"In terms of [health-related] costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user." Why the dramatic discrepancy? Quite literally, alcohol is an intoxicant; cannabis is not.

As cannabis consumers become more experienced, they become more tolerant to some of the drug's physical effects. Users also learn to better self-regulate (or "titrate") their dosage to avoid any dysphoric symptoms such as paranoia. As a result, most experienced marijuana consumers describe the cannabis high as a pleasant experience that helps them to relax, socialize or unwind.

Of the dozens of cannabinoids in marijuana, only one—THC—is significantly psychoactive. Most active chemicals in the plant possess therapeutic properties but do not induce euphoria.

In 2008, archeologists in Central Asia discovered over two pounds of cannabis in the 2,700-year-old grave of an ancient shaman.

Opponents say that drone strikes create more terrorists than they kill. They contend that drone strikes kill large numbers of civilians, violate international law, lack sufficient congressional oversight, violate the sovereignty of other nations, and make the horrors of war appear as innocuous as a video game.

A meta-study of drone strikes concluded 8 to 17% of all people killed in drone strikes are civilians.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), otherwise known as drones, are remotely-controlled aircraft which may be armed with missiles and bombs for attack missions

"PauseApp employs research about the link between time spent on social media and feelings of loneliness, anxiety and depression," Floyd said. "With PauseApp, you see in real time whether you are overdoing it and possibly setting yourself up for these mental health dangers."

Drone pilots have a lower risk for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than pilots of manned aircraft and other battlefield soldiers

Drones kill very few "high-value" targets with alleged leadership roles in al Qaeda or anti-US Taliban factions

About two-thirds (67.8%) of released prisoners were arrested for a new crime within 3 years, and three-quarters (76.6%) were arrested within 5 years.

Such a community would be devoted to providing every form of therapy its residents needed (substance abuse treatment, psychotherapy, medical and dental care) and every form of education for which the residents were motivated and capable (from elementary school to college and graduate school).

because widespread violence against animals in the form of ‘agriculture’, ‘research’ and even ‘entertainment’,

“If a man earnestly seeks a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from animal food.” – Leo Tolstoy

The mathematical model that best explained the similarities and differences between twins, the team reports in the journal Nature, includes genetic effects and environmental effects, as every other model does--but also what the scientists call the "maternal effect." This effect of the uterine environment accounts for 20 percent of the IQ similarities between twins and 5 percent of the similarities between other siblings, they calculate. "The effects of genes are correspondingly reduced," conclude the authors, to 34 percent rather than the 70 percent calculated from twins studies.

fraternal twins raised together are more similar than nontwin siblings raised together, even though nonidentical twins are no more alike genetically than other siblings. "But it is not at all clear that this is because of the shared intrauterine environment," says behavioral geneticist Gregory Carey of the University of Colorado

Rising incomes and urbanization are driving a global dietary transition in which traditional diets are replaced by diets higher in refined sugars, refined fats, oils and meats. By 2050 these dietary trends, if unchecked, would be a major contributor to an estimated 80 per cent increase in global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions from food production and to global land clearing.

Technology enthusiasts contend that educational technology expands teacher and student access to resources, prepares students to join a technologically driven economy, and improves learning opportunities for students with disabilities.

Educational software has enabled students not only to perform research, but also to engage in more active learning

Learning tools, online resources, and assistive technologies have the potential to stoke creativity, increase retention, and reduce unnecessary obstacles to learning

Women

10 percent difference in what men and women take home

During such battles children begin to think through the complex consequences of their behaviors and to weigh the relative merits of several possible outcomes.

The majority of Planned Parenthood’s services are preventive: care that helps prevent unintended pregnancies with birth control and sex education, reduce the spread of STDs through testing and treatment, and screen for cervical, breast, and other cancers.

One in five women in the U.S. has chosen Planned Parenthood for health care at least once in her life.

That’s the old model. In the new era, a coach could offer a recruit a salary instead of a scholarship. Does a $100,000 salary give the student-athlete a better deal than the $65,000 scholarship? The $100,000 salary is impressive. A future Heisman Trophy winner might command more, but $100,000 is not bad for an 18-year-old high school recruit. But since it’s a salary, not a scholarship, it is subject to federal and state income taxes. Tuition and college expenses would not be deductible because the income level surpasses the IRS eligibility limit.

