t find any notable disadvantages for only children,” writer Chiara Dello Joio wrote for The Atlantic. People also tend to think of parents who do not “give their child a sibling” as selfish. But not enough has been said about how having one kid has many unexpected upsides for families.

Below, our readers share the overlooked perks of having one kid.

You can give your child a better quality of life

“For me, it’s about the quality of life I can provide. I grew up very poor with five siblings. I am much better off now, and I can afford nice things for my son. He doesn’t have to pick between music lessons and sports. He can try a new one each year until he finds what he loves! If I had multiple children, I know I wouldn’t be able to offer that to all of them. We can also afford to go on better vacations because there’s always only two of us traveling. I didn’t get to travel when I was a kid because my family couldn’t afford it. When my son and I travel, oftentimes we experience the same places and things for the very first time.

Having only one child does mean you can afford more ‘things,’ of course, but it also means we can afford more experiences that we can share together, and it’s brought us closer.” — Alicia M.

You have to go through the hard stages only once

“Waking up all night, diapers, terrible twos, etc. Once and done. And no holding an older kid back for the limits or needs of a younger one.” — Gabrielle N.

It's "so much easier to talk the grandparents into watching one kid for several nights than two or more!” one parent pointed out.

Traveling together is more seamless

“We sit three across on planes without having to divide and conquer, we can share a single piece of luggage for all of us and we don’t have to be considerate of a second child’s naps or bedtime and instead follow our daughter’s needs. Riding in taxis is easy, we’ve put an extra chair at a table for two, and we fit in all hotel rooms and sleeping train cars. It’s also, of course, that much more affordable.” — Rachael H.

Your house is more peaceful

“As a teacher, coming home and decompressing from the day is key. My 12-year-old son feels this way, too. Sometimes, we just sit together on the couch or in my bed doing our own things, like phone games or something. We are able to calm ourselves and be there for each other. If there were siblings, the house would be much louder.” — Maricia S.

It’s easier to find someone to babysit

“When my daughter was younger, it was easy to find a babysitter for just one kiddo — especially when my husband and I wanted to take a grown-up trip. So much easier to talk the grandparents into watching one kid for several nights than two or more!” — Megan R.

You have more time and energy to focus on your own health and wellbeing

“For me, the most important thing is a better chance to balance my mental and physical health with the needs of my husband and child. Even though it’s easier with her at 5 years old versus when she was an infant or toddler, there are still days when carving out 20 minutes for me seems impossible. Add more kids to the mix and there’s no way I could carve time out for myself even monthly. I am a much better mom to my only, and I would not change a thing.” — Liz C.

You build close relationships with your kid’s friends

“Building close and intentional connections with other families. Starting when our son was 8 or so, we would invite a friend of his to join us for outings large and small — trips to the museum or day hikes, ski trips, camping trips, a weekend in NYC doing museums and shows.

While we often enjoyed ourselves as a small family, we also realized that our son would probably have more fun with a friend around. So we got to spend some quality time with several of his friends over many years, and I consider a few of these guys, now in their 20s, my ‘bonus boys.’” — Elizabeth E.

You can tag-team with a partner more easily (if you have one)

“We trade doing bedtime and morning routine, so we don’t have to both do all the things. Built-in rest periods equals better parenting when we’re on! We love having our one and only awesome kid.” — Eva Z.

You’re able to show up for all — or a lot of — their games and activities

“Not splitting time between multiple extracurriculars and schedules. I get to be all in at my daughter’s activities and never have to decide whose practice or game I’m attending due to conflicting schedules.” — Megan J.

Your expenses are lower across the board

“We were able to take family trips, save for one college education, didn’t have a super high grocery bill during the teen years, etc. Don’t get me wrong, there are definite downsides, but a huge upside is the cost.” — Katie M.

“Only paying for day care for one. I don’t know how families with multiple kids manage it.” — Erica L.

You don’t have to referee sibling squabbles

“I grew up with my younger sister being only two years younger. We fought constantly over everything. My mom gave up on stopping the fights and let us figure things out on our own.” — Audrey K.

You’re able to support more of their interests

“My daughter and I are truly best friends. My life revolves around her, raising her to be the best version of herself and supporting all her interests. We authentically explore everything she shows interest in. I have the time and mental space to jump from cooking to art to bugs to science — anything! — since it’s just her.” — Alexandra V.

You can comfortably drive a smaller car and live in a smaller house

“We are comfortable in a smaller home, smaller vehicle, and smaller RV, which often equals more affordable. As an only child myself, my parents are able to help out without feeling like one grandchild is preferred over another. I can’t imagine it any other way.” — Megan C.

It can help you be the kind of parent you want to be

“We didn’t plan to have one, but that’s how it worked out, and I love it. It made me realize that one is my mental, emotional and physical limit. It’s exactly what I can handle and still be a good mom.” — Megan R.

You can spend more quality time together

“You don’t get to say, ‘Go play with your siblings,’ which means you truly spend more time with them. Our daughter gets one-on-one time with each of her parents very often. Daddy/Mommy and daughter date nights happen a lot where we can talk and enjoy one another’s company. I get to know her a little more every day, and I love that!” — Laura L.

It allows you to be more present with your kid

“I also feel like only having one has helped me to savor all of the tiny moments that are actually really big because I realize they aren’t going to come around again.” — Liz S.

When your kid has plans, you get the night off

“When she has a sleepover or other event out of the house, it’s de facto ‘me time’ or a date night with the hubs.” — Megan R.

Bedtime is more manageable

“Not dividing yourself at bedtime. I think that’s what really made me stop and think. I couldn’t imagine two wanting me and needing me. Now I just get to snuggle with my little guy knowing we both have what we need.” — Raven K.

You create a special family bond

“Definitely the tight bond. Being able to tell her straight out she’s not only my favorite child, but my favorite person ever. She’s not just my sun and stars. She’s the whole damn solar system.” — Meg C.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-child-parent-benefits-goog_l_65bbd9b1e4b01c5c3a3a46a2

*
DOES BEING THE ONLY CHILD AFFECT THE STRUCTURE OF THE BRAIN?

Creative genius or a misanthrope?

Conventional wisdom has it that only children are smarter and less sociable. Parents, freed from the shackles of constantly settling sibling disputes, devote more time and money to the singleton, exposing them to a greater variety of higher-level activities (there’s a term for what happens when you spread that time and money over more kids: resource dilution). Conversely, since those only children never have to share a toy, a bedroom, or a parent’s attention, it is assumed they miss out on that critical life skill of forever-having-to-get-along.

But are their actual brains different?

Jiang Qiu, a professor of psychology at Southwest University in Chongqing, China and director of the Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality in the ministry of education, led a team of Chinese researchers that sought to answer this question with more than 250 college-aged Chinese students. They used standard tests of intelligence, creativity, and personality type to measure their creativity, IQ, and agreeableness. They also studied their brains, to see if growing up as an only child affects the structure of them. It did.

On the behavioral tests, only children displayed no differences in terms of IQ, but higher levels of flexibility—one measure of creativity—and lower levels of agreeableness than kids with siblings.

The brain scans then confirmed these findings, showing significant differences between only children and non-only children in the brain regions associated with flexibility, imagination, and planning (supramarginal gyrus) and with agreeableness and emotional regulation (medial prefrontal cortex). 

The scans also revealed differences in the parahippocampal gyrus, which helps manage emotional and mood regulation.

The study concluded that the family size we choose, or end up with, affects not only the environment in which children grow up, but also the architecture of their brains. The research was published in Brain Imaging and Behavior.

The idea that only children are somehow deficient was started 125 years ago by Granville Stanley Hall, a leader in the child-study movement, writes Lauren Sandler, author of One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child, and the Joys of Being One. Having worked on the 1896 study “Of Peculiar and Exceptional Children,” Hall cast only children as “oddballs” as “permanent misfits,” descriptions that have stuck over the years with remarkable persistence. “Being an only child is a disease in itself,” he claimed.

There is ample evidence suggesting the stereotypes of the “lonely only” are wrong. Toni Falbo, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and research methodologist Denise Polit undertook a meta-study looking at only children and intelligence and personality. They found that only children, along with firstborns and people who have only one sibling, score higher IQ marks and achieve more, but aren’t markedly different personality-wise (context matters: an only child in an unhappy household may be disagreeable; so might a child with five siblings in a poor family).

Jiang and his co-authors hypothesized a few reasons for their findings. Creativity —defined as having original ideas that have value—is strongly influenced by everything from family structure and parental views, to interactions and expectations (one older study showed that children were more likely to excel if they had a mother whose abilities matched her expectations). Parents of only children may interact more with their children, and seek out more opportunities to extend their children’s creativity. A parent might also have higher expectations of an only child, or they might give the child more independence, and some studies have shown that independence fosters creativity.

Mark Runco, editor of the Creativity Research Journal and a distinguished research fellow of the American Institute for Behavioral Research & Technology, applauded the study but with a few caveats. He noted that the authors focused on flexibility, which is just one of three measures of creativity assessed by the verbally administered Torrance test; the other two are originality (the number of unique or original new ideas a person has) and fluency (how easily a person can move between them).

“Flexibility is important but it’s not as important for creativity as originality,” he said. There were no significant differences in originality scores.

He also noted that just like IQ tests, creativity tests are not perfect measures of the thing they are measuring. “You are looking at performance on a test and it’s not perfectly indicative of what a person can or will do in real life,” he said. Creativity involves spontaneity and intrinsic motivation—things which are a bit hard to assess on a test.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/neuroscience-shows-that-our-gut-instincts-about-only-children-are-right?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

*
WHAT ORDINARY RUSSIANS SAY ABOUT THE KURSK INCURSION

Lera Burlakova interviewed several in occupied Kursk. This is what she said.

Residents in the Ukrainian-occupied zone are oblivious to the Kremlin’s responsibility for their plight and appear to genuinely believe that President Vladimir Putin is unaware of what is happening in Kursk.

“He hasn’t been informed. Putin doesn’t know anything at all,” one told her. “They lie to him. They just don’t report it to him.” So where does responsibility lie? With the governor of Kursk (who in the opinion of at least one Russian civilian, should be executed for his failings.)

In their words, they blame everyone except the one actually responsible.

And yet what surprised her most was the ignorance of the Russian population about the war just over the border in Ukraine after 10 years of relentless aggression.

“They still said we were brotherly nations, living very well together, and asked, ‘Why did you do this?’ as if Ukraine started it,” Natalya said. “And you think: ‘What is wrong with you? Really? Shells are landing, drones are being launched. Everything is crashing down.’”

INSIDE KURSK

“I was struck by the number of red flags with the hammer and sickle on them,” Natalya said. “I had to question what year it was because Lenin was standing there, red flags were flying — you don’t really understand where you are at all.”

As a proudly Ukrainian journalist who has worked on the frontlines since the beginning of Russia’s aggression in 2014, Natalya thought she would feel some kind of “revenge mentality” about the incursion of Ukrainian troops into Russia.

She expected to feel a sense of “aha, now you’re experiencing what we felt,” but she didn’t.  “I was uncomfortable the entire time hearing the explosions, and I thought how foolish do you have to be to attack us and then drop bombs on your own territory? On people who are just as Russian as you?” she said. “You’ve forced them into basements, and now there are dirty children sitting there, afraid to go outside.”

She had wondered: “Wouldn’t it have been better for you if all that money had been spent on giving your children, who are now sitting in basements, a better education? Or improving your roads? All of this left a very oppressive impression.”

Natalya, along with other Ukrainian and Western journalists, has been accused by the Russian FSB of illegally crossing the border to report on areas controlled by Ukraine. Needless to say, this is a predictably myopic Kremlin interpretation of legality, not least because Russia has spent 10 years sending armed forces across the border of a state whose existence it has long recognized.

She doesn’t care about the charges, she said but worries about possible consequences elsewhere.

