This is our vehicle to keep you all informed of our comings and goings - within limits fitting our decorum of course. Have a good time reading our diary.
Boas was trained as a physicist. His student work was in
psychophysics, the science that measures things like sensory thresholds,
and his dissertation was an effort to determine the degree to which
light must increase in intensity for people to perceive a change in the
color of water. This might seem an utterly sterile topic for research,
but Boas reached an unorthodox conclusion: it depends. Our perception of
color is a function of circumstances. Different observers have
different perceptions depending on their
expectations and experiences, and those differences are not innate.
They are, consciously or unconsciously, learned. It made no sense, Boas
decided, to talk about a general law of sensory thresholds.
It’s
an academic adage that a scholar’s career consists of footnotes to the
dissertation, and, in a way, this was true for Boas. He was an
empiricist: he collected facts, and he was not inclined to theoretical
speculation. But he thought that the basic fact about human beings is
that the facts about them change, because circumstances change. Our
lives may be determined, by some combination of genes, environment, and
culture, but they are not predetermined.
Boas’s revolutionary work
was a study, undertaken for a congressional committee and published in
1911, on the bodily form—head size, height, hair color, age at
pubescence—of the children of recent European immigrants. The impetus
was public anxiety that immigrants from southern and eastern Europe
would, through intermarriage, dilute the racial stock (sometimes
identified as “Nordic”). Boas’s finding, which was that the cranial
index of children born in America differed from that of children of the
same background born in Europe, rocked the field. It upset long-believed
claims that racial differences, including what we would now call ethnic
differences, are immutable. The evidence proved, Boas said, “the
plasticity of human types.” It also showed that variations within groups
are greater than variations between groups.
In 1911, this was not what most white scientists and politicians wanted to hear. Boas’s career spanned an exceptionally active period of Aryan supremacy. Boas witnessed the legalization of Jim Crow; the widespread acceptance of social Darwinism and eugenics; imperial expansion, including the American occupation of the Philippines; drastic restrictions on immigration; the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan; and the coming to power of Adolf Hitler. (Boas was Jewish.) Often, science was invoked as a justification for colonization, segregation, discrimination, exclusion, sterilization, or extermination. Boas devoted his life to showing people that the science they were relying on was bad science. “He believed the world must be made safe for differences,” Ruth Benedict wrote when Boas died. END QUOTE.
GREAT SEA STORY
The passenger steamer SS Warrimoo was quietly knifing its way through
the waters of the mid-Pacific on its way from Vancouver to Australia.
The navigator had just finished working
out a star fix and brought Captain John DS. Phillips, the result. The
Warrimoo’s position was LAT 0º 31′ N and LONG 179 30′ W. The date was 31
December 1899. “Know what this means?” First Mate Payton broke in,
“We’re only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the
International Date Line”. Captain Phillips was prankish enough to take
full advantage of the opportunity for achieving the navigational freak
of a lifetime.
He called his navigators to the bridge to check & double check the ship’s position. He changed course slightly so as to bear directly on his mark. Then he adjusted the engine speed.
The calm weather & clear
night worked in his favor. At mid-night the SS Warrimoo lay on the
Equator at exactly the point where it crossed the International Date
Line! The consequences of this bizarre position were many:
The forward part (bow) of the ship was in the Southern Hemisphere & in the middle of summer.
The rear (stern) was in the Northern Hemisphere & in the middle of winter.
The date in the aft part of the ship was 31 December 1899.
In the bow (forward) part it was 1 January 1900.
This ship was therefore not only in:
Two different days,
Two different months,
Two different years,
Two different seasons
But in two different centuries – all at the same time!
1. How often do adults 65 and older need the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis) or Td (tetanus, diphtheria) booster vaccine?
Your Answer: Once for Tdap, then a Td booster every 10 years
Correct Answer: Once for Tdap, then a Td booster every 10 yearsThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that every adult receive a Tdap vaccination, then a Td booster every 10 years. Also, women should get the Tdap vaccine each time they are pregnant.
2. What is pertussis?
Your Answer: Whooping cough
Correct Answer: Whooping coughThe highly contagious respiratory disease, for which there is a vaccination, can affect people of all ages but can be fatal in babies under a year old, according to the CDC.
3. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices now recommends this vaccine for shingles.