"A vegan riding a Hummer contributes less to greenhouse gas emissions than a meat eater riding a bicycle," he says.

The Balancing Act, concluded that replacing meat with pasta and beans would have the biggest effect on reducing a person's carbon footprint. Australia's meat-products industry accounts for 91 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, according to the report. This compares with the 80.4 megatonnes attributable to the nation's transport industry. A vegan diet can dramatically reduce a person's carbon footprint, but can it also erode the nutrients our bodies need to stay healthy? "If you have followed a vegan diet all your life, there is some evidence that your body seems to be able to change the amount it wants to absorb out of food," says Aloysa Hourigan, senior nutritionist at Nutrition Australia. "But it is difficult if a large meat-eater switches to a vegan diet." The main problem seems to be our bodies' ability to extract adequate amounts of vitamin B12, which makes red blood cells, and minerals such as iron, calcium and zinc, from plant-based foods. "Vegans need to eat a wide range of foods.

Animal cruelty in the meat, dairy and egg industries remains the prime motivation for many vegans. The cramped conditions in which chickens are kept, mulesing (removing the skin from the backsides of sheep to prevent flystrike) and slaughtering animals while they are still conscious are among their main concerns.

While most people tend to switch to veganism on environmental or humanitarian grounds,

President Obama created new lobbying rules that placed restrictions on his staff’s ability to lobby the White House after leaving employment and prevented aides from working on matters they had lobbied on prior to coming to the White House. The new rules also prevent aides from approaching agencies that were the target of their prior lobbying efforts, and prohibit lobbyists from giving gifts to any member of the Obama administration.

Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act (2 U.S.C.A. §§ 261, 261 note, 262–270 [1946]).

Unlike voters, who each get one vote, lobbyists vary in their degree of influence.

lobbying provides a forum for the resolution of conflicts among often diverse and competing points of view; provides information, analysis, and opinion to legislators and government leaders to allow for informed and balanced decision making; and creates a system of checks and balances that allows for competition among interest groups, keeping any one group from attaining a permanent position of power. Lobbyists can help the legislative process work more effectively by providing lawmakers with reliable data and accurate assessments of a bill’s effect.

Try to make yourself invaluable before you have children.

Is that a male-female piece or is it a caregiver piece - that caregivers are penalized in the workplace?

I might take a less demanding job if it gives me more time with my children in exchange for a lower wage. Or, in anticipation of having children, I might get less college education because why get it if I'm going to stay home with the kids?

s this a result of discrimination, that women with children are sort of viewed in a different light, given less favorable assignments, just for whatever reason that employers say, well, you're just not getting that check. Or is it a self-selection process that, once women have children or women who want to have children self-select and put themselves into less remunerative jobs?

Women who have children now earn 7 to 14 percent less than women who do not have children.

Students are given opportunities to plan and organize, monitor their own work, direct their own learning, and to self-reflect along the way. When we provide students with time and space to be aware of their own knowledge and their own thinking, student ownership increases. And research shows that metacognition can be taught.

Teachers need to frequently step offstage and facilitate entire class discussion. This allows students to learn from each other. It's also a great opportunity for teachers to formatively assess (through observation) how well students are grasping new content and concepts.

Planned Parenthood is one of the nation's leading providers of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, and the nation's largest provider of sex education. We offer quality health care , backed by medical experts and over 100 years of research in reproductive care.

From Godwins investigation he found that nearly ninety percent of victims were complete strangers to the killer and that only three percent were friends and one percent were that of family members (Fox 105). This explains why serial killers are able to get away with the massacres for so incredibly long.

"A psychokiller, I should make clear, is not a regular murderer. A murderer has a vendetta, a nice specific personal thing against his victim" (Corin 188). Unlike that of a normal homicide, serial killers are only driven by instinct and a desire to kill. Due to these sexual desires and the need to fulfill their arousing fantasies it often drives these individual to murder those who are complete strangers.

are serial killers born with predetermined genes that play an integral part in creating their homicidal tendencies or do psychokillers become murderous through their surroundings as children?

why serial killers commit these mass killings and how they became such violent humans.

he murdered not in anger, revenge, or financial enrichment but on impulse and desire

in Iowa, Planned Parenthood served 62 % of women who acquired publicly funded contraception fr

it’s extra correct to think about Planned Parenthood a part of an enormous health care ecosystem, the place it has made itself indispensable by offering one factor — reproductive health care — properly.