“I only hope other countries will not act on any decisions from a terrorist state, because I still travel around the world,” she said. “Primarily, I do it to speak on behalf of Ukraine and its people. I have been to Canada, the US, and Italy to remind them there is a war in Ukraine.”

She wants to be sure that “the world will not be searching for me if Russia hands this case over to Interpol,” she said. “We didn’t just go as journalists to see what was happening there, we went to accompany humanitarian aid for the residents of those areas. We ensured that Ukraine adhered to the Geneva Conventions.”

In any case, “a criminal case in Russia against someone in Ukraine, it can only be seen as a compliment, not a threat,” she added.

As for the fighting in Kursk, she says that Ukrainians “don’t have an occupying gene.” She adds: “This is a forced measure imposed on us by Russia. If Russia hadn’t been terrorizing our state for more than 10 years, if there had been no military aggression against us, we would have never gone there.”

https://cepa.org/article/inside-kursk-baffled-russians-blame-anyone-except-putin/

A Russian village. It would make so much sense to spend money on roads, say, than on killing Ukrainians, but dictators need wars to perpetuate their deadly grip on power.

*
SPEAKING TO YOURSELF IN THE THIRD PERSON WILL MAKE YOU WISER

We credit Socrates with the insight that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ and that to ‘know thyself’ is the path to true wisdom. But is there a right and a wrong way to go about such self-reflection?

Simple rumination – the process of churning your concerns around in your head – isn’t the answer. It’s likely to cause you to become stuck in the rut of your own thoughts and immersed in the emotions that might be leading you astray. 

Certainly, research has shown that people who are prone to rumination also often suffer from impaired decision making under pressure, and are at a substantially increased risk of depression.

Instead, the scientific research suggests that you should adopt an ancient rhetorical method favored by the likes of Julius Caesar and known as ‘illeism’ – or speaking about yourself in the third person (the term was coined in 1809 by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge from the Latin ille meaning ‘he, that’). If I was considering an argument that I’d had with a friend, for instance, I might start by silently thinking to myself: ‘David felt frustrated that…’ The idea is that this small change in perspective can clear your emotional fog, allowing you to see past your biases.

A bulk of research has already shown that this kind of third-person thinking can temporarily improve decision making. A preprint at PsyArxiv finds that it can also bring long-term benefits to thinking and emotional regulation. The researchers said this was ‘the first evidence that wisdom-related cognitive and affective processes can be trained in daily life, and of how to do so’.

The findings are the brainchild of the psychologist Igor Grossmann at the University of Waterloo in Canada, whose work on the psychology of wisdom was one of the inspirations for my book on intelligence and how we can make wiser decisions.

Grossmann’s aim is to build a strong experimental footing for the study of wisdom, which had long been considered too nebulous for scientific inquiry. In one of his earlier experiments, he established that it’s possible to measure wise reasoning and that, as with IQ, people’s scores matter. He did this by asking participants to discuss out-loud a personal or political dilemma, which he then scored on various elements of thinking long-considered crucial to wisdom, including: intellectual humility; taking the perspective of others; recognizing uncertainty; and having the capacity to search for a compromise. Grossmann found that these wise-reasoning scores were far better than intelligence tests at predicting emotional wellbeing, and relationship satisfaction – supporting the idea that wisdom, as defined by these qualities, constitutes a unique construct that determines how we navigate life challenges.

Working with Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan in the United States, Grossmann has also looked for ways to improve these scores – with some striking experiments demonstrating the power of illeism. In a series of laboratory experiments, they found that people tend to be humbler, and readier to consider other perspectives, when they are asked to describe problems in the third person.

Imagine, for instance, that you are arguing with your partner. Adopting a third-person perspective might help you to recognize their point of view or to accept the limits of your understanding of the problem at hand. Or imagine you are considering moving jobs. Taking the distanced perspective could help you to weigh up the benefits and the risks of the move more dispassionately.

This earlier research involved only short-term interventions, however – meaning it was far from clear whether wiser reasoning would become a long-term habit with regular practice at illeism.

To find out, Grossmann’s research team asked nearly 300 participants to describe a challenging social situation, while two independent psychologists scored them on the different aspects of wise reasoning (intellectual humility, etc). The participants then had to keep a diary for four weeks. Each day, they had to describe a situation they’d just experienced, such as a disagreement with a colleague or some bad news. Half were prompted to do so in the first-person, while the others were encouraged to describe their trials from a third-person perspective. At the end of the study, all participants repeated the wise-reasoning test.

Grossmann’s results were exactly as he’d hoped. While the control participants showed no overall change in their wise-reasoning scores, those using illeism improved in their intellectual humility, perspective-taking and capacity to find a compromise.

A further stage of the study suggested that this newfound wisdom also translated into greater emotional regulation and stability. After they had finished the four-week diary intervention, participants had to predict how their feelings of trust, frustration or anger about a close family member or friend might change over the next month – then, after that month was up, they reported back on how things had actually gone.

In line with other work on ‘affective forecasting’, the people in the control condition overestimated their positive emotions and underestimated the intensity of their negative emotions over the course of the month. In contrast, those who’d kept a third-person diary were more accurate. A closer look revealed that their negative feelings, as a whole, were more muted, and that’s why their rosy predictions were more accurate. It seems their wiser reasoning had allowed them to find better ways to cope.

I find these emotion and relationship effects particularly fascinating, considering the fact that illeism is often considered to be infantile. Just think of Elmo in the children’s TV show Sesame Street, or the intensely irritating Jimmy in the sitcom Seinfeld – hardly models of sophisticated thinking. Alternatively, it can be taken to be the sign of a narcissistic personality – the very opposite of personal wisdom. After all, Coleridge believed that it was a ruse to cover up one’s own egotism: just think of the US president’s critics who point out that Donald Trump often refers to himself in the third person. Clearly, politicians might use illeism for purely rhetorical purposes but, when applied to genuine reflection, it appears to be a powerful tool for wiser reasoning.

As the researchers point out, it would be exciting to see whether the benefits apply to other forms of decision making besides the more personal dilemmas examined in Grossmann’s study. There’s reason to think that they might. Previous experiments have shown, for instance, that rumination leads to worse choices in poker (hence why expert players strive for a detached, emotionally distanced attitude), and that greater emotional awareness and regulation can improve performance on the stock market.

In the meantime, Grossmann’s work continues to prove that the subject of wisdom is worthy of rigorous experimental study – with potential benefits for all of us. It is notoriously difficult to increase general intelligence through brain-training, but these results suggest that wiser reasoning and better decision making are within everyone’s power.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-speaking-to-yourself-in-the-third-person-makes-you-wiser

*
FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA

The nerve cell damage caused by frontotemporal dementia leads to loss of function in these brain regions, which variably cause deterioration in behavior, personality and/or difficulty with producing or comprehending language.

There are a number of different diseases that cause frontotemporal degeneration. The two most prominent are 1) a group of brain disorders involving the protein tau and 2) a group of brain disorders involving the protein called TDP43. For reasons that are not yet known, these two groups have a preference for the frontal and temporal lobes that cause dementia.

The disorders grouped under frontotemporal dementia fall into three subtypes.

Frontotemporal dementia used to be called Pick's disease after Arnold Pick, M.D., a physician who in 1892 first described a patient with distinct symptoms affecting language. Some doctors still use the term "Pick's disease." Other terms you may see used to describe frontotemporal dementia include frontotemporal disorders, frontotemporal degeneration and frontal lobe disorders.

Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), sometimes also called behavior variant FTD, is characterized by prominent changes in personality and behavior that often occur in people in their 50s and 60s, but can develop as early as their 20s or as late as their 80s. In behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, the nerve cell loss is most prominent in areas that control conduct, judgment, empathy and foresight, among other abilities.

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is the second major form of frontotemporal degeneration that affects language skills, speaking, writing and comprehension. PPA normally comes on in midlife, before age 65, but can occur in late life also. The two most distinctive forms of PPA have somewhat different symptoms:

In semantic variant of PPA, individuals lose the ability to understand or formulate words in a spoken sentence.

In nonfluent/agrammatic variant of PPA, a person’s speaking is very hesitant, labored or ungrammatical.

Both behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and PPA are far less common than Alzheimer’s disease in those over the age of 65. However, in the 45 to 65 age range, behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and PPA are nearly as common as younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Only rough estimates are available, but there may be 50,000 to 60,000 people with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and PPA in the United States, the majority of whom are between 45 and 65 years of age.

The third variant consists chiefly of difficulties with movement.

Early symptoms typically involve personality or mood changes such as depression and withdrawal, sometimes obsessive behavior and language difficulties. Many patients lose their inhibitions and exhibit antisocial behavior.

Key differences between FTD and Alzheimer's

Age at diagnosis may be an important clue.
Most people with FTD are diagnosed in their 40s and early 60s. Alzheimer's, on the other hand, grows more common with increasing age.

Memory loss tends to be a more prominent symptom in early Alzheimer's than in early FTD, although advanced FTD often causes memory loss in addition to its more characteristic effects on behavior and language.

Behavior changes are often the first noticeable symptoms in behavioral FTD, the most common form of FTD. Behavior changes are also common as Alzheimer's progresses, but they tend to occur later in the disease.

Problems with spatial orientation — for example, getting lost in familiar places — are more common in Alzheimer's than in FTD.

Problems with speech: Although people with Alzheimer's may have trouble thinking of the right word or remembering names, they tend to have less difficulty making sense when they speak, understanding the speech of others, or reading than those with FTD.

Hallucinations and delusions are relatively common as Alzheimer's progresses, but relatively uncommon in FTD.

Frontotemporal dementia inevitably gets worse over time and the speed of decline differs from person to person. For many years, individuals with frontotemporal dementia show muscle weakness and coordination problems, leaving them needing a wheelchair — or unable to leave the bed.

These muscle issues can cause problems swallowing, chewing, moving and controlling bladder and/or bowels. Eventually, people with frontotemporal degeneration die because of the physical changes that can cause skin, urinary tract and/or lung infections.

https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia/types-of-dementia/frontotemporal-dementia

PPA: Primary progressive aphasia = gradual loss of language skills. Primary progressive aphasia is a type of frontotemporal dementia.

The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (AFTD) is a nonprofit organization that provides information, education and support to those affected by frontotemporal dementia and their caregivers. Call 866.507.7222 or email info@theaftd.org to contact AFTD.




*
IS TRUMP’S SHOWING SIGNS OF FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA? (ONWARD TO THE BRIGHT FURNITURE!)

~ Justin Frank, a former Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington Medical School and author of Trump on the Couch, told David Pakman that Trump is showing signs of early frontotemporal dementia such as sniffing while talking, slurring his words, repeating himself, “word-finding” (hunting for the right word and sometimes not finding it, as when Trump meant to say “three years later” but nonsensically said, “three years lady lady lady”), and shaking his shoulders when he can’t produce the correct word. Such symptoms begin to occur in a dementia patient’s late sixties and seventies, so Trump fits the profile.

Vincent Greenwood, executive director of the Washington Center For Cognitive Therapy, says Trump is showing “confusion with increasing regularity.” Greenwood told Salon that “We all stumble over and mispronounce words occasionally. This is not what is going on with Trump. The incidence of these kinds of mistakes takes him into this realm of phonemic paraphasia, which is a sign of underlying brain damage, not just aging. Even when compared to his speech of a few years ago, you can observe a noticeable difference. When you compare it to his speech as a middle-aged man, the shift is radical and ominous.”

DeVega said Dr. Gartner advised him that, based on Trump’s speech, memory, recall, and other behaviors, he appears to be “hypomanic” and “cognitively deteriorating at a rapid rate.”
Dr. Gartner also told DeVega that “the diagnostic signs are not subtle” and would be obvious to laypeople.