Your Answer: Shingrix
Correct Answer: ShingrixThe two-dose vaccine protects against the painful rash of shingles, which is caused by the varicella-zoster virus.
4. Who is at increased risk for meningitis?
Your Answer: Someone with a damaged spleen
Correct Answer: Someone with a damaged spleenVaccinations are available for meningitis, which is a bacterial infection that causes swelling around the brain and spinal cord. The spleen plays an important role in killing bacteria in the bloodstream, and people with damaged spleens are more vulnerable to many infections, including meningitis.
5. How often should most adults over 65 get the pneumococcal vaccine (pneumonia)?
Your Answer: There are two vaccines, and each should be given one time, a year apart
Correct Answer: There are two vaccines, and each should be given one time, a year apartThe CDC currently recommends a vaccine called PVC13 first, then a dose of the PPSV23 vaccine a year later. The vaccines protect against different strains of pneumococcal bacteria.
6. Who should be sure to talk to a doctor about their heightened risk of a reaction before getting the influenza vaccine?
Your Answer: Those who are allergic to eggs
Correct Answer: Those who are allergic to eggsThe flu vaccine has egg protein in it, but the CDC now considers the risk of a severe reaction in people allergic to eggs to be low. It still, however, recommends that people with a history of severe egg allergies be given the vaccine under the supervision of a medical professional who can recognize and manage severe allergic conditions.
7. The risk of this side effect from a flu vaccine varies from season to season, but the CDC estimates it is very low in the population as a whole.
Your Answer: Guillian-Barré syndrome
Correct Answer: Guillian-Barré syndromeThe immune systems in patients with Guillian-Barré syndrome attack and damage their nerve cells. Most patients recover fully within a few weeks, although death has been reported in rare cases.
8. Why are people born before 1957 usually immune to measles and mumps?
Your Answer: Nobody was vaccinated before 1957, so those born before are likely to have had the disease and already have immunity.
Correct Answer: Nobody was vaccinated before 1957, so those born before are likely to have had the disease and already have immunity.Note,
however, that if you were born before 1957 and don’t know your
immunization status, you should ask your doctor if you need to get the
vaccine.
A Teds talk subject: The summer of 2019 has seen heat records tumble like dominoes across the Northern Hemisphere. On May 26, the thermometer climbed to 102 in Savannah, Georgia, an all-time high for that month; the same day, it hit an unprecedented 103.1 in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Then, in June, a three-week heat wave tore through Pakistan and India, where it reached 123.4 in the central city of Churu. In July, it was Western Europe’s turn when the temperature soared to 108.7 in Paris and 102.2 in Brussels.
Our planet is getting hotter and drier. Drinking water is in short supply, but there are two largely untapped sources: the ocean and sewage. To get a taste of what might be in store for our faucets and understand the pros and cons, journalist Amanda Little goes to California.
Growing up I lived in Utopia or at least I thought I did. All that went away with the beginning of the teen years. Now at advanced age, I would like to get that all back again. However, thinking back over my life from my current vantage point I lead a gilded life full of challenges met and a few not.
I wish I had treated everyone the same way I treated the best of my friends and even better. Interspersed are regrets and things I am so ashamed of I cannot dwell on them and try to forget them quickly – at least until they resurface.
This subject is a never ending story and I wish I could remember the name of the song from the 60’s I like so much: I found it thanks to search engines – it is “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers. I think I’ll end this post with a success.
(Reuters Health) – Women who develop preeclampsia may face a wide
variety of heart problems long after they give birth, a research review
concludes.
“This review demonstrates that the cardiac dysfunction
associated with previous pre-eclampsia is quantifiable and persistent.
Progression of heart failure from asymptomatic to symptomatic stages
carries a fivefold increase in mortality,” write the authors.
“The use of echocardiography could detect cardiac dysfunction in the asymptomatic stage and guide more intensive risk factor modification in these women,” they say.
WASHINGTON
(AP) — The Department of Homeland Security issued a security alert
Tuesday for small planes, warning that modern flight systems are
vulnerable to hacking if someone manages to gain physical access to the
aircraft.
An alert from the DHS critical infrastructure computer emergency response tea m recommends that plane owners ensure they restrict unauthorized physical access to their aircraft until the industry develops safeguards to address the issue, which was discovered by a Boston-based cybersecurity company and reported to the federal government. The link to the full article is below.
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