Medicaid is collectively financed by the states and the federal authorities, Congress’s motion wouldn’t minimize off all public funds to Planned Parenthood — states might even make up the distinction in the event that they wished.

no federal cash is spent on abortions

would bar reproductive health care suppliers who supply abortion from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements for one yr.

The House Republicans’ plan to switch the Affordable Care Act

“If you’re uninsured, like many of my patients, Planned Parenthood is the only remotely affordable option in town,” Norris stated.

70 per cent of its viewing time, making the algorithm among the single biggest deciders of what people watch.

personalised playlists

10-fold increase from 2012

billion YouTube hours daily worldwide

changes the site has made to highlight more neutral fare

divisive

1.5 billion users

People who eat a plant-based diet live longer, have less cancer and heart disease, weigh less, and have healthier diets. They even have a lower carbon footprint. These were the impressive findings from the landmark study Adventist Health Study-2 (first announced at the International Congress of Vegetarian Nutrition at Loma Linda University,

1. Weight. A progressive weight increase was seen from a vegan diet toward a non-vegetarian diet. “The average body mass index (BMI) for vegans was 23.6, lacto-ovo vegetarians 25.7, pesco-vegetarians 26.3, semi-vegetarians 27.3, and non-vegetarians 28.8,” said Fraser (Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, December 2013). BMI over 25 is overweight; over 30 is obese. 2. Cardiovascular disease. The same trend was observed for cardiovascular disease markers, such as levels of cholesterol, and incidence of high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome, with the vegan dietary pattern offering the lowest risk compared with non-vegetarian (Diabetes Care, 2012). 3. Type 2 Diabetes. Prevalence of type 2 diabetes among vegans (2.9 percent) and lacto-ovo vegetarians (3.2 percent) was half that of non-vegetarians (7.6 percent), reported Fraser, who also noted that the same trend prevailed in fasting blood glucose levels. 4. Inflammation. A similar trend, progressing from vegan to non-vegetarian, was observed for C-reactive protein, a measure of inflammation, which is considered a root of chronic disease. 5. Cancer. Fraser reported, “For overall cancer, all vegetarians (vegans plus lacto-ovo vegetarians) had an 8 percent reduction in risk, and vegans did best of all. For gastrointestinal cancers, vegetarians as a group had 24 percent reduction in risk, and in particular lacto-ovo vegetarians did the best. For respiratory system cancers, the vegetarian group had a 23 percent reduction in risk. In female cancers, vegans did the best in reduced risk.” 6. Longevity. “Death rates rise across the dietary groups, from vegans to non-vegetarians,” said Fraser. There was a 12 percent reduction in risk of all-cause mortality in all vegetarians combined versus non-vegetarians, with a reduction in risk of 15 percent in vegans compared with non-vegetarians, nine percent in lacto-ovo vegetarians, 19 percent in pesco-vegetarians, and eight percent in semi-vegetarians (JAMA Intern Med, 2013).Carbon footprint. Vegetarian diets are also more sustainable, according to Joan Sabate, MD, DrPh, Chair of Nutrition at Loma Linda University. According to a life cycle assessment applied to the AHS-2 data, Sabate reported that the greenhouse gas emissions for a vegan diet are 41.7 percent lower compared with non-vegetarians; lacto-ovo vegetarians are 27.8 percent lower, pescatarians are 23.8 percent lower, and semivegetarians are almost 20 percent lower. 7. Healthy behaviors. Compared to non-vegetarians, vegans and vegetarians watch less television, sleep more, and consume more fruits, vegetables, and low-glycemic foods and less saturated fat.

As the scientists began to compare the health outcomes of the various diet patterns in AHS-2, they saw something intriguing. For many health outcomes, a progressively beneficial relationship was observed between the dietary patterns, with vegan providing the best benefit compared with non-vegetarian, followed by lacto-ovo vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, and semi-vegetarian.