Dr. Gartner has noted that during his speeches Trump appears to be spiraling into “phonemic paraphasias” which means “the substitution of non-words for words that sound similar.” Such symptoms “are not normally seen until a patient enters the moderate to severe stages of Alzheimer’s.”

Dr. Gartner told John Iadarola of The Damage Report that phonemic paraphasias is always evidence of brain damage. ALWAYS.

Dr. Gartner also described “enormous regression” in Trump’s ability to express himself. He furthermore noted that Trump’s repeated used of superlatives is a sign of dementia, an indication of his “impoverished vocabulary.” Rather than finding more appropriate adjectives, Trump’s malfunctioning brain keeps coming up with “wonderful” and “beautiful” even when such terms are completely inappropriate. For instance, Trump called Vladimir Putin’s excuse for invading Ukraine and mass-murdering Ukrainian children and their mothers “wonderful.”

Dr. Gartner noted that Trump also exhibits “semantic paraphasia” which involves choosing the incorrect words, such as Trump saying, “I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges of that investigation.”

Another sign of dementia goes beyond forgetting and mixing up names, to mixing up “generations.” The Dementia Care Society says “mixing up people and generations” is a sign of dementia.

We have seen this repeatedly with Trump:

When Trump said there were “airports” during the Revolutionary War.

When Trump said we are in danger of entering World War II

When Trump said homelessness is “a phenomenon that started two years ago.”

When Trump said his father was born in Germany but it was his grandfather. No member of Trump’s family has lived in Germany since 1904.

Michael Wolff observed that Trump frequently didn’t recognize old friends of his. That is a far cry from just forgetting or confusing their names. When my elderly mother suffered with dementia, at one point she didn’t recognize me, her eldest son. That was a flooring realization for me, a hammer blow.

In my opinion, while being a layperson in this regard, the single biggest sign of dementia is not forgetting or confusing names, but having a loved one or close acquaintance replaced by a blank. And there are many such blanks in Trump’s rapidly deteriorating brain.

When Trump forgot his anti-immigrant agenda and told a Wisconsin audience, “If illegal aliens invade your home, we will deport you!”

When Trump gave great credit to Joe Biden by telling the same Wisconsin audience, “Three years ago we were a great nation.” Apparently Trump has forgotten when he left office, since Joe Biden is in the fourth year of his presidency.

When Trump gave great credit to Barack Obama by saying the problem with illegal immigrants entering the US was fixed in 2016. Apparently Trump has also forgotten that he became president in 2017. And of course no one has “fixed” the problem.

When Trump said the Twin Towers were attacked on “7-11” confusing the convenience store chain with 9-11.

When Trump said during a rally in Dayton that Joe Biden ran against and defeated Barack Obama: “Joe Biden won against Barack Hussein Obama, has anyone ever heard of him? Every swing state, Biden beat Obama, but in every other state, he got killed.” This isn’t just confusing two people, this is Trump’s brain making up nonsense. And quite obviously, if Biden won only the swing states he would have lost the election in a landslide. So the whole spiel is deranged.

Melania became ‘Mercedes’ after Trump paused and apparently struggled to remember his wife’s name, then failed and came back with an approximation.

Trump even got his own name wrong before correcting himself: “…Donald PRUMP, Donald Trump, I love Donald Trump.” When Trump realizes that he got a word wrong, he will often repeat it, another sign of dementia.

After once again praising the dictators Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un during a November 8 rally in Florida, Trump said Kim Jong-un leads a country of 1.4 billion people. North Korea has a population of just 26 million. Apparently, Donnie Dementia thinks Kim Jong-un is the powerful dictator of China.

Trump called Argentina a “great guy” who loves Trump.

Trump apparently forgot who the Taliban are, or doesn’t care, and praised a Taliban leader for calling Trump “your highness.”

Stock market became SLOCK ROCKET. During this speech Trump paused, then came back with the correct term. So at times he catches his mistakes and corrects them, but usually not.

Trump confuses words that no one with a normal brain would confuse: “They sacrificed every day for the FURNITURE, future.”


Oriana:

It’s possible to have mixed dementia, with two different types of dementia gradually destroying the brain.

There are many instances of Trump’s utterance that indicate dementia —“They [the immigrants] are eating the cats, they are eating the dogs, they are eating America’s pets” — but why carry on. It may be amusing at first, but soon becomes depressing. Anyone else, even an applicant for a janitor, would be quickly dismissed, but here someone in charge of our furniture, I mean future, is campaigning to be president.

Maybe there is indeed such a thing as a collective delusionality — or call it collective insanity — that afflicts enough people to let this sorry spectacle continue. They aren’t disturbed that the man often described as “the most powerful man in the world” (if he becomes the president) describes the missile defense system as ““Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.”

And thus we go, not with a whimper but a bang — sorry, I mean “Boom.”

Trump 2024


*
COLLECTIVE PATHOLOGY

As for Trump’s MAGA people and other supporters, in a healthy relationship, they would become concerned for Trump and realize that what appears to be his worsening cognition and other behavior actually makes him not qualified for the presidency and that he should seek help. Instead, the worse Trump’s behavior becomes the more they seem to adore him. This is textbook collective pathology.

As a translator, editor and publisher of poems about the Holocaust, I must note that the collective pathology of Nazi Germany, in which Hitler expressed similar pathologies and received wild applause and adulation in return, led to the destruction of Germany. Ditto for Mussolini and Italy. Ditto for Hirohito and Japan. Ditto for Putin, who is in the process of destroying Russia with his murderous invasion of Ukraine.

There is invariably a severe price to be paid for adulating a psychopathic leader.
And things are only going to get worse, where Trump is concerned:

I don’t want to say the mainstream media is covering up Trump’s cognitive disability, but they certainly aren’t covering it like the five-alarm fire it is. The media will show Trump being combative and saying something outrageous and his audience reacting to it — but they are consistently not showing the parts of Trump’s speeches and interviews where his eyes go blank, his jaw goes slack, he looks confused, and slurs words, uses non-words, can’t finish a sentence, rambles, perseverates, confabulates and babbles incoherently. That’s what should make the 6 o’clock news. Doesn’t the media have a duty to warn the public that the man who wants the nuclear codes back (not including the ones he probably stole) is publicly displaying unimpeachable evidence of a broken and deteriorating brain?

Yes, and a brain that was sociopathic and psychopathic to begin with, and is now getting worse and worse. Much worse.
.
The obvious comparison here is Ronald Reagan. I am no fan of Reagan and do not understand the worship of that man. We now have confirmation that towards the end of his presidency that he was basically senile. The United States and the world were very lucky that Reagan was surrounded, mostly, by very serious people who were institutionalists. By comparison, Donald Trump is surrounded by fascists, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, plutocrats, corporatists, and other malign actors who are going to take advantage of the situation to get what they want.

When Trump can remember being president, it is having been President of the United Shersh, the United Stage, etc.

This what happens when millions of Americans support a demented sociopath. There is only one solution: to keep this demented sociopath from becoming president again, with our votes, then to begin the hard and difficult work of shoring up our system of democracy against future attacks by more competent sociopaths. — Michael R. Burch

https://kenmcgoogan.com/2024/05/17/trump-dementia-collective-pathology/

*
GENERAL MCMASTER’S ACCOUNT OF THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE

Until now, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has held his fire about his stint in the Trump White House. McMaster served with distinction in key American conflicts of the past decades: the Gulf War, the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, but as McMaster recounts in his new book, “At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House,” in some ways, his most challenging tour as a soldier was his last one: serving as the national security adviser to a notoriously mercurial president.

In his blistering, insightful account of his time in the Trump White House, McMaster describes meetings in the Oval Office as “exercises in competitive sycophancy” during which Trump’s advisers would flatter the president by saying stuff like, “Your instincts are always right” or, “No one has ever been treated so badly by the press.” Meanwhile, Trump would say “outlandish” things like, “Why don’t we just bomb the drugs?” in Mexico or, “Why don’t we take out the whole North Korean Army during one of their parades?”

McMaster’s book, which focuses on Trump’s tenure as commander in chief, comes at a particularly timely moment, just as many Americans start to really consider whether Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris would make a better commander in chief.

In her acceptance speech for her nomination to the presidency at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Harris spent some of her speech trying to demonstrate her national security credentials. She talked, for instance, about the war in Gaza, saying that as president she would stand firm on the US alliance with Israel to “ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself.” Harris also said that the Palestinians have “their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.” With this speech, Harris was trying to thread a delicate needle between Americans who strongly oppose the war — many of them in her own party — and those who back Israel wholeheartedly.

McMaster provides unique detail on Trump’s approach to foreign policy and — similarly to his successor in the national security adviser role, former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton, who wrote scathingly about the former president in a book published in 2020 — his account is likely to do little to reassure US allies about the prospects of a second Trump term.

In addition to being a highly decorated officer, McMaster also has a doctorate in history. His first book, “Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam,” recounted the dismal history of how the top American generals told President Lyndon Johnson only what they thought he wanted to hear about the Vietnam War, rather than giving him their best military advice about how the conflict was going and the full range of policy options that were open to their commander in chief.

‘TELL TRUMP WHAT HE DIDN’T WANT TO HEAR’

McMaster wasn’t going to make the same mistake after Trump tapped him to be his national security adviser in February 2017. He writes, “I knew that to fulfill my duty, I would have to tell Trump what he didn’t want to hear.” This helps explain why McMaster lasted just over a year in the job. (Disclosure: I have known McMaster professionally since 2010, when he ran an anti-corruption task force in Afghanistan.)

One subject was particularly neuralgic for Trump: Russia. McMaster astutely observes, “I wished that Trump could separate the issue of Russian election meddling from the legitimacy of his presidency. He could have said, ‘Yes, they attacked the election. But Russia doesn’t care who wins our elections. What they want to do is pit Americans against one another… .’ McMaster writes that the “fragility” of Trump’s ego and “his deep sense of aggrievement” would never allow him to make this kind of distinction.

McMaster felt it was his “duty” to point out to Trump that Russian President Vladimir Putin “was not and would never be Trump’s friend.” McMaster warned Trump that Putin is “the best liar in the world” and would try to “play” Trump to get what he wanted and manipulate him with “ambiguous promises of a ‘better relationship.’

The final straw that ended McMaster’s tenure in the White House seems to have been when he publicly said on February 17, 2018, at the Munich Security Forum — the annual gathering of top Western foreign policy officials — that the indictment of a group of Russian intelligence officers for their interference in the 2016 US presidential election was “inconvertible” evidence of Russian meddling in that election.

Trump soon tweeted, “General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians….” Once the commander-in-chief started publicly castigating him on Twitter, it was obvious that McMaster would not be long for the White House.
McMaster’s account of the Trump team is not pretty. Steve Bannon, Trump’s “chief strategist” early in the presidency, is portrayed as a “fawning court jester” who played “on Trump’s anxiety and sense of beleaguerment … with stories, mainly about who was out to get him and what he could do to ‘counterpunch.’”

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis were often at odds with Trump, McMaster says. Tillerson, who had previously run Exxon, is portrayed as inaccessible to top officials in Trump’s administration, while Mattis is described as an obstructionist. McMaster writes that Tillerson and Mattis viewed Trump as “dangerous” and seemed to construe their roles as if “Trump was an emergency and that anyone abetting him was an adversary.” Trump himself also contributed to the dysfunction: “He enjoyed and contributed to interpersonal drama in the White House and across the administration.”

Also, McMaster wasn’t on the same page as his boss on some key foreign policy issues. McMaster enumerates those issues as “allies, authoritarians, and Afghanistan.” Trump denigrated American allies whom he saw as “freeloaders”; he embraced authoritarian rulers who McMaster despised; and while Trump largely believed Afghanistan was a lost cause, McMaster thought there was a path forward for the country, and he pushed for a more significant US commitment there, while simultaneously blocking a cockamamie notion by Bannon to turn the conduct of the Afghan war over to American private military contractors.

