nothinnormal.com

Obamacare: better figure out if you’re self-employed

2013-05-25T00:00:00.000+12:00

Employed, self-employed--it makes a difference in tax and other consequences-- 6 new IRS questions for 2014 - MarketWatch: "The IRS has been spending a lot of time recently deciding whether workers are independent contractors — self-employed — or employees of a business. Under the ACA, the self-employed who purchase health insurance on the exchange will have an advantage in paying for premiums,

How The Kidnapped Women Escaped

2013-05-23T00:00:00.000+12:00

How Three Kidnapped Women Escaped in Cleveland : The New Yorker: " . . . . For Berry and the others to be rescued, in other words, two things had to happen: she had to never forget who she was, and that who she was mattered; and Ramsey needed to not care who she might be at all—to think that all that mattered was that a woman was trapped behind a door that wouldn’t open, and to walk onto the

Signs of a Stroke (video)

2013-05-21T00:00:00.000+12:00

My Stroke of Luck - NYTimes.com: " . . . .We head to the hospital. Although it’s a designated stroke center, there is no stroke neurologist around on this holiday weekend. A CT scan shows nothing. Vitals are normal. But I realize something is still wrong when I get an eye test in a hallway. I can see the letters on the eye chart, but not the hand of the nurse pointing to a particular row. Also,

Hospital charges - scandalous

2013-05-18T00:00:00.000+12:00

Carl Hiaasen: Once again, we’re the poster child for scandal - Carl Hiaasen - MiamiHerald.com: " . . . The federal survey of hospital charges, released last week, was the most comprehensive ever — and the most embarrassing. . . . Hospitals reporting relatively sane charges for treating one type of illness will jack up the bill insanely for another. Medicare knows these astronomical dollar

Sooth Back Pain - How to Sit

2013-05-16T00:00:00.000+12:00

The Posture Guru of Silicon Valley - With the proliferation of computer technology tying workers to their seats, Esther Gokhale has been teaching people about basic posture to avoid back pain.-- Soothing Back Pain by Learning How to Sit Again - NYTimes.com: "Ms. Gokhale (pronounced go-CLAY) is not helping aching office workers with high-tech gadgets and medical therapies. Rather, she says she is

Mika Brzezinski on Food Addiction and Obesity (video)

2013-05-14T00:00:00.000+12:00

Author and Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski talks about her food addiction, obesity in America, and how writing her book "Obsessed" transformed her life and that of her collaborator, journalist Diane Smith. (source: Time Inc.) more news below Follow @nothinnormal !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src

Improve Your Emotional Life

2013-05-11T00:00:00.000+12:00

Two Steps to Improve Your Emotional Life | In Their Own Words | Big Think: "There are two things that people want to be able to do to improve their emotional life. You want to be able to choose what you become emotional about and when you become emotional. That’s number one. And the second is you want to be able to choose how you act when you are emotional. Well nature didn’t want you to do

Transform Your Life by Cultivating Self-Love

2013-05-09T00:00:00.000+12:00

6 Keys to Transform Your Life by Cultivating Self-Love | Experts' Corner | Big Think: " . . . Do you love yourself enough to live in the moment, to forget the past, not worry about the future, but to be truly present to the opportunity within every moment? Do you love yourself enough to commit to your decisions, to take action that serves your spirit with all your heart? For if you want to go

Are you normal when it comes to love and sex?

2013-05-07T00:00:00.000+12:00

Are you normal when it comes to love, sex? - CBS News: ". . . Pepper Schwartz, a Yale sociologist and co-author with Chrisanna Northrup and Harvard sociologist James Witte of "The Normal Bar: The Surprising Secrets of Happy Couples and What They Reveal About Creating a New Normal in Your Relationship," said one basic yet critical factor in relationship success is "the affection [happy couples]

Should Married Couples Have Sex?

2013-05-04T00:00:00.000+12:00

How Often Should Married Couples Have Sex? - WSJ.com: "Last year, Mr. Mower read a book ("Passionate Marriage," by David Schnarch) that inspired him to throw out the graphs. He asked his wife to read it, too, and told her they had to work together on a healthy sex life to save their marriage. "He said, 'It feels like you don't love me'—and that really, really scared me," Ms. Mower recalls. "I

Stress Tied to Heart Disease and Diabetes

2013-05-02T00:00:00.000+12:00

Analysis of the stress hormone cortisol in hair samples found that stress was tied to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. Risks: Stress Tied to Heart Disease and Diabetes - NYTimes.com: "High levels of cortisol — the so-called stress hormone — have been associated with cardiovascular disease in some studies, but not in others. . . . Now Dutch researchers have

Creating a New Normal

2013-04-30T00:00:00.000+12:00

zenhabits: Habit Mastery: Creating the New Normal by Leo Babauta Changing habits, at its core, is simply a process of changing what’s normal for you. This is something I’ve done myself a gajillion times over the last 7-8 years: not smoking became my new normal (lots of pain for a month or so) running became normal eating vegetarian became normal later eating vegan became normal writing every

Permanent Hearing Loss

2013-04-27T00:00:00.000+12:00

Tens of millions of Americans, including 12 percent to 15 percent of schoolchildren, have permanent hearing damage caused by everyday noise-- What Causes Hearing Loss - NYTimes.com: ". . . We are born with a fixed number of hair cells; once they are dead, they cannot be replaced, and auditory sensitivity is permanently lost. Usually, sensitivity to high-frequency sounds is first to go,