Lonely people might not need our advice on how to master social skills. They already have that knowledge.

rather than their own anxiety

choking happens because you mister a skill, you know how to do something, but instead of just allowing yourself to perform, you start to over think what you already know how to do.

Education is a long-term process. While technology has quickened the process and has been reaching out to more learners through machines, it cannot redefine the basic approach required to meet the needs of children who fail to understand the academic concepts. It is only by adopting a seamless blend of the efficiency of the digital medium with the penetrative and focused tutor-assisted learning methods that one can create an impact on the way education is consumed. The current crop of ed-tech firms is all set to garner the interest of masses wherein the focus will be on both the online and offline assisted learning.

While progressivists and traditionalists may seem to be at odds, there are many educators who believe that schools need to incorporate both kinds of instructional methods. Traditionalist instruction in basic skills in the early grades, they argue, should lay the groundwork for the more complex and less rigidly structured learning that older students need. Moreover, disciplined learning of facts can be combined with activities that foster knowledge integration and insightful thinking. "These two traditions represent the best we know about teaching and learning," states David B. Ackerman, CEO of The Learning Navigator, which provides multifaceted support for learners. In the most outstanding schools, he argues, "both the progressive and the traditional strands intertwine, reinforcing and amplifying one another."

Critics of traditional methods, however, maintain that back-to-basics teaching imposes an impersonal, one-size-fits-all learning style on students. Many teachers argue that while rote memorization and multiple-choice testing may teach students what to think, they do not teach them how to think. Progressive teaching methods, on the other hand, incorporate personalized instruction group activities, hands-on learning, and experience-based knowledge to develop students' capacity for astute, probing thought. According to school administrator Deborah Meier, progressive techniques result in critical thinkers who ask: How do we know what we think we know? What's our evidence? How credible is it?Whose viewpoint are we hearing, reading, seeing? What other viewpoints might there be if we changed our position?How is one thing connected to another? Is there a pattern here?How else might it have been? What if? Supposing that?What difference does it make? Who cares?

the twin who was lighter at birth had a more adverse metabolic profile in adulthood compared to its genetically identical co-twin, who was heavier at birth [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. This suggests that the association between low birth weight and increased T2D risk is at least partly independent of genetic factors.

Striking a pose in glamorous sequins with Jane Russell during Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Your brain really wants you to click on all of those cat photos. "The next time you wonder whether you're spending too much time on Facebook or BuzzFeed or whatever, just remind yourself: You're wasting time because your brain wants you to," writes my former colleague Megan Garber at the Atlantic.

New research suggests that our uncontrollable desire to click may be deeply rooted in human evolution.

“She had a huge impact on women's fashion,” said Ashley Bellet, professor of costume design at Oklahoma City University. “She really kind of made it OK to be sexually attractive. I think that, especially in costume design, we use some of those elements that are very specific to Marilyn, to heighten a character's sexual attraction.”

One of the biggest mistakes schools make when deploying or allowing new devices onto their campus and into their classrooms, is by not making sure their network infrastructure is up-to-date and/or sufficient enough to properly support their end-users.

Integrating technology into the classroom is an effective way to connect with students of all learning styles.

but with people relying more on electronic devices, physical handwriting also is disappearing.

The prevalence of Facebook, Twitter and texting has all but obliterated punctuation, capitalization and apostrophes in schools, threatening the future of formal writing, educators say.

The child's ordinal position in the family has its most important influence on receptivity to accepting or rejecting the requests and ideas of legitimate authority. First-born children in most families are more willing than later-born children to conform to the requests of authority. They are more strongly motivated to achieve in school, more conscientious, and less aggressive.

A final source of hypotheses regarding the origins of personality comes from inferences based on direct observations of a child's behavior

children who had the same objective experiences develop different personality profiles because they construct different conceptions about themselves and others from the same experiences. The notion that each child imposes a personal interpretation to their experiences makes the concept of self critical to the child's personality.

the nature of the infant's relationship to the caretakers and especially the mother created a profile of emotional reactions toward adults that might last indefinitely.

Freud suggested that differences in parental socialization produced variation in anxiety, which, in turn, leads to different personalities.