McMaster credits Trump on Syria and China

McMaster does give Trump his due for some sound foreign policy decisions. Unlike President Barack Obama, who had dithered over his own “red line” when the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against civilians, Trump acted decisively when Assad used chemical weapons in early April 2017, killing dozens of civilians. Trump responded by ordering airstrikes against the Syrian airbase where the chemical weapons strike was launched from.

And on the most important foreign policy issue, China, McMaster concluded that Trump made the right decisions. McMaster oversaw Trump’s 2017 national security strategy document, which took a tougher public stance on China than previous administrations, calling the Chinese out for stealing US intellectual property every year valued at “hundreds of billions of dollars” while noting that China “is building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own.” Briefed by McMaster on the new national security strategy, Trump responded, “This is fantastic,” and asked for similar language in his upcoming speeches.

The assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, seems to have marked a decisive break from Trump for McMaster, who, in a previous book published in 2020, “Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World,” had avoided direct criticisms of his former commander in chief.
By contrast, in his new book, McMaster writes that in the aftermath of his 2020 electoral defeat, Trump’s “ego and love of self… drove him to abandon his oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution,’ a president’s highest obligation.” McMaster adds, “The attack on the US Capitol stained our image, and it will take a long-term effort to restore what Donald Trump, his enablers, and those they encouraged took from us that day.”

So, what might this all mean for a second Trump term, if there is one? The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 outlines plans for Trump loyalists to replace numerous career foreign service officers and intelligence officials. Those loyalists would likely tell Trump precisely what he wants to hear rather than give the president their unvarnished assessments of the national security challenges facing the US, which is the proper role of American national security professionals.
Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but the fact that CNN found at least 140 people who worked for Trump are involved in the project speaks for itself.  And in a second Trump term, there would likely be no McMasters to tell Trump what he doesn’t want to hear; in fact, that’s kind of the whole point of Project 2025, which would replace as many as 50,000 workers in the federal government with Trump loyalists. ~

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/politics/mcmaster-trump-book-account/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

*
DO RUSSIANS THINK DIFFERENTLY?

1, “Might makes right” — Russian people tend to respect physical force as the most important argument. As a hero of a famous Russian movie said, “force is in the truth”. This phrase can be deciphered as “when a man thinks he has a right for something, no matter what the circumstances are, he can use any means to realize his interests”. As a result, toxic masculinity dominates Russian society, with “manly” men being expected to join the police or military, and women being considered unable to exist without physically stronger men “protecting” them.

2. Isolationist mentality — “besieged fortress syndrome” is an essential part of Russian culture. Everyone except the closest circle of friends and relatives is automatically perceived as an enemy, not only foreigners, but Russians, too. Everything foreign and unknown is automatically considered to be evil and dangerous, and asking unknown people for help is seen as dangerous and shameful.

3. Life as a zero-sum game — Russians tend to lack the concept of mutual benefit. A contract is seen only as a temporary solution before one side uses it at the expense of the other one. People who have problems are to be exploited for personal profit, because in the opposite case they could exploit you if you had similar problems.

4. Lack of self-reflection — an average Russian doesn’t think much about his/her ability to make a change in the world. Russians usually perceive events in their lives as consequences of some unstoppable forces of nature going into action, and not as results of human decisions. As a result, the concept of guilt and acknowledgement of personal failures is very rare in Russian culture. It is always circumstances and other people which are to be blamed, not one’s own decisions.

5. Sanctity of power — as a result of the first point I mentioned, Russians tend to recognize authority not because it is legitimate, but because it can be dangerous to disagree with it. A weak ruler for Russians is the one who consults with his subjects where a strong one would bend everyone to his will without asking. Humane and down-to-earth rulers are traditionally despised by Russian people, meanwhile tyrants and megalomaniacs are praised, even if one’s own life is threatened by them.

These particularities of Russian mentality explain a lot of events in Russian history, as well as the causes of today’s situation. ~ Simon Jemženko

**
The Russian mindset defies Western categorization. A centuries-old proverb, "What is good for a Russian is death for a German," remains relevant today, with the image of a "German" representing any Western progressive liberal individual. The Russian way of thinking is shaped by a unique blend of historical, cultural, and societal factors.

One key aspect is the lingering legacy of serfdom, reinforced by the Tsarist and Soviet regimes' adherence to the Horde-Khan caste principle. This has instilled a mentality of subjugation, passivity, and apathy, making Russians more likely to endure hardship, including extreme poverty and violence, without resistance. The 1920s famine, which led to cannibalism in some areas, is a grim example of this phenomenon.

Another factor is the "collective" or "environment" that stifles individuality, independence, and critical thinking. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Bolshevik-Communist ideology have perpetuated a culture of conformity, suppressing dissent and creativity. This has resulted in a society where people prioritize avoiding standing out over personal growth and self-expression.

The Russian authorities' impunity and lack of accountability have fostered a culture of lawlessness and disregard for human life. The country's history is marred by atrocities, including the Soviet regime's forced labor camps, Stalin's purges, and Putin's crackdown on dissent. Many Russians seem to take pride in these actions or, at the very least, do not condemn them.

This mindset is exemplified by the phrase "I don't need to think – the state will think for me," uttered by a typical Russian in an interview. It highlights the widespread acceptance of authoritarianism and the relinquishing of personal responsibility. Russians often prioritize their "duty" to the state over their own well-being, even if it means sacrificing their lives in wars or toiling in menial jobs for meager wages.

The dehumanizing treatment of citizens is encapsulated in the quote "Do not pity people – women will give birth to more" attributed to Georgy Zhukov, a Soviet military leader. This callous attitude towards human life is a hallmark of the Russian anti-civilization, which has been masquerading as a victimized nation while hiding its true nature behind propaganda and historical revisionism.

In 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine exposed the world to the true essence of the Soviet man, or "Homo Soveticus." This entity is driven by distorted human values, which become increasingly apparent as one ascends Maslow's hierarchy of needs. At the most basic level, Russians may appear to be driven by universal human values, but as one reaches the higher levels, the distortions become more pronounced, ultimately leading to a complete rejection of human values.

In conclusion, the Russian mindset is a product of a unique blend of historical, cultural, and societal factors, which have resulted in a society that prioritizes conformity, authoritarianism, and the suppression of individuality. This anti-civilization has been hiding in plain sight, masquerading as a victimized nation, but its true nature has been exposed by recent events. ~ Paweł Yatsuk, Quora

**
Dima Vorobiev on Russian mentality

Russians are many and very diverse. Yet, if we boil the Russian civilization down to the bare-bone foundation, we find three things that set us apart from the rest:

We are big
We are marginal
We are a fusion

1. Bigness
It’s not only the endless expanses. It’s our national idea. Power is everything, and the bigger you are, the more power you’ve got. There have been some mavericks, idealists and morons who try to question this, but no one listens to them.

Hence, the virtue of growing—hello, Crimea!—and the curse of shrinking. Here lies the deep reason behind President Putin’s famous complaint about the dismantling of the USSR as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Putin wouldn’t become President and one of the wealthiest men on earth if the USSR had survived. Yet, shrinking to about 4/5 of what we were before 1991 feels awfully wrong in every Russian’s mind.

2. Marginality
We live at the edge of human habitation. It’s cold, mostly arid lands, far from the oldest centers of civilization and trade routes. Most of our population dwelled through centuries in isolation from strangers. Latest trends arrived late in our neck of the woods, often transformed in the transit by many intermediaries. Many ideas and artifacts found their ultimate refuge here bent out of shape after a long journey, adopted by us, nurtured back to life—and then, big and mighty, presented back to the astonished world in new Russian clothes. Orthodoxy, Imperial state-building, Communism, propaganda, arts, the craft of war, you name it.

Hence, the jittery reaction when someone tries to rub our faces in the derivativeness of many things we are proud of. Here lies also the cardinal error of the US in the post-Soviet era: they ignored us. It’s bad enough to be defeated in the Cold War—but being dismissed to insignificance by the former enemy is simply something that cannot be tolerated!

My assumption is that any new alliance with the US won’t happen before a new generation enters our politics. The one that doesn’t carry the deep trauma of feeling irrelevant when the Americans bombed Serbia in the 1990s.

3. Fusion
Russia is a salad bowl of wildly different communities that often have very little contact with each other. This is the legacy of the Empire that gobbled up many faraway lands and disparate ethnicities, and didn’t do a good job of melting them together in one nation.

The span is enormous, from cosmopolitan daiquiri libertarians to forest recluses who went off the grid for religious reasons even before the Soviet rule crumbled to pieces. They speak the same language but are universes apart. Go and try to find a common denominator for these.
This makes us naturally curious about trying new things and new ideas. Dostoyevsky called it a universal otzývvchivost (“responsiveness”, “mirroring”, “acceptance”). He didn’t see the anti-Semitic pogroms and the Gulag, but he’s right that bigotry never tried to make itself deep in our tradition.

The picture below: Russian cosplayers demonstrate universal responsiveness with Turkic shields and Frankish armor decorated with Marxist (i.e. Jewish-German) garbs.

*
I’m a Russian-speaking Ukrainian who has been to Russia, so take this with a grain of salt. This “answer” is my personal experience of Russians in Russia and abroad.

I personally doubt the existence of a Russian mentality. Instead, I would say that there is a mentality of the society IN Russia.

Whenever I’ve explored Russian emigré communities in the west, the Russians there have always been extremely individualistic and proactive.

Contrast that with the Society of Russia, which is very docile, apathetic, and “I’ll take what I can get”.

In my opinion, the different environments of the West (open, free, transparent and accountable) and Russia (autocratic, hierarchical, uniform and oppressive) have led to different societies, and the simple trait of being Russian doesn’t automatically make you a docile, beaten dog as many Russians are portrayed in the West. ~ One Proud Severin, Quora

Oriana:

In addition, it is worth noting that immigrants are not a random sample of the native population. They tend to be more enterprising than those who stay behind. They are often healthier and more resilient. Not everyone can withstand the ordeals of being an immigrant. A significant portion of them decide they can't take it, and return. So we mustn't forget that there is a self-selection going on. 

Another factor is the power of a different environment. Becoming an immigrant changes you in a myriad of ways. You are forced to be more enterprising and flexible just to survive. Without meaning to, you become a different person. That's one of the reasons that most people "can't go home again" -- you've become a different person, shaped by a different environment.

*
WHAT MAKES A GOOD LIFE: REVELATORY FINDINGS OF HARVARD 75-YEAR STUDY

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge,” Bertrand Russell wrote in his 1925 treatise on the nature of the good life and how we limit our happiness. For the whole of human history up to that point, such questions had been left entirely to his ilk — the philosophers — and perhaps to the occasional poet.

By the following decade, a team of visionary researchers at Harvard had enlisted the tools of science in wresting tangible, measurable, actionable answers to this perennial question of the good life. So began the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard Medical School, better known as the Grant Study — the longest-running study of human happiness. Beginning in 1938 as a counterpoint to the disease model of medicine, the ongoing research set out to illuminate the conditions that enhance well-being by following the lives of 268 healthy sophomores from the Harvard classes between 1939 and 1944.It was a project revolutionary in both ambition and impact, nothing like it done before or since.

For some necessary perspective on medicine in the 1930s: Having not yet uncovered the structure of DNA, we knew close to nothing about genetics; mental health was a fringe concern of the profession, with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders still two decades away; the microbiome was an inconceivable flight of fancy. Little progress had been made since Walt Whitman’s prescient case for the grossly underserved human factors in healthcare and the question of what makes for a good life was cautiously left to philosophy.
It’s hard for the modern mind to grasp just how daring it was for physicians to attempt to address it.

