\This video from Harvard Medical School’s HMX Fundamentals Immunology online course offers a high-level overview of the immune system at work in the context of daily life.
Monthly Archives: March 2020
Health: “The Vital Importance Of Social Distancing” To Stop Spread Of Coronavirus
In order to stem the spread of the coronavirus, social interactions around the world are being restricted. This infographic, based on calculations by Robert A. J. Signer, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego, shows how this so-called social distancing can reduce the spread of the virus.
With no changes to social behaviour, one infected person will on average pass the virus to 2.5 people within five days. After 30 days, the figure would rise to a devastating 406 new infections. The number can be significantly reduced though by engaging in less social contact. With a 50 percent reduction, the number of new infections caused by the average person after 30 days is just 15 people. A 75 percent change would result in an even lower 2.5 new cases – greatly reducing the burden on health services and, if followed by everybody, allowing a country to ‘flatten the curve’ of new infections.
Top New Travel Videos: “Portland Cherry Blossoms” (March 2020)
This video shows you exactly why you NEED to see the cherry blossoms at Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon. Peak bloom varies from year to year but tends to occur around the first day of spring.
For more helpful information about the best places to see cherry blossoms in Portland (with real-time photo updates!), make sure to read embracesomeplace.com/cherry-blossoms-portland/
Poets On Couches: “Untitled – There Are More Of Us” By Killarney Clary (Paris Review Video)
In this series from The Paris Review, poets read and discuss the poems getting them through these strange times…from their couches.
World Happiness Report: Nordic Countries Top The 2020 Rankings – Autonomy And Freedom Of Choices
Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom, as well as high levels of social trust towards each other, which play an important role in determining life satisfaction.
From 2013 until today, every time the World Happiness Report (WHR) has published its annual ranking of countries, the five Nordic countries – Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland – have all been in the top ten, with Nordic countries occupying the top three spots in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Clearly, when it comes to the level of average life evaluations, the Nordic states are doing something right, but Nordic exceptionalism isn’t confined to citizen’s happiness.
No matter whether we look at the state of democracy and political rights, lack of corruption, trust between citizens, felt safety, social cohesion, gender equality, equal distribution of incomes, Human Development Index, or many other global comparisons, one tends to find the Nordic countries in the global top spots.
COVID-19: The Importance Of Home Exercise During Isolation (Mayo Clinic)
As we’re spending more time at home, it’s important to find new ways to remain active and exercise is important. Mayo Clinic physical therapist Sunni Alessandria and her colleagues offer some insight and tips for exercises you can do at home.
Book Interviews: “Out Of Darkness, Shining Light” Author Petina Gappah
BBC Radio 4 speaks to Petina Gappah on her new book, “Out of Darkness, Shining Light”.
“This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land.”
So begins Petina Gappah’s powerful novel of exploration and adventure in nineteenth-century Africa—the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone’s body, his papers and maps, fifteen hundred miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there.
Narrated by Halima, the doctor’s sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave, this is a story that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization—the hypocrisy at the core of the human heart—while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love.
Artist Profiles: Finnish-American Riitta Klint – “Dreamlike” Drips Of Paint With Pencil On Clay Panels
My paintings on clay panels begin with thin veils of paint that drip, pool and congeal, and like nature, move out of my control, beautifully mysterious. I work intuitively within these initial drips and pools, searching for structure. Each successive stroke of paint or pencil mark continues to build a dreamlike otherworldly place. The mood is one of nature untamed, enchanting and rife with hidden secrets.
My paintings are my connection to the Earth, its nature and beautiful mysteries. 
There is a sadness as I witness the loss of our last wild places. My paintings are an attempt to keep alive those places and offer my audience a sanctuary in which to reflect.
Riitta Klint is from Helsinki, Finland and currently lives in Fort Worth, Texas and maintains a studio in nearby Aledo. Between these two places is a lifetime spent traveling the world thanks to her father’s career with IBM. Living in her native Finland, as well as in Iran, Portugal, Indonesia, Germany, Mexico, and the United States, together with extensive travel in Asia and Europe has shaped her unique vision and palette. Her work offers the viewer a front seat to that journey, and a threshold to cross over into their own imagination.
Klint works primarily in acrylic and pencil on Claybord™, smooth kaolin clay covered panels that offer the ideal surface for her manipulation of color and medium.
New Aerial Travel Video: “Lockdown” In Frankfurt, Germany (March, 2020)
Downtown Frankfurt as most of Germany is turned into a ghost town. Eerie athmosphere in this normally busy city. Scary times.
Auto Racing Nostalgia: “Targa Florio” Endurance Race In Sicily (1906 – 1977)
The Targa Florio was an open road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily near the island’s capital of Palermo. Founded in 1906, it was the oldest sports car racing event, part of the World Sportscar Championship between 1955 and 1973. While the first races consisted of a whole tour of the island, the track length in the race’s last decades was limited to the 72 kilometres (45 mi) of the Circuito Piccolo delle Madonie, which was lapped 11 times.
After 1973, it was a national sports car event until it was discontinued in 1977 due to safety concerns. It has since been run as a rallying event, and is part of the Italian Rally Championship.
The race was created in 1906 by the wealthy pioneer race driver and automobile enthusiast, Vincenzo Florio, who had started the Coppa Florio race in Brescia, Lombardy in 1900. The Targa also claimed to be a worldly event not to be missed. Renowned artists, such as Alexandre Charpentier and Leonardo Bistolfi, were commissioned to design medals. A magazine was initiated, Rapiditas, which aimed to enhance, with graphic and photographic reproductions of the race, the myth of the car and the typical character of modern life, speed.[1]
One of the toughest competitions in Europe, the first Targa Florio covered 3 laps equalling 277 miles (446 km) through multiple hairpin curves on treacherous mountain roads, at heights where severe changes in climate frequently occurred. Alessandro Cagno won the inaugural 1906 race in nine hours, averaging 30 miles per hour (50 km/h).
By the mid-1920s, the Targa Florio had become one of Europe’s most important races, as neither the 24 Hours of Le Mans nor the Mille Miglia had been established yet. Grand Prix races were still isolated events, not a series like today’s F1.
After winning the race several times, Porsche named the hardtop convertible version of the 911 after the Targa. The name targa means plaque or plate, see targa top.
From Wikipedia
Boomers Daily 