There are five different hypotheses regarding the early origins of personality. One assumes that the child's inherited biology,

The administration shrank Bears Ears National Monument, a sprawling region of red rock canyons, by 85 percent, and cut another monument, Grand Staircase-Escalante, to about half its current size.

earlier immigrants or U.S.-born workers who haven't completed high school since they're the closest substitutes for immigrant workers, according to a landmark study on the economic impacts of immigration conducted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine last year.

1 in 4 Americans between the ages of 25 and 54 are unemployed, a rate he said is even higher for Hispanics and African Americans.

rising 2.5% for the year and outpacing inflation.

The jobless rate for whites was 3.8%, so low that economists consider the number virtually full employment for that group.

Lighten Up

lawyers, professors

it has increased employment through spillover effects: more productive workers can afford to buy more goods and services, which supplies more jobs to those providing them

On congested urban streets and narrow rural lanes, driverless cars are a distant if not impossible dream.

symbiotic partners

“Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions,” he said. “At the same time, the food system is responsible [currently] for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change.”

In three decades, emissions related to agriculture and food production are likely to account for about half of the world’s available “carbon budget” - the limited amount of carbon dioxide and its equivalents that can be poured into the atmosphere if we are to hold global warming to no more than 2C.

T he Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition proposes a U.S. Presidential National Monument designation under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to protect historical and scientific objects in Southern Utah. The area encompasses 1.9 million acres of ancestral land on the Colorado Plateau. We propose that the most appropriate and effective management strategy is Collaborative Management by the Tribes and Federal agencies.

“my popularity seems almost entirely a masculine phenomenon.”

Marilyn was objectified, depersonalized and ridiculed. Few women stood up for her, it was too personally threatening.

Marilyn Monroe personifies many conflict-ridden parts for women, particularly women of her generation. She was too frail, too funny, too sexual, too much of everything, and it was reflected on the big screen. Marilyn was too much of a reminder of just how much of female sexuality and identity was reliant on men and on male sexuality

These differing chemical tags may help explain why identical twins look slightly different, have their own personalities and may have different susceptibility to diseases

actors in the womb influencing fetus growth, such as size of the umbilical cord, may also create epigenetic discrepancies between twins. Identical twins sharing a placenta were more epigenetically different than twins who had their own;

So identical twins, which result when a single embryo splits, start out with the same epigenetic profile. Fraternal twins, the product of separate fertilization events, begin with slightly different epigenetic patterns, Petronis says.

Teachers, meanwhile, fretted that the scheme's roll-out would mean job losses. Angus MacLennan, e-Sgoil's head, says such fears are unfounded, since the scheme provides teleteachers only where it has proved impossible to recruit a permanent one

Schools across Britain struggle to recruit teachers, but the problem is especially acute in remote parts, and there are few places so remote as the Scottish islands. Founded in 2015 by the local council representing the Outer Hebrides, e-Sgoil (which means "e-School" in Gaelic) attempts to get round this problem by beaming teachers into classrooms via internet video link. Teleteaching allows tiny, distant schools to broaden the choice of subjects on their curriculums while reducing bills for the flights, ferries and hotels of itinerant supply teachers.

Fathers of daughters used more analytical language (e.g., words such as all, below and much), which has been linked to future academic success. 

Other research has found that restricted emotions in adult men is linked to depression, decreased social intimacy, marital dissatisfaction and a lower likelihood of seeking mental health treatment.

If fathers are more present and attentive to daughters and open to expressing emotions, that may help girls develop more empathy than boys, so fathers of sons could take the same approach as fathers of daughters

The dress eventually went under the hammer for $1.2 million.

Identical twins are born from a single fertilised egg, or zygote. Genetically speaking, therefore, they are indeed the same.

They uncovered a significant amount of variation between twins, possibly enough to explain why apparently heritable diseases that require the coincidence of several genetic risk-factors do not, in practice, always appear in both twins.

The results suggest that although monozygotic twins do differ epigenetically, they differ less than dizygotic twins.

That some methylation escapes pre-fertilisation erasure has been suggested by experiments on other animals, but this has been thought the exception, rather than the rule. If that were so, though, the degree of difference between identical and non-identical twins would be broadly the same. It is not.

recommendations

Among identical twins, 80 percent of those surveyed reported feeling closer and more familiar with their twin than they did to their best friends, suggesting a strong genetic component in the bond between identical twins.