But that’s precisely what the Harvard team did. There are, of course, glaring limitations to the study — ones that tell the lamentable story of our cultural history: the original subjects were privileged white men. Nonetheless, the findings furnish invaluable insight into the core dimensions of human happiness and life satisfaction: who lives to ninety and why, what predicts self-actualization and career success, how the interplay of nature and nurture shapes who we become.

https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/08/23/harvard-grant-study-robert-waldinger-ted/

*
EMBRACING CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS HELPS US LIVE LONGER, HAPPIER

When scientists began tracking the health of 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 during the Great Depression, they hoped the longitudinal study would reveal clues to leading healthy and happy lives.

They got more than they wanted.

After following the surviving Crimson men for nearly 80 years as part of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the world’s longest studies of adult life, researchers have collected a cornucopia of data on their physical and mental health.’

Of the original Harvard cohort recruited as part of the Grant Study, only 19 are still alive, all in their mid-90s. Among the original recruits were eventual President John F. Kennedy and longtime Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. (Women weren’t in the original study because the College was still all male.)

In addition, scientists eventually expanded their research to include the men’s offspring, who now number 1,300 and are in their 50s and 60s, to find out how early-life experiences affect health and aging over time. Some participants went on to become successful businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and others ended up as schizophrenics or alcoholics, but not on inevitable tracks.

During the intervening decades, the control groups have expanded. In the 1970s, 456 Boston inner-city residents were enlisted as part of the Glueck Study, and 40 of them are still alive. More than a decade ago, researchers began including wives in the Grant and Glueck studies.

Over the years, researchers have studied the participants’ health trajectories and their broader lives, including their triumphs and failures in careers and marriage, and the finding have produced startling lessons, and not only for the researchers.

“The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” said Robert Waldinger, director of the study, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.”

Close relationships, more than money or fame, are what keep people happy throughout their lives, the study revealed. Those ties protect people from life’s discontents, help to delay mental and physical decline, and are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes. That finding proved true across the board among both the Harvard men and the inner-city participants.

The long-term research has received funding from private foundations, but has been financed largely by grants from the National Institutes of Health, first through the National Institute of Mental Health, and more recently through the National Institute on Aging.

Researchers who have pored through data, including vast medical records and hundreds of in-person interviews and questionnaires, found a strong correlation between men’s flourishing lives and their relationships with family, friends, and community. Several studies found that people’s level of satisfaction with their relationships at age 50 was a better predictor of physical health than their cholesterol levels were.

“When we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old,” said Waldinger in a popular TED Talk. “It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.”

He recorded his TED talk, titled “What Makes a Good Life? Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness,” in 2015, and it has been viewed 13,000,000 times.

The researchers also found that marital satisfaction has a protective effect on people’s mental health. Part of a study found that people who had happy marriages in their 80s reported that their moods didn’t suffer even on the days when they had more physical pain. Those who had unhappy marriages felt both more emotional and physical pain.

Those who kept warm relationships got to live longer and happier, said Waldinger, and the loners often died earlier. “Loneliness kills,” he said. “It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.”
According to the study, those who lived longer and enjoyed sound health avoided smoking and alcohol in excess. Researchers also found that those with strong social support experienced less mental deterioration as they aged.

In part of a recent study, researchers found that women who felt securely attached to their partners were less depressed and more happy in their relationships two-and-a-half years later, and also had better memory functions than those with frequent marital conflicts.

“Good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains,” said Waldinger in his TED talk. “And those good relationships, they don’t have to be smooth all the time. Some of our octogenarian couples could bicker with each other day in and day out, but as long as they felt that they could really count on the other when the going got tough, those arguments didn’t take a toll on their memories.”

Since aging starts at birth, people should start taking care of themselves at every stage of life, the researchers say.

“Aging is a continuous process,” Waldinger said. “You can see how people can start to differ in their health trajectory in their 30s, so that by taking good care of yourself early in life you can set yourself on a better course for aging. The best advice I can give is ‘Take care of your body as though you were going to need it for 100 years,’ because you might.”

The study, like its remaining original subjects, has had a long life, spanning four directors, whose tenures reflected their medical interests and views of the time.

Under the first director, Clark Heath, who stayed from 1938 until 1954, the study mirrored the era’s dominant view of genetics and biological determinism. Early researchers believed that physical constitution, intellectual ability, and personality traits determined adult development. They made detailed anthropometric measurements of skulls, brow bridges, and moles, wrote in-depth notes on the functioning of major organs, examined brain activity through electroencephalograms, and even analyzed the men’s handwriting.

Now, researchers draw men’s blood for DNA testing and put them into MRI scanners to examine organs and tissues in their bodies, procedures that would have sounded like science fiction back in 1938. In that sense, the study itself represents a history of the changes that life brings.

Psychiatrist George Vaillant, who joined the team as a researcher in 1966, led the study from 1972 until 2004. Trained as a psychoanalyst, Vaillant emphasized the role of relationships, and came to recognize the crucial role they played in people living long and pleasant lives.

In a book called “Aging Well,” Vaillant wrote that six factors predicted healthy aging for the Harvard men: physical activity, absence of alcohol abuse and smoking, having mature mechanisms to cope with life’s ups and downs, and enjoying both a healthy weight and a stable marriage. For the inner-city men, education was an additional factor. “The more education the inner city men obtained,” wrote Vaillant, “the more likely they were to stop smoking, eat sensibly, and use alcohol in moderation.”

Vaillant’s research highlighted the role of these protective factors in healthy aging. The more factors the subjects had in place, the better the odds they had for longer, happier lives.
“When the study began, nobody cared about empathy or attachment,” said Vaillant. “But the key to healthy aging is relationships, relationships, relationships.”

The study showed that the role of genetics and long-lived ancestors proved less important to longevity than the level of satisfaction with relationships in midlife, now recognized as a good predictor of healthy aging. The research also debunked the idea that people’s personalities “set like plaster” by age 30 and cannot be changed.

“Those who were clearly train wrecks when they were in their 20s or 25s turned out to be wonderful octogenarians,” he said. “On the other hand, alcoholism and major depression could take people who started life as stars and leave them at the end of their lives as train wrecks.”’

The study’s fourth director, Waldinger has expanded research to the wives and children of the original men. That is the second-generation study, and Waldinger hopes to expand it into the third and fourth generations. “It will probably never be replicated,” he said of the lengthy research, adding that there is yet more to learn.

“We’re trying to see how people manage stress, whether their bodies are in a sort of chronic ‘fight or flight’ mode,” Waldinger said. “We want to find out how it is that a difficult childhood reaches across decades to break down the body in middle age and later.”

Lara Tang ’18, a human and evolutionary biology concentrator who recently joined the team as a research assistant, relishes the opportunity to help find some of those answers. She joined the effort after coming across Waldinger’s TED talk in one of her classes.

“That motivated me to do more research on adult development,” said Tang. “I want to see how childhood experiences affect developments of physical health, mental health, and happiness later in life.”

Asked what lessons he has learned from the study, Waldinger, who is a Zen priest, said he practices meditation daily and invests time and energy in his relationships, more than before.
“It’s easy to get isolated, to get caught up in work and not remembering, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen these friends in a long time,’ ” Waldinger said. “So I try to pay more attention to my relationships than I used to.”

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/

*
KIDS NEED STRUCTURE MORE THAN WARMTH ACCORDING TO A TOP CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST

Children need both affection and structure in order to develop into secure, happy adults.

But if parents can only provide one, it should be structure, said Lisa Damour, a psychologist who specializes in adolescent girls, and the author of Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood.

“They can get warmth from their teachers, from their friends’ parents, but they can only get structure from parents,” Damour said in a conversation with Kevin Delaney, Quartz’s editor-in-chief, at Quartz’s New York office on July 26, 2017.

That contradicts many of the messages parents are sent through popular culture and parenting guides. But Damour, who also writes for the New York Times, said studies bear it out. 

Children who are raised in a stern, business-like way may be less happy as adults, but they’ll have the tools they need to function. Children raised without discipline or rules can be stunted and ill-equipped for adulthood.

The worst outcomes come when children are raised without either, and they run the risk of delinquency, she said. It’s far better to make sure children have both. “They need to feel loved, and they need to know the rules,” she said. “That’s your job” as parents.

Adolescents actually want structure from their parents, despite their protestations to the contrary. Permissiveness and inconsistency from parents can be unsettling and provoke anxiety, she said.

“Being a teenager feels like you’re out of control and you’re surrounded by people who are out of control,” she said. “You don’t want parents to be out of control.”

Damour—the mother of her own teenage daughter—says she gives parents few hard-and-fast rules in her practice. But she does offer some advice on how to raise teens:

Frame rules around safety. Kids are more apt to follow guidelines if they understand the rules’ purpose is to keep them safe. Insisting they obey for reasons of morality or hierarchy (eg “because I’m your father!”) is more likely to backfire.

Don’t underestimate the power of apologizing. It tells teenagers they’re respected, and it helps builds trust.

Stress is normal part of growing up, and it helps teens grow and become resilient. It becomes a problem when they have no downtime, or opportunities to relax.

Technology should be introduced to kids as late as possible, and be kept out of their bedrooms. Videogames, social media and the internet demand their attention—which makes technology the enemy of the sleep which is critical for teens’ health, Damour said. “You may lose the battle, but I’d rather you lose the battle with a 17-year old than a 13-year old.

Ultimately, she said, parents are the best judge of what’s best for their children. “There’s a million ways to get this right.”

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/kids-need-structure-more-than-warmth-from-their-parents-according-to-a-top-child-psychologist


*
WHY WE DREAM

People have pondered whether dreams have a purpose throughout human history. Modern scientists are fascinated with this question, too.

For a long time, the science of dreams has oscillated between fringe research and the mainstream. However, creative study designs and new technology are transforming it into an exciting and serious research niche.

Here are four recent breakthroughs that may pave the way for a greater understanding of dreaming.

Lucid Dreams

In 2021, an international study showed that two-way communication between a lucid dreamer and a researcher in the lab was possible. In 2024, another study built on this by training lucid dreamers to control a virtual car from within their dreams.

The 12 dreamers in the experiment made slight muscle twitches, which sent a signal to a computer to make the virtual vehicle move forward or turn. Signals were sent back to the dreamers to inform them of obstacles to try and avoid. Some could move the car well, but others, no matter how hard they tried, could not.

While fascinating, it is still unknown how such technology could be used in everyday life. The small sample of this study, in part owing to the rarity of skilled lucid dreamers, limits the conclusions we can take from it. However, the findings suggest that it may be possible (at least with practice) for some people to make decisions from inside a dream and communicate them to the outside world.

In 2021, an international study showed that two-way communication between a lucid dreamer and a researcher in the lab was possible. In 2024, another study built on this by training lucid dreamers to control a virtual car from within their dreams.

The 12 dreamers in the experiment made slight muscle twitches, which sent a signal to a computer to make the virtual vehicle move forward or turn. Signals were sent back to the dreamers to inform them of obstacles to try and avoid. Some could move the car well, but others, no matter how hard they tried, could not.

While fascinating, it is still unknown how such technology could be used in everyday life. The small sample of this study, in part owing to the rarity of skilled lucid dreamers, limits the conclusions we can take from it. However, the findings suggest that it may be possible (at least with practice) for some people to make decisions from inside a dream and communicate them to the outside world.

WHY DO WE DREAM?

Sleep and dreams researcher Mark Blagrove from Swansea University thinks dreams were meant to be shared socially and evolved in humans to enhance emotional intelligence and empathy.

Since 2016, Blagrove has collaborated with artist Julia Lockheart in a dream discussion and illustration group. An audience member is invited to share a recent dream. Blagrove leads the discussion, while Lockheart sketches an interpretation of the dream onto the pages of Sigmund Freud’s book The Interpretation of Dreams.