20 Minutes of Meditation Twice a Day (video)

2013-04-25T00:00:00.000+12:00

Doctor's Orders: 20 Minutes of Meditation Twice a Day - WSJ.com: video "At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, doctor's orders can include an unlikely prescription: meditation. "I recommend five minutes, twice a day, and then gradually increase," said Aditi Nerurkar, a primary-care doctor and assistant medical director of the Cheng & Tsui Center for Integrative Care, which offers

Fit for life

2013-04-23T00:00:00.000+12:00

Fit for life: 69-year-old man competes in Miami-Dade lifeguard test - Miami Beach - MiamiHerald.com: "Dr. Ralph Sacco, chairman of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and past president of the American Heart Association, said Fogel’s life of physical activity is a model for all to follow. “It sounds like he has the body of a 55-year-old or younger,” said Dr. Sacco,

Red Meat May Cause Heart Disease by Disrupting Gut Bacteria

2013-04-20T00:00:00.000+12:00

Red Meat May Cause Heart Disease by Disrupting Gut Bacteria | Wired Science | Wired.com: "“When you measure things in people’s blood, you don’t think of [them] as coming from bacteria,” Hazen says, but in this case that appears to be what’s happening. The finding is the latest in a series of studies that have shown that the population of bacteria in our guts—collectively known as the gut

Reading in Dim Light Hurt Your Eyes?

2013-04-18T00:00:00.000+12:00

Burning Question: Does Reading in Dim Light Hurt Your Eyes? - WSJ.com: "Turns out, our parents were wrong. "There is no reason to believe nor evidence to support that any long-term damage to the eyes or change in the physiology to the eyes can be caused by reading in the dark," Dr. Sheedy says." more news below Follow @nothinnormal

Boomers Push For Doctor-Assisted Dying

2013-04-16T00:00:00.000+12:00

Death with dignity? Boomers Push Doctor-Assisted Dying in End-of-Life Revolt - Bloomberg: " . . .In states across the country, including New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, graying baby boomers have been lobbying lawmakers in recent months at hearings, in letters and by phone, pushing to make it legal for doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients.

The Human Touch vs Big Data Medicine

2013-04-13T00:00:00.000+12:00

The Human Touch Amid Big Data Medicine - Review of ‘When Doctors Don’t Listen’ - NYTimes.com: "“When Doctors Don’t Listen” is a manifesto motivated by very active imaginations, not that this necessarily diminishes the book’s importance. The authors, both emergency room physicians at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, do a fine job of sorting through most of the serious problems in American

Fiber May Reduce Stroke Risk

2013-04-11T00:00:00.000+12:00

Eating high-fiber foods may provide protection against stroke, a new analysis of research suggests. (source, infra) Prevention: Fiber May Reduce Stroke Risk - NYTimes.com: "Eating high-fiber foods may protect against stroke, a new analysis of research suggests. The data, pooled from eight observational studies, all with at least three years of follow-up, indicated that each seven-gram increase

Treating Sleep Apnea Reduces Inflammation

2013-04-09T00:00:00.000+12:00

Treating sleep apnea with positive airway pressure helps to lower systemic inflammation, which might prevent some of the other problems associated with the disorder. (source, infra) Really? Treating Sleep Apnea Reduces Inflammation - NYTimes.com: "Doctors have plenty of good reasons to persuade people with sleep apnea to get it treated. The widespread disorder causes disruptions in breathing at

Esther Dyson: personalize medicine

2013-04-06T00:00:00.000+12:00

Personalization of medication-- Esther Dyson: 'They personalise my adverts -- why not my medicine?' (Wired UK): ". . . . "Most drugs are not totally effective for most of the population," said Dyson. "They're about 100 percent effective for 30 percent of the population and probably toxic for 20 percent. But if you know the genetics, drugs are going to be much better for the population." Five

Part-Time Workforce Surge an Unintended Consequence of ObamaCare Mandate

2013-04-04T00:00:00.000+12:00

More and more part-time workers, as an "unintended consequence" of Obamacare-- Gallup: Part-Time Workforce Surges Ahead Of ObamaCare Mandate - Investors.com: "Gallup's survey found that the percentage of part-time workers as a share of the overall labor force surged to 20.6%, the highest level in data going back to the start of 2010 — just as the employment recovery began. The report provides

15 Year Old Kid Develops Foolproof Test for Pancreatic, Ovarian and Lung Cancer

2013-04-02T00:00:00.000+12:00

The test costs 3 cents, and takes only 5 minutes-- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: 15 Year Old Kid Develops Foolproof Test for Pancreatic, Ovarian and Lung Cancer; Test Costs 3 Cents, Takes 5 Minutes: "Here's an inspiring story for the weekend. Jack Andraka, a fifteen year old freshman in high school, developed a paper sensor that could detect pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer in five

Majority of doctors opposed to full access to your own electronic records

2013-03-30T00:00:00.000+12:00

Doctors oppose transparency, patient access to records-- Majority of doctors opposed to full access to your own electronic records | Ars Technica: "Technology is making transparency easier than ever and with the advent of electronic medical records, you might think doctors and other caregivers would embrace transparency for patients. After all, in the US and most modern counties, you have the