The Minnesota researchers found that about 70 percent of IQ variation across the twin population was due to genetic differences among people, and 30 percent was due to environmental differences.

"If, in this group of genes, the epigenetic markers are established before the embryo splits into two, then the markers will be the same in both twins," Waterland said. "In essence, both twins inherit an intimate molecular memory of their shared developmental legacy as a single individual. On the other hand, genes at which epigenetic markers are set after the embryo splits can have greater epigenetic differences between the two twins."

search results, the suggested videos stream, on the home page, the trending stream, under the viewer’s subscriptions, and through any notifications they have set up

determines which ones they’ll be shown in other sections of the site

YouTube needs a way to automate the selection of videos that surface to each user

400 hours of video uploaded every minute

severely restricted by legislation

Clinical trials on disorders other than schizophrenia have found ECT to be effective in depression, mania, delusional states and catatonia—in the elderly and in adolescents as well as adults—and it can be safely applied to patients with severe physical illnesses.

the method now involves the use of electrical currents to induce grand mal seizures as a treatment for mental illness.

Except for his slow and regular breathing, he appeared lifeless. He had hardly spoken or cared for himself in more than four years. His mental condition of catatonic schizophrenia was considered hopeless.

patients benefited

n addition, the use of psychotropic drugs developed in the 1950s and 1960s began to displace electroshock because they were much less expensive and had fewer immediate risks.

Studies have shown electroshock treatment, now known as electroconvulsive therapy, to be an effective treatment for depression, mania, delusional states, and catatonia in adolescents and adults, including the elderly.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), exposure to ambient (outdoor) air pollution causes 3 million premature deaths around the world each year, largely due to heart and lung diseases

The bill would prohibit all gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers and their staff

evolving door

conceptual and methodological contributions to the study of music's emotional effect, the significance of music in modernity, the rhythmic and musical aspect of language, and the social uses of music.

Faculty often remark that the most discouraging aspect of teaching is encountering a student who just does not seem to care, who has to be cajoled into thinking about the reading, who is obviously bored in class, or who resists rewriting a paper that is passable but not very good. Such students are failing to take full advantage of the educational opportunities that these colleges and universities are there to provide.

During the course of history woman has long been the oppressed section of the society.

A virtual world is typically a multi-user, computer-based environment in which users interact with one another through pre-programmed avatars or digital representations of the user.

The use of digital technologies sees some teachers and students presenting information using templates, which means much of the individual character of teachers’ practices can be lost.

most drug-related offense

earn either a high school diploma or a general equivalency diploma (GED)

Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 restricted public colleges from offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, making higher education too expensive for many students without legal resident status who may otherwise have been able to afford it.

define immigrants' loyalties for a generation. If we are successful, a gigantic block [sic] of progressive voters will enter the electorate over the next 15 years—a block [sic] that could be decisive in the battle for the future ..."

The push for amnesty for the estimated 12 million or more illegal aliens living and working in the U.S. includes not just waiving the penalties for violating our immigration and labor laws. It also includes providing what supporters call "a path to citizenship" for the illegals after their penalties are waived.

namely, encourage illegal immigrants to go home so that unemployed American workers wouldn't have to compete with them for scarce U.S. jobs.

To fund this, tax rates will have to be high. The government will not only have to subsidize most people's lives and work; it will also have to compensate for the loss of individual tax revenue previously collected from employed individuals.

The solution to the problem of mass unemployment, I suspect, will involve ''service jobs of love.''

This transformation will result in enormous profits for the companies that develop A.I., as well as for the companies that adopt it

Bank tellers, customer service representatives, telemarketers, stock and bond traders, even paralegals and radiologists

Obamacare is clearly not perfect, but it opens the door for regular folks like us to obtain an affordable comprehensive health insurance plan comparable to those offered to most government and corporate employees, regardless of preexisting conditions or advancing age.

but simply because one of us got sick, and we don't happen to have a corporate or government job that provides comprehensive group health insurance coverage, we stand a good chance of losing everything.