His 2019 research paper showed that discussing a dream in this way can lead to increased empathy between dream sharer and listeners. Blagrove argues this could have been valuable to ancestral survival in forming significant connections with others.

Other theories about why we dream have begun to emerge in recent years, too, and some were discussed at a panel in June 2024 at the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) annual conference. For example, the embodied cognition theory of dreaming proposes that dreams prepare us for the cognitive actions of ordinary waking life.

It hasn’t been tested yet but shows a growing scientific interest in the adaptive purpose of dreams.

INSIGHTS FROM  THE LONG DREAM SERIES

Michael Schredl of the University of Mannheim in Germany is arguably the most prolific dream researcher today, having published hundreds of articles and books since his career began in the 1990s. He has been keeping a dream journal since the early 1980s. At the IASD conference, he gave a keynote talk analyzing over 12,000 of his dreams.

Overall, the patterns seemed to support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming — that our dreams are influenced by events and concerns that are happening in our waking lives.

Schredl believes he is one of the first people to look at weather patterns in dreams. He noticed a steady decline over the years of ice, snow and hail in his dreams. Interestingly, this was similar to the documented declining number of “ice days” (days when the temperature was below 0°C for 24 hours) in Germany since he has been keeping a dream journal. He joked that perhaps the effects of global warming are showing up in dreams, too, but this could also be influenced by waking concerns about such things.

Another interesting pattern was references to money in dreams. When the Deutsche Mark was the prevailing currency, it occasionally showed up in his dreams over the years, but when the German currency changed to the Euro in 2002, the number of Deutsche Mark references was replaced by references to the Euro.

Long dream series such as this are rare, but they can show us how intertwined dream content is with our waking lives.

DREAM RECALL

Some people are better at remembering their dreams than others, recalling dreams more frequently and in more detail. For a long time, researchers have tried to determine the reasons and mechanisms for this difference. They’ve looked into factors including personality and attitude towards dreams, general memory ability, and the small physiological signals that happen during certain sleep stages. So far, one of the most consistent predictors of more frequent dream recall has been a positive attitude towards dreaming; if you think dreams are important, you’re probably more motivated to try and remember them more often.

In 2022, French researcher Salomé Blain and their colleagues investigated the role of attention in dream recall, a cognitive skill which is closely connected to memory.

While their participants’ ability to recall dreams did not seem linked to working memory -- which temporarily holds information for immediate use -- participants with low dream recall were better at ignoring distracting stimuli, and vice versa.

They compared low and high dream recallers in their ability to distinguish whether two melodies (which were both played in the same ear) were different while a distracting melody was played in the opposite ear.

This suggests that people who are good at remembering dreams may be worse at filtering out irrelevant and distracting information. Hence, they may notice more of what’s happening in their mind while sleeping.

However, dream recall is a learnable skill. For example, keeping a dream journal can significantly improve dream recall, especially for people who already have quite low dream recollection.

https://www.inverse.com/science/why-do-we-dream-the-answer-may-be-weirder-than-you-think?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us


*

THE SEAGRASS THAT’S TAKING OVER THE WORLD

A meadow of Halophila stipulacea is seen in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Halophila stipulacea can form dense mats with over 6,000 blades per square meter, making it nearly impossible for other seagrass species to coexist with this invasive plant.

It started life in the Indian Ocean, hitched a ride to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal and kept pushing west. Now the fast-growing seagrass known as Halophila stipulacea is expanding in the Caribbean as waters warm, outcompeting important native grasses. It’s the definition of an invasive species.

But how bad is this globetrotter? Scientists are trying to understand the consequences of its spread because healthy seagrass is critical to ocean life—and us.

David Patriquin, a retired marine biology professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, ticks off the reasons we need healthy seagrasses. They support a wealth of species, from turtles to sharks to even birds. They’re critical nurseries for fish. They help protect the coasts during storms, each blade of grass helping to absorb and disperse the power of crashing waves. And they fight climate change by sucking carbon emissions out of the air.

“Carbon is stored in the sediments and in their roots, and it’s long-term storage,” Patriquin said. “That’s what’s important for carbon sequestration.”

In fact, seagrass is among the most efficient natural carbon sinks in the world, sequestering up to 18 percent of all oceanic carbon.

But not all seagrass is equally helpful. Newcomers can pose problems. Or they can offer unexpected benefits.

Halophila stipulacea, it turns out, does both.

Hello, Halophila

Picture a vast meadow the size of New York City’s 850-acre Central Park, but submerged and sprouting from the sea floor. Multiply that 88,000 times so it stretches from the tropics to the Arctic, and you have a lowball estimate for the current expanse of the world’s seagrass ecosystems.

Overall, seagrass habitats are contracting, buffeted by climate change, bad water quality and other woes.

But not Halophila stipulacea. It’s been gaining ground since the Suez Canal opened in Egypt in 1869. Climate change, in fact, gave it a boost.

“There had always been this barrier of how far west it could go because of the cold Atlantic water, and that’s changing now,” said Demian Willette, a professor at Loyola Marymount University and one of the world’s foremost Halophila stipulacea experts.

By 2002, it had reached Grenada. Two scientists, Hector Ruiz and David Ballantine of the University of Puerto Rico and the Smithsonian Institution, respectively, “found a tennis-court-sized patch of it near an offshore medical school,” Willette said.

Willette estimates its spread at about 22 miles per year—incredibly speedy for a marine plant.
“How’s it getting around? Probably got from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean on recreational boats … hitched a ride and came across,” Willette said. “And once it got to the Caribbean? Just between island boats. It hooks onto anchors and fishing traps.”

This is why it’s such a talented traveler: “A piece as small as four centimeters is viable and can float through the water and grow larger,” Willette said. “It doesn’t need to be in the soil. It can fragment, photosynthesize and eventually settle and land somewhere new.”

It’s unusually versatile.

“Most seagrasses are limited by how deep they can grow because of light,” Willette said. He noted that Halophila stipulacea can clump chloroplasts, the structures that perform photosynthesis in seagrasses, in parts of its body, which may help it grow in deeper, darker waters. “I’ve seen it down at 60 feet, so at 18 meters. But in the Mediterranean, they’ve measured it at over a hundred meters [deep],” he said. “Most seagrasses just can’t do that. By chance, by whatever reason, it’s just well positioned to spread very, very quickly.”

Said Lauren Olinger, a quantitative reef ecologist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Virgin Islands: “Right now, I’m just wondering if and when it’s going to reach Florida.”
Scientists have been tracking Halophila stipulacea for several decades as it supplants native species. It’s outcompeting the Caribbean species Thalassia testudinum, known as turtle grass, and Syringodium filiforme, or manatee grass.

Native turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum) is slowly consumed by the encroaching Halophila stipulacea in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Seagrasses are a primary food source for green sea turtles. Although the turtles have been observed feeding on Halophila, preliminary research suggests that they prefer native species and can locate single blades of turtle grass to munch on within vast beds of the invasive species.

One problem with that: Halophila stipulacea doesn’t appear to be as good for some fish. Willette and six other researchers published a paper in June showing that young yellowtail snappers seem to do better in native seagrasses rather than Halophila stipulacea meadows.

“Seagrass is known as a nursery, but this invasive doesn’t act like it. It’s too short,” Willette said. “Then fish don’t live in there. They don’t recruit. So it’s changing the whole fish community as well.”

Another problem: less storm protection.

“You have a storm come in, and the tall seagrass can attenuate the wave,” Willette said. “This is small seagrass: [The storm] goes right over it.”

But it’s not all bad news. Some other fish appreciate it, for instance. A 2017 study led by Olinger in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands found that its meadows supported more nocturnal carnivores, such as snappers, while it had fewer daytime carnivores and herbivores than native grasses. In another study, Willette and a colleague found both Halophila and native seagrass meadows support about the same amount of fish.

In 2023, Olinger came back to St. Thomas and noticed an overgrowth of tiny pink sponges, Desmapsamma, on Halophila beds in Brewer’s Bay.

“At the same time that I saw those pink sponges, I saw this insane abundance of juvenile angelfish,” Olinger said. “Angelfish are spongivores, so I’m thinking that maybe this Halophila is providing a surface on which these pink sponges can grow, and then they’re also being able to feed these juvenile angelfish.”

Dan Mele, a coral biologist and conservation photographer based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, has an up-close view of seagrass differences through his videography.

“When I was filming in the native seagrasses, like the long Thalassia beds, I honestly had a much harder time finding a wide array of diversity of species,” Mele said. “When I was exploring in Halophila, which are these short little stubby blades, each about the size of a pinky … I would find all these little critters, like little nudibranchs and sea slugs.”

That’s not all.

“What’s interesting is there’s actually more seagrass in the Caribbean now on places like Dominica than there was 20 years ago,” Willette said. “It’s because the invasive is occupying a place that was previously just open sand.”

Seagrass cover around Dominica doubled in just five years, from 2008 to 2013. 

Halophila gets the credit, Willette said. “It’s going everywhere.”

More seagrass in places that were previously bare sand means more carbon sequestration. Halophila stipulacea is quite good at that—and might actually help other seagrass species, not just outcompete them.

“It’s holding down the soil, secreting carbon, secreting nutrients into the soil,” Willette said. 

“My hope is that maybe the natives then start reintroducing back into those areas.”
halophila floating

Halophila stipulacea is seen floating in the water column in Dominica in 2009

It’s an ecological concept called facilitation: One species settling in an environment can set off a positive chain reaction.

It’s still a good idea to protect native seagrasses, scientists said. When they’re healthy and densely populated, there’s no room for Halophila to take over and scramble the way an ecosystem is working.

But Willette, for one, thinks differently about invasive species now than he did at the start of his career.

“These organisms are not innately mean or bad,” he said. “They’re just animals. They’re just life. They don’t know that they’re invasive. They’re just trying to complete their life cycle.”

And the research underscores an increasingly nuanced view of these species: Some really do create havoc in new places, while others don’t.

“With Halophila, it’s not so cut and dry,” said Mele, the coral biologist.

Not necessarily better. But also not unavoidably worse.

“In time, this invasive species will fit into the local ecosystems,” Willette said. “That’s my hope.”

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23082024/invasive-seagrass-species-halophila-stipulacea/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us


*
THE DINOSAUR-KILLING ASTEROID

The Chicxulub impactor event is usually misunderstood. It didn’t “kill off dinosaurs”, it was a tad worse than that. Okay, a lot worse.

The asteroid impact iself was massive, estimated at 72 teratones of TNT, that’s 72,000 gigatons, 72,000,000 megatons … or about 3,000,000 Tzar bombas worth of energy. While the impact itself was bad and certainly killed lots and lots of dinasours and other creatures, what followed was even worse.

On the first day, megastunamis swept the coasts and earthquakes shook the Earth. It was ringing like a bell for days on end, causing multiple iteration of quakes all over, killing even more. Worse still, the debris ejected by the impact came falling down through the atmosphere. The amount of debris was so vast the reentries weren’t negligible any more. The friction from reentry caused the upper atmosphere to heat up and radiate down on the ground below. According to some estimates the temperature on the ground reached those in a convection oven, 160–200°C, at least in some areas. Anything that couldn’t hide in a cave or below water risked being burned to death.

After that the soot from the many fires worldwide and the smaller debris that didn’t reenter atmosphere and emissions from volcanoes that erupted due to aforementioned earthquakes, quickly cooled the planet down and began a winter that lasted a decade. Once lush forest turned into desolate tundra and few animals of any kind survived. It was estimated no animal living on land with a weight of more than 1 kg was able to make it. Clearly all the large dinosaurs went extinct at this point, however the smaller ones had the opportunity to endure.

