...“A society that spends so much on health care that it cannot or will not spend adequately on other health enhancing activities may actually be reducing the health of its population. No nation is as guilty of this practice as the United States, with its extremely high health expenditures alongside abysmal population-level health outcomes" Read more at Stat News

"As the body’s primary communication superhighway, the vagus nerve extends into every major organ in the body, including the heart, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. Injury to this nerve, therefore, can disrupt the systems we rely on to breath, digest, and simply function on a daily basis" More at Forbes ➜

"Now that summer is in full swing, mosquitoes have come out across the United States. The use of mosquito repellents can protect both your health and sanity this summer" More at The Conversation ➜

"AI (artificial intelligence) technology is constantly advancing and can sometimes be seen as an existential threat. However, the real risk posed by AI is not the popular dystopian fear of robots taking over, but rather the implications of human-created algorithms that are designed to make decisions automatically. These algorithms can contain biases and lead to unfair decisions, as well as cause unintended outcomes, such as job losses or the spread of false information....,". More at The Conversation ➜

"At the turn of the 20th century, photographer Lewis Wickes Hine documented the working conditions of America’s children ... His images of soot-covered, cotton-picking, newspaper-lugging boys and girls are a big reason Congress went on to pass a series of child labor laws.... Today, the U.S. Department of Labor finds itself under fire for failing to enforce child labor laws, with reports emerging of an unaccounted underclass of child workers. ...  they tend to be Central American immigrants. But they, too, are performing hazardous jobs in America’s factories and fields. More at The Conversation ➜

In Oregon and California, efforts to repopulate these furry engineers could revive struggling ocean ecosystems. More at Reasons to be Cheerful ➜

"In the years following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, hundreds of thousands of Cubans left the island nation for South Florida, setting the stage for what would become one of the most important linguistic convergences in all of the Americas....Today, the vast majority of the population is bilingual....and there is a lot of Spanish – and a lot of English – being spoken in Miami....This  sustained contact between Spanish and English speakers, particularly when speakers translated directly from Spanish is creating a new dialect". More at The Conversation ➜

A new law lets the state withhold funds from libraries that remove books or don’t follow American Library Association guidelines. More at Bloomberg ➜

"Recent studies show that too much HDL increases the risk of death. HDL levels above 80 mg/dL have also been associated with higher risk of cardiovascular events and compromised bone density". More at Scientific American ➜

"Insurance companies are denying more claims than before and for unusual reasons. Appeals are taking longer and the process is becoming increasingly complex.,, claims that once might have been paid immediately are instead quickly denied "  More at KFF Health News ➜

It was reported this week, that Rob Graham Education Center, a K-8 school in Miami-Dade County, has restricted access to the poem "The Hill We Climb" written by Amanda Gorman and recited by her at President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021; becoming the sixth and youngest poet, at age twenty-two, to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration.

The school decided to remove access to the book for elementary grade students and to only allow access to the book to Middle School students, after one parent filed a formal complaint on the grounds that the poem was “not educational” and included indirect “hate messages", Read More at NPR and The Guardian. According to the American Library Association, nearly 2,600 titles were targeted for censorship in 2022, an increase of almost 40 percent from the previous year.

“The Hill We Climb,”

When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it
Somehow we do it
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn’t broken
but simply unfinished

We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one
And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man

And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious
Not because we will never again know defeat
but because we will never again sow division

Scripture tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made
That is the promised glade
The hill we climb
If only we dare
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into
and how we repair it

We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation
rather than share it
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy
And this effort very nearly succeeded
But while democracy can be periodically delayed
it can never be permanently defeated
In this truth
in this faith we trust
For while we have our eyes on the future
history has its eyes on us
This is the era of just redemption
We feared at its inception
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs
of such a terrifying hour
but within it we found the power
to author a new chapter
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves

So while once we asked,
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was
but move to what shall be
A country that is bruised but whole,
benevolent but bold,
fierce and free
We will not be turned around
or interrupted by intimidation
because we know our inaction and inertia
will be the inheritance of the next generation
Our blunders become their burdens
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright

So let us leave behind a country
better than the one we were left with
Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful
When day comes we step out of the shade,
aflame and unafraid
The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it

"The production of biochar is an ancient farming practice dating back thousands of years to the fertile Terra Preta soils in Brazil. A kind of black powder, used to improve soil health. it is made by heating up organic matter such as wood chips, manure, leaves, or indeed coffee husks, in a process known as pyrolysis. A study in 2010 found that 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions could be offset with biochar. Researchers in 2022 also found that mixing wood biochar with cattle manure can cut methane emissions — a huge contributor to climate change — by an astonishing 79 percent"  More at Reasons to be Cheerful ➜