$100,000+ annually for all those "excluded" medical expenses

The fine-print exclusions in our medical policy include doctor's visits, prescriptions, and lab work, which, according to my insurance company, also excludes diagnostic tests critical to my wife's medical care, such as monthly tests to track special blood proteins that are myeloma markers, CT scans, X-rays, MRIs, and PET scans.

The unfortunate thing about high-deductible policies like ours is that since you almost never spend enough money on medical expenses to meet the deductible, you have no idea whether or not your insurance coverage is adequate until someone gets seriously sick or severely injured. Once that occurs, you now have a "preexisting" medical condition that makes it nearly impossible to upgrade your health insurance plan, or switch insurance carriers.

o we don't stand a chance of switching insurance carriers or upgrading our policy, until that day if and when Obamacare [referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act] becomes a reality. For us, and many thousands of others in similar situations, Obamacare will make the difference between never-ending financial struggles, or having an affordable yet comprehensive health insurance policy along with the prospect for a decent life without fear of bill collectors and bankruptcy.

cancer is now a serious "preexisting condition,

Obamacare, is not perfect but that it would save self-employed people from medical bankruptcy.

"Having never before dealt with a serious long-term illness, we had no idea how fast those fine-print 'exclusions' could add up."

If the motivation of zoo owners was truly to inspire passion for conservation then, with a little imagination, they could begin to lead the way out of this archaic practice and towards a learning experience which was both valuable and, most importantly, free of suffering.

I can say with great confidence that a zoo enclosure can never be a proper substitute for an animal's natural habitat.

I think the overriding point here is that, even if they did inspire a passion for conservation, the end does not justify the means.

Many of the smaller zoos are exempt from the licensing standards and thus, are not subject to inspections. For the larger zoos, they are inspected once a year (at best) or once every three years (as a minimum). The inspection is carried out over a maximum of two working days and might have to assess hundreds or even thousands of animals. When you bear in mind that the inspectors also need to review record keeping, health and safety, procedures, education and conservation contribution in the allotted time, it becomes clear that, even with the best of intentions, the system is simply unworkable.

I agree that there are "worse zoos" but I do not believe that there is such thing as a "good zoo".

Worryingly, zoos teach children that humans can control nature. They demonstrate that if an irreplaceable natural habitat is destroyed by our actions, we can pluck individual animals out of the destruction, manipulate their breeding cycle and produce more of them to live in city centre zoos or safari parks thereby "saving" the species

What it fails to demonstrate to the child [is] the urgency of the need for habitat conservation, or the complexity of the role of the tiger in its natural habitat, or the ways in which that child could aid the conservation of the species in reality.

By showing a tiger in a cage to a child, a zoo can teach that child nothing more than the size of a tiger, the colour of a tiger and the shape of a tiger. A zoo shows the animal completely out of context, outside of its natural habitat and the ecosystem it was designed to inhabit.

Educational technology developers and manufacturers have created software, hardware, and curriculums to improve services for students with learning and physical disabilities. Such developments are generally referred to as Assistive Technology (AT). Text-to-speech (TTS) software allows students with vision difficulties to listen to a text rather than read it. TTS readers can also benefit students whose learning disabilities give them difficulty with reading, such as students with dyslexia.

Critics of online learning argue that the students receive neither the personalized learning experience nor the socialization benefits of attending a school in person. Further criticisms have been leveled against the online for-profit universities for engaging in questionable business practices, including misleading applicants about the quality of the education they provide. Proponents contend that online learning provides opportunities to students who otherwise would face obstacles in continuing their education.

Since the introduction of the personal computer in the late 1970s, computers have become increasingly present in classrooms. In 2016 US public schools provided one computer for every five students, according to Education Week. Some schools issue personal laptop computers and portable electronic devices to students and teachers, though most schools cannot afford to do this.

Education professionals argue that the use of computers and other technologies increases the amount of information students will retain from a lesson because the student is more likely to be engaged in participatory learning than passive learning.

They warn that technology must be applied thoughtfully to maximize its benefits and minimize its potential for disruption and distraction. Social justice activists have also voiced concern that technology can widen the education gap between the rich and poor by creating a digital divide that provides a head start to students from affluent communities who experience greater access and receive better training with regard to technology than students without those opportunities.

Personal computing allows students to engage with learning material in ways distinct from those available to previous generations. Learning tools, online resources, and assistive technologies have the potential to stoke creativity, increase retention, and reduce unnecessary obstacles to learning.