Some did. A few species (estimates generally speak of about 3 different species) of early avian dinosaurs made it through and populated the Earth with birds. Smaller terrestrial dinosaurs that may have survived calamity faced fierce competition from small mammals, whose populations were better suited to survive the extinction event and suffered a proportionally smaller decline, so they won out and populated the land with everything else. Water biome suffered proportionally less than land, but it was still bad enough to wipe out the large aquatic reptiles completely.

As you can see it’s not one catastrophic event, but it’s actually a series of catastrophes following one another. ~ Tomaž Vagazon, Quora

Dillard:
Atmosphere also changed. Oxygen levels went from 30% to 21% and carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide went up from the impact and the resulting volcanism. It eventually became habitable over time as the soot and dust from the atmosphere settled down on the ground or dissipated.

Tim Ward:
There’s also a theory that the Chicxulub impactor stirred up magma chambers on the opposite side of the planet, resulting in the Deccan Traps in India.

Daccan Traps at Ajanta Caves

The current consensus among the scientific community is that the extinction was primarily triggered by the Chicxulub impact event in North America, which would have produced a sunlight-blocking dust cloud that killed much of the plant life and reduced global temperature (this cooling is called an impact winter). ~ Wikipedia

Alan Thatcher:
After the dust cleared, things got very warm again. CO2 levels had shot up due to destruction of the forests and virtual cessation of photosynthesis. Surface layers of the ocean had become anoxic leading to a mass die-off of fish. The whole planet must have got rather smelly…
Dinosaurs were mesotherms. The metabolism of any survivors could not cope with such rapid temperature shifts even if they could find food.

Max Williams:
It’s probably even worse actually. Similar craters have been found of the exact same age in other continents. What seems likely is that Earth passed through the debris of a comet which had broken up in transit around the sun and experienced not just one but three or four Chixculub-scale events, spread around the globe, over a period of several hours.

As for evolution, the dinosaurs ruled the globe for 165 million years. That’s the time since they went extinct, plus another 100 million years. We’ve been around about 1 million years. We just can’t imagine how successful the dinosaurs were, compared to our human timescale.

*
HOW CHRISTIANITY CHANGED THE ROMAN EMPIRE

‘Christianity brought much greater intolerance’

Over the course of the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire fragmented into a series of post-Roman kingdoms largely dominated by ‘barbarian’ rulers. As a result, in order to come to terms with the longer-term impact of Christianity on the Roman Empire, we need to shift our focus eastwards, to the so-called Eastern Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople and the world of Byzantium.

Around the year 312, Emperor Constantine had adopted Christianity as his favored cult. Only in 380 did Theodosius I declare Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman state – the instincts of Constantine had been largely tolerant in matters of religion. The fusion of Christian faith and Roman political identity would only really culminate in Constantinople in the sixth and seventh centuries, between the accession of the emperor Justinian (527) and the death of Heraclius (641).

Christianity brought into the religious life of the Roman Empire much greater intolerance of what was deemed to be religious error (‘heresy’) and deviance. Justinian, in particular, turned the Roman Empire into a much more persecutory state. Whereas previous emperors had attempted to ban pagan sacrificial acts, for example, Justinian made it illegal to even be a pagan and introduced the death penalty for those caught making false conversions.

Under him, steady downward pressure was applied on the legal status and civil rights of heretics, Samaritans and Jews, and for the first time men were persecuted by the Roman state for homosexual acts. Anti-Jewish measures would further intensify under Heraclius, whose court presented the Christian Roman Empire as a ‘New Israel’.

At the same time, Christianization also led to much greater concern for the poor and needy than had characterized traditional Roman ideology, with emperors helping to fund hospitals and orphanages. Justinian’s legislation revealed unprecedented concern for the interests of vulnerable women, children and the disabled. The Christianisation of the Roman Empire thus ultimately served to make Roman political culture at once much more socially cohesive and integrated, as well as ever more exclusive and persecutory.

On the face of it, one might expect that Christianity would have brought immediate changes to the social landscape of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Given the apostle Paul’s view that ‘all are equal in Christ’, it would seem the natural course. But things did not turn out that way. Where slavery was concerned, for example, the earliest Christians were less interested in abolishing it than in seeing enslaved people as a model of devoted service that Christians should imitate as ‘slaves of Christ’. In the later Empire, things changed – but only a little. Christian bishops worked to free captives who had been sold into slavery by pirates and barbarians, yet Christian clergy continued to own slaves.

On other fronts, however, change was on the horizon. In Constantine’s time, the vast popularity of the ascetic movement began to produce a new kind of household: the monastery. Inhabited by monks or professed virgins, this new type of household could endure for generations by slowly co-opting new members and appointing new leaders, avoiding the complicated divisions of property that accompanied generational transitions in biological families. These households were far more durable than their biological counterparts – a few have even survived to the present day. St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai dates from the reign of Justinian, for example.

In the late fourth century, ascetic bishops such as Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom in Constantinople began to challenge the more dubious customary privileges of the Roman paterfamilias, suggesting in their sermons, for example, that men who expected their wives to be faithful to the marriage bed should themselves do the same. We also see sermons criticizing domestic violence, or sexual exploitation of the poor and the enslaved. Where domestic violence is concerned, papyri give evidence that at least some bishops did not stop at criticism, but did what they could to support women in taking abusive husbands to court. Men and women who lived outside the institution of marriage may sometimes have been freer to criticize its injustices.

‘Displays of humility became a new form of imperial ritual’

Christianity brought about significant long-term changes, but its impact was more limited in the couple of centuries after it started receiving imperial support around 312. There is no good evidence that it led to the fall of the Western Empire by draining resources, personnel or fighting spirit, as people used to think, nor did it do much to end the institution of slavery. The growth of Christianity and the Church did contribute to the decline of traditional paganism, especially public rites such as animal sacrifice, but this was a gradual process. Episodes of religious violence, whether state-sanctioned or spontaneous, such as the destruction of the great Serapeum temple in Alexandria in the early 390s, were relatively rare.

Nonetheless, the physical landscape did change, with grand churches being built, sometimes on the edges of cities rather than in their old centers, and the development of monasteries and pilgrimage sites. Individual churches acquired wealth and the growing institution also created a new elite, or provided new opportunities for existing elites. Bishops became influential figures in their regions, and sometimes even at the imperial court. Their leadership roles grew as the Empire disintegrated.

Pagan emperors had always been closely associated with the divine and this continued with the Christian God, although displays of humility became a new form of imperial ritual. Emperors were also expected to show deference to holy people, support the Church, including through legislation, and help resolve its divisions. While rulers had previously been celebrated for looking after the Roman people, Christianity made focused charity and almsgiving widespread, with ‘the poor’ being thought of as a distinct group requiring support.

The rise of religious asceticism – fasting, sexual abstinence and withdrawal from communities – challenged the expectations of Roman society and offered new options for women beyond marriage and childbearing, albeit probably only for a small minority. This reverence for chastity reinforced existing male expectations of female behavior, but the promotion of the same values for men challenged the ancient Roman double standard in sexual ethics.

‘The Church asserted itself as the successor to the pagan Empire’

In 1749, Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the Colosseum, ancient Rome’s most recognizable monument, as a shrine to Christian martyrs. An inscription made clear its role in Christian history: ‘The Flavian amphitheatre, famous for its triumphs and spectacles, dedicated to the gods of the pagans in their impious cult, redeemed by the blood of the martyrs from foul superstition.’ A central crucifix was added, surrounded by stations of the cross. Visitors should be in no doubt about the Colosseum’s true significance.

Without the Roman Empire, Christianity would surely have developed very differently. But later perspectives on the Roman Empire have themselves been profoundly informed by the ways Christians have understood their own origins. Benedict’s Colosseum offered a stark reminder of the persecution of the early Christians and of the contrast between pagan and Christian values. This initiative marked a renewed attempt on the part of the Catholic Church to assert its position as the successor to the pagan Roman Empire by appropriating the material remains of Roman antiquity for its own story. The temporal dominion of the ancient empire was merely a prequel to the morally superior spiritual dominion of the new Rome.

By putting a stop to its use as a quarry for building materials, Benedict’s intervention rescued the Colosseum, as Edward Gibbon recognized. Gibbon was somewhat skeptical about the centrality of the Colosseum, ‘a spot which persecution and fable had stained with the blood of so many Christian martyrs’, to early Christian history. Despite the stories of Christians thrown to the lions so often repeated there is no solid evidence that any Christian martyr actually died in Rome’s Colosseum.

Yet the ruined amphitheater (where countless gladiators and animals had certainly met a violent death) offered an ideal spot for visitors to Rome, Protestant as well as Catholic, to reflect on the contrast between pagan and Christian values. In the 19th century tourists savored the sense of moral superiority prompted by the ruined Colosseum. In Pictures from Italy (1846) Charles Dickens exclaimed: ‘A ruin, God be thanked, a ruin!’ But it was a ruin preserved thanks, at least in part, to Christian myth.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/head-head/how-did-christianity-change-roman-empire

*
WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS MAY STAVE OFF CANCER

Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound have transformed treatment for obesity and diabetes. Now researchers are excited about their potential impact on other conditions, including addiction and sleep apnea — and even cancer.

Scientists see this class of drugs, called GLP-1 agonists, as a breakthrough because of how they act on the brain to regulate the body’s hormones, slow digestion, and tamp down hunger. And in several recent studies, they show early promise in preventing many common cancers — including breast, colon, liver, and ovarian — known to be driven by obesity.

“It's a hopeful story, which is, frankly, what people need,” says Arif Kamal, an oncologist specializing in breast cancer as well as chief patient officer at the American Cancer Society.
Though research on GLP-1 drugs is still in its relative infancy, so far studies fairly consistently show their benefit in staving off certain cancers. One research letter published in JAMA Oncology last year, for example, suggests GLP-1 drugs might reduce the risk of colon cancer, even among people who are not overweight. A more recent analysis in JAMA Network Open suggests GLP-1s provide far more protection against cancer for diabetic patients than insulin treatments.

Another recent study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncologists meeting in June, showed both bariatric surgery and GLP-1 medications dramatically reduce the risk of the 13 obesity-related cancers. Among those who had bariatric surgery, that risk declined by 22% over 10 years compared to those who received no treatment. But among those taking GLP1 medications, risk dropped by a whopping 39%.

“And I think a 39% risk reduction is one of the most impactful risk reductions we've ever really seen,” says Kamal.

GLP-1 agonist drugs were originally developed to treat diabetes nearly two decades ago. Over the past decade, regulators started approving them as treatments for weight loss – first as liraglutide, sold under the brand Saxenda and, more recently, in the form of semaglutide or tirzepatide, under brands like Wegovy and Zepbound.

When it comes to cancer prevention, scientists are finding the link between obesity in cancer is complex and intertwined; the obesity-related cancers are heavily concentrated among organs involved in digestion and metabolism, like the liver and pancreas, for example, as well as among gynecologic cancers, including breast and uterus. Reproductive organs are highly sensitive to the hormone estrogen, which plays a role in allowing cells to grow rapidly during pregnancy, for example.

But Kamal says there’s also an especially close relationship between estrogen and cancer. “What we do know is that estrogen in particular — and possibly some other hormones, but estrogen for sure — drives the growth of many cancers,” he says. And fat cells increase production of estrogen.

That means women today are increasingly susceptible to cancer. Historically, men faced a much higher risk of developing cancers — in large part because they were more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors like smoking or drinking, Kamal says. But in recent years, the high prevalence of obesity among both men and women is closing that gender gap.

Obesity is also likely the most significant driver behind increasing cancer rates among younger adults, he says, just as tobacco was in generations past.

“Unhealthy weight is the smoking of our generation,” Kamal says.

That’s why indications that GLP-1 drugs may help slash that risk is so significant.

What’s more, that ASCO study suggests that GLP-1 drugs have a notable impact on cancer risk, even when patients don’t lose a lot of weight as a result of taking them. In other words, the medications seem to act on a number of the body’s mechanisms to reduce vulnerabilities to cancer.

