New stuff I’m learning about living dying what matters most - Thu, Feb 27 2020

Bunched on the kitchen counter, the bananas glowered. “Eat me, drink me, suck my juices,” they taunted, like the tempting fruit in Christina Rossetti's kinky poem “Goblin Market.” I was flummoxed since I loathe the mushy…

Jeff Cohn A beautifully written piece about living with cancer and some of the issues one faces daily

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a top official said that disruptions…

Jeff Cohn The COVID-19 challenge is a great example of an issue with both complicated and complex domains. We need to do stuff we think will help/work effectively/efficiently (vaccines, supplies, healthcare, quarantine) AND be nimble to adapt to new knowledge & act

She was in medical school. He was just out of prison. Sarah Ziegenhorn and Andy Beeler's romance grew out of a shared passion to do more about the country's drug overdose crisis. Ziegenhorn moved back to her home state of Iowa when she was 26. She…

Jeff Cohn The idea that the evidence-based medication that seems a critical component of helping opioid users abstain could prompt being thrown in jail if detected on a drug screen is awful. Need clear transparent universal policy supporting the best evidence

The Washington Post – Tamar Haspel – Feb 24, 5:51 AM

You'd roll your eyes, right? One guy, no control group, subjective outcome. Our researcher gets laughed out of peer review. And yet, studies just like that are probably the biggest single determinant of what people believe about how diet and…

Jeff Cohn Another terrific article from the WP food pages- this one getting into cognitive biases and how that impairs our ability to eat what's healthiest for us

“A great deal of poetic work has arisen from various despairs,” wrote Lou Andreas-Salomé, the first woman psychoanalyst, in a consolatory letter to the poet Rainer Maria Rilke as he was wrestling with depression, nearly a…

Jeff Cohn While the isolation of despair can be a stimulus for self-learning and action, too often it can feed itself in a vicious cycle way.

The Washington Post – Christopher Ingraham – Feb 24, 5:34 AM

So why, then, do so many of us feel like we can barely make ends meet ? A new report published by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, offers up a crystal clear explanation for the disconnect between the economy described by…

Jeff Cohn This is here for the first chart, which I agree in a simple visual tells a powerful story about how the economy can seem 'strong' and yet people are having a harder time than ever making ends meet...