Play and leisure are as important in the creative process as hard work.

Basex, a research firm that specializes in technical issues in the workplace, reckons that information overload is responsible for economic losses of $900 billion a year at work.

The constant onslaught of information from smart phones, computers, and other digital devices has actually decreased productivity, creativity, and the quality of personal relationships.

Yet there may be a sort of inadvertent benefit. Humanity may be more special than it seems. As Brownlee and Ward put it: "We are not the center of the universe, and we never will be.

Brownlee and Ward describe ten separate mass extinction events that have been recorded on Earth, and many more may have occurred.

Rare Earth Hypothesis": "the paradox that life may be nearly everywhere but complex life almost nowhere."

Nationwide, there are about 100 burglary-homicides every year. When you compare that to more than 18,000 gun suicides, the conclusions seem pretty obvious.

Companies that have signed up for its program pay an initial enrollment fee based on their size and activity, and in exchange receive a guarantee not to be placed under future regulatory burdens.

Facts and Statistics Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric illnesses affecting children and adults. An estimated 44 million American adults suffer from anxiety disorders. Only about one-third of those suffering from an anxiety disorder receive treatment, even though the disorders are highly treatable. Find more facts about anxiety disorders.

Anxiety disorders are real, serious medical conditions - just as real and serious as physical disorders such as heart disease or diabetes. Anxiety disorders are the most common and pervasive mental disorders in the United States. The term "anxiety disorder" refers to specific psychiatric disorders that involve extreme fear or worry, and includes generalized anxiety disorder (GAD),  panic disorder and panic attacks, agoraphobia, social anxiety disorder, selective mutism, separation anxiety, and specific phobias. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are closely related to anxiety disorders, which some may experience at the same time as depression. What is Anxiety? (from ADAA's partner organization Anxiety.org) is an in-depth analysis and explanation of key anxiety disorders written by ADAA member experts. 

It's a normal part of life to experience occasional anxiety.

there are a couple of points that are important to know:

Participants underwent three learning sessions and were tested one week later. The results show that participants tend to perform better on the final test when they had listened to music while studying vocabulary. However, the author of that study acknowledges that not all participants seemed to have benefitted to the same extent from listening to background music during studying.

One idea why listening to background music while studying or performing a task may be potentially beneficial has been put forward by Schellenberg and colleagues (3) in their arousal-emotion/mood-activation hypothesis.

Your personality seems also to play a role on whether you will benefit at all from listening to your favourite tunes while studying.

If you ask people in the general public about this effect, they will probably say something along the lines: Oh yes, listening to music by Mozart makes you smarter. However, this statement is not only completely false, but is also a misinterpretation of the Mozart Effect. The Mozart Effect is a brief enhancement of spatial-temporal abilities in college students after listening to a Mozart piano sonata.

Does it make a difference at all what they are listening to while studying?

“As a species we are very highly attuned to reading social cues,” says Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist and author of The Big Disconnect. “There’s no question kids are missing out on very critical social skills. In a way, texting and online communicating—it’s not like it creates a nonverbal learning disability, but it puts everybody in a nonverbal disabled context, where body language, facial expression, and even the smallest kinds of vocal reactions are rendered invisible.”

Since the 1980s, high ocean temperature conducive to coral bleaching has become three times more likely

In the Home Office

If American households were more judicious about laundry, each year they would save enough water to fill more than 7 million swimming pools. When you do wash, put full loads (saving 3,400 gallons of water a year) in cold water.

It will automatically adjust the heat or the air-conditioning to match your daily patterns.

The strategies are applied too generally, they say, as an inflexible, regulatory "blueprint"

• 62 percent say the amount they pay for medical care will increase. • 47 percent think they’ll be worse off when it becomes law. • 70 percent believe the federal budget deficit will go up — contrary to repeated claims from Democrats. • 56 percent view Obamacare as creating too much government involvement in health care.

Play is a remarkably creative process that fosters emotional health, imagination, original thinking, problem solving, critical thinking, and self-regulation.

Kids need first-hand engagement — they need to manipulate objects physically, engage all their senses, and move and interact with the 3-dimensional world.