“We think the protective effects of GLP-1s are probably multifactorial,” says Cindy Lin, resident physician at Case Western Reserve and co-author of the June ASCO study. “Part of it is weight [loss], but other factors may be contributing as well — better glycemic controls, anti-inflammatory effects.”

More research is necessary and inevitable — especially studies looking at the newer weight-loss formulations of GLP-1 medications, says Benjamin Liu, another resident physician at Case Western and co-author of the ASCO study.

He says he’s encouraged by the data so far. “It's very exciting to have, especially since it's more of a noninvasive strategy compared to bariatric surgery, and a lot more patients will be open to it.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/08/11/nx-s1-5003714/ozempic-wegovy-glp-1-obesity-cancer-prevention


*
SLEEP 'RESETS' NEURONS TO HELP BRAIN TAKE ON NEW MEMORIES

One of the main functions of the human brain is to create memories.

A number of lifestyle factors can help improve a person’s ability to create memories, including proper sleep.

Researchers from Cornell University have found that during sleep the hippocampus region of the brain goes ‘silent,’ allowing neurons to ‘reset’ so they can help create new memories the next day, via a mouse model.

One of the main functions of the human brain is to create memories — the ability to retain and recall information over time.

Memories allow us to remember important events in our lives, the faces of those we know, and give us the ability to learn.

Special cells in the brain called neurons help create memories, which are then stored in the hippocampus area of the brain.

“We have a bulk knowledge about sleep being better for our body to rest, for our memory to be better, but we do not yet understand all the details of how this happens,” Azahara Oliva, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University explained.

“Once we start cracking the neural processes that are important for these many different things, we could use that to reverse detrimental conditions, such as memory impairment, during sleep,” she added.

“We want to see what exactly the brain is doing during sleep that favors or disfavors memory,” Oliva said. “We [spend] about a third of our life sleeping — this is a lot of time. 

Understanding the relation between sleep and memory will provide insights into how we can tackle detrimental memory conditions.”

HOW DO NEURONS RESET DURING SLEEP?

The researchers explained that there are three main regions of the hippocampus: CA1, CA2, and CA3.

Using a mouse model, the scientists discovered that while the neurons in areas CA1 and CA3 were very active during daytime learning, those regions became “silent” while the mice slept.

“We realized there are other hippocampal states that happen during sleep where everything is silenced,” Oliva said in a press release. “The CA1 and CA3 regions that had been very active were suddenly quiet. It’s a reset of memory, and this state is generated by the middle region, CA2.”

This “silencing” of areas CA1 and CA3 allow neurons to “reset” during sleep.

“During our experience, a few neurons become highly active,” Olivia explained. “The same neurons ‘work hard’ during sleep to imprint this experience into memory. What we found is that for these neurons to be able to imprint these memories, they also need breaks or a ‘reset.’ Without these breaks, the neurons are not able to make proper memories.”

Understanding the role of the CA2 region in silencing and resetting memory circuits could lead to therapies that enhance memory consolidation and prevent further cognitive decline in patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Additionally, optimizing sleep quality through interventions like cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia could be crucial in managing these conditions.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/sleep-resets-neurons-to-help-brain-take-on-new-memories

*
HOW TO REVERSE A CAVITY (Hint: a low-carb diet)


An important tactic to reverse tooth decay is to cut down on foods and beverages with a lot of starch and/or sugar, which are heavily responsible for plaque formation and acid production. Carbohydrates provide bacteria in your mouth with the fuel needed to produce acid, therefore, you are adding “fuel to the fire” so to say? This acid causes demineralization which leads to cavities and tooth decay. When you limit both carbs and sugar, you limit the acid erosion on your teeth. ~ https://www.wholedental.com/blog/keto-diet-shown-to-improve-dental-health/

From another source:

It’s never good to hear you have a cavity at the dentist’s office — in fact, most people dread it. Cavities usually result in having a filling put in, which results in a bigger dental bill and a longer visit. Although the filling will save your tooth, there are ways you can prevent or reverse the cavity process yourself — saving both you and your dentist time.

Cavities are the direct result of the gradual tooth decaying process. Notice the word “gradual,” meaning that if you catch it early on, the process can be stopped or erased.

What Happens Inside Our Mouths?

Inside our mouths, there are hundreds of various bacteria that live on the teeth, gums, and tongue. Many of these bacteria are natural and a part of being healthy, but some are harmful and can play a major role in tooth decay.

According to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, tooth decay is defined as “the result of an infection with certain types of bacteria that use sugars in food to make acids.”

Over time, these acids build up and are responsible for cavities in our teeth.  

The harmful bacteria and sugars in our mouth are challenged by saliva and fluoride. Our saliva and the fluoride from toothpaste, water, and other sources act as an armor to protect against the dental plaque — a sticky film of bacteria and sugar. The minerals in our saliva and fluoride help repair the enamel that the bacteria’s acid erodes.

HOW DOES A CAVITY DEVELOP?

A cavity is a little hole in your tooth caused by the destruction of enamel — a hard, outer layer of your teeth. When you eat or drink foods and beverages containing sugars, acids are produced within the plaque that target your enamel — overtime withering it to nothing and creating the hole we know as a cavity.

Typically, cavities are more common in children, teens, and older adults, but really anyone can become a victim. Adults are more likely to get cavities when their gums shrink away from the teeth — recession — or if they have gum disease. Cavities are quite common in older adults because they were not exposed to the same levels of fluoride that we have now in their early years.

Cavities come in many different shapes and sizes.

How can we prevent and reverse a tooth cavity?

Don’t give up yet! — here are some easy ways that you can either prevent or reverse the destructive effects of tooth decay.

Change Your Diet

Evidence supports that a simple diet switch can actually reverse the tooth decay process.

Start by consuming foods that are rich in calcium (greens and dairy) because they will help strengthen your teeth, giving the enamel a head-start. Once you have that down, avoid sugary foods and drinks like pop, juice, and candy in order to dodge excessive plaque build-up.

Here are several other dietary tips for reversing cavities:

Add vitamins and supplements to your diet in order to aid the production of bacteria-fighting saliva and keep inflammation to a minimum.

Eat foods with natural probiotics to offset the acidic pH in bacteria between the teeth (kombucha, kefir, and other fermented foods are rich in probiotics).

Be aware of the pH values in food/drinks (drinks like coffee can imbalance pH levels and create the perfect home for harmful bacteria).

Step-Up Your Oral Care Routine

Are you doing enough to take care of your teeth? You should be doing these steps daily in order to keep up with what is recommended for preventing cavities:

Brush your teeth at least twice a day, making sure you reach all surfaces, pockets, crevices, and corners.

Floss at least once a day in order to remove any remaining food and to stop bacteria growth in your gums

It is recommended to use only a pea-sized amount of toothpaste for children and no mouthwash.

A more eccentric technique you can add to your routine is oil pulling — rinsing with an oil (coconut, sesame, or sunflower) for about 10-20 minutes in order to reduce plaque build-up.

Do not swallow the oil and brush your teeth afterward. This method has been credited with reducing both plaque and gingivitis within one month.

Fluoride is your friend

Fluoride is a mineral in our bones and teeth that is universally recognized for preventing cavities. When you intake fluoride, it replaces the minerals lost from tooth decay and reduces the bacteria’s ability to make acid.

Fluoride is found in most city water supplies, toothpaste, and mouthwashes.

Sealants Work Great for Kids

Dental sealants are thin, plastic coatings that are painted onto the molars (must be done professionally). These can prevent cavities by smoothing the bumps and ridges on the back of our teeth where food and bacteria are collected and most times trapped.

Most cavities in children and teens form in the molars, so they are typically sealed between the ages of five and seven (baby teeth) and a second time between 11 and 14 years old (permanent teeth).

Visit the Dentist Regularly

One of the best ways to prevent and repair cavities is to make sure you visit your dentist for annual teeth cleanings. Your dental hygienist will remove dental plaque, check for tooth decay, and apply a fluoride gel or varnish if necessary. You’ll make their job a lot easier by following the previous steps, but there is no replacement for a professional cleaning.

When is it Too Late?

Disappointingly, a cavity may reach a point where it is no longer reversible.

This occurs when the acid from bacteria eats through the enamel in the dentin (your tooth’s living tissue). The cavity is capable of growing much larger during this period — if it grows too large you may require a root canal or extraction.

At this point, you would experience pain or sensitivity in the tooth — acting as a sign that you need that filling.

https://elizabethlwakimdds.com/blog/reversing-a-cavity-its-easier-than-you-think/

*
SEVEN SURPRISING HEALTH BENEFITS OF TEQUILA


1. It can lower blood glucose and increase insulin production.

Researchers have discovered that tequila can help those with type 2 diabetes. The agavins, natural sugars in agave, are non-digestible so blood sugar levels won’t spike. In fact, it can lower glucose levels and increase insulin production.

2. It cleanses the colon.

Tequila is made from the blue agave plant. This plant contains fructans which aren’t digestible. This is good news for fighting colon disease. Researchers have used fructans to help deliver drugs to the colon to fight diseases such as Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome.

3. It can aid in weight loss

Paleo, Whole 30, Mediterranean diet, you got nothing on tequila. Okay, that may be a bit of a stretch, but drinking tequila has been proven to shrink the waistline. A report, which was part of the 247th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, found that the same agavins that help diabetes are also good for obesity. The reason is those agavins act like dietary fiber, which if you have ever tried to slim down your waistline know that fiber promotes weight loss.

4. It helps fight dementia

Having flashbacks from last night and suddenly realizing that you did insist on doing karaoke to an Alanis Morissette song? Maybe you should have stuck to tequila – and by tequila I mean just one drink. Studies have shown that drinking alcohol like tequila in moderation may aid in the fight against dementia. Too much though, and you’ll be back on stage next Friday night singing who knows what.

5. It aids digestion

Like a good aperitif, tequila can help with digestion. A drink before a meal has been known to stimulate the appetite. And a drink after can help digest said meal. Now that explains the insatiable hunger I get for chips and salsa when sipping on a happy hour margarita.

6. It’s probiotic

Probiotics found in foods like yogurt and kimchi are praised for restoring good bacteria in the digestive system. And like yogurt and kimchi, tequila contains probiotics thanks to its fructans. But remember, in order to benefit from these probiotics, you will have to drink in moderation. Too much and you’ll be downing kefir or kombucha the next day to get your gut back on track.

7. It’s a cold buster

Next time you reach for an Emergen-C packet when you feel a cold coming on, pour it into a shot of tequila. No, this isn’t some new fad cocktail. Tequila was prescribed by doctors in Mexico as a cure for the common cold during the 30s. While their version didn’t include Emergen-C, it did include tequila blanco, agave nectar, and lime.

https://cosmoins.com/7-surprising-health-benefits-of-tequila/
https://cosmoins.com/7-surprising-health-benefits-of-tequila/#:~:text=Diabetics%20Can%20Drink%20It

*
Ending on beauty: "How young we were"

This time let me go to music. I realize that readers may view me as anti-Russian. I am of course against Putin’s imperialist invasions (let’s not forget his smaller invasions before Ukraine), but I’ve always enjoyed and admired Russian literature (Chekhov, Akhmatova, and many others) and music. “How young we were” is one of those universal songs that almost make me forgive being forced to learn Russian in school. Indeed, how young we were, how passionately we loved, how much we believed in ourselves.”

Dmitri was born and raised in Siberia. I would like to think of him as Siberian — but then so was Lenin. It’s best not to think of him in any ethnic categories; great talent rises above ethnicity and nationality. Unfortunately, Dmitri died at only 55 of brain cancer. I wonder if his cancer was related to the heavy environmental pollution caused by mining, since those cancers can take decades to show up — but ultimately it can’ be proven. His gift lives on in recordings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUYVkR9kVDs