Medical Diagnosis: 56-Year Old Woman Had Heart Attacks, But No Heart Disease? (New York Times)

From a New York Times Magazine article:

Diagnosis New York Times Illustration by Ina Jang 2019It was all horribly familiar — a rerun of an episode 15 months earlier, when she was with her family in River Vale, N.J. Back then, the burning pressure sent her to the emergency department, and she was told the same thing: She was having a heart attack. Immediately the cardiologist looked for blockages in the coronary arteries, which feed blood and oxygen to the hardworking muscles of her heart. That was the cause of most heart attacks. But they found no blockage.

Since childhood, she had frequent terrible canker sores that lasted for weeks. Sometimes it was hard to eat or even talk. Her mother, a nurse, told her everybody got them and thought she was being dramatic when she complained. So she had never brought them up with her doctors. Now the woman saw that her answer somehow made sense to the rheumatologist.

New York Times MagazineIndeed, that was the clue that led the rheumatologist to a likely diagnosis: Behcet’s disease. It’s an unusual inflammatory disorder characterized by joint pains, muscle pains and recurrent ulcers in mucus membranes throughout the body. Almost any part of the body can be involved — the eyes, the nose and lungs, the brain, the blood vessels, even the heart. Behcet’s was named after a Turkish dermatologist who in 1937 described a triad of clinical findings including canker sores (medically known as aphthous ulcers), genital ulcers and an inflammatory condition of the eye.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/magazine/heart-attack-diagnosis.html?te=1&nl=the-new%20york%20times%20magazine&emc=edit_ma_20191122?campaign_id=52&instance_id=14017&segment_id=19010&user_id=415092ec82728104b9ca7bbb44eeb7d3&regi_id=7441254120191122

Automotive Trends: Tesla Unveils “Cybertruck” With “Ultra-Hard 30X Stainless Steel”, 500+ Mile Range

From the Tesla website:

  • Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.

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  • With up to 3,500 pounds of payload capacity and adjustable air suspension, Cybertruck is the most powerful tool we have ever built, engineered with 100 cubic feet of exterior, lockable storage — including a magic tonneau cover that is strong enough to stand on.
  • Space for your toolbox, tire and Cyberquad, with room to spare. Utilize 100 cubic feet of exterior, lockable storage — including the under-bed, frunk and sail pillars.
  • Seat six comfortably with additional storage under the second-row seats. Complete with an advanced 17” touchscreen with an all-new customized user interface.
Tesla Cybertruck
From rugged to refined, Cybertruck is completely adaptable for your needs. Prepare for every experience with a versatile utilitarian design — including on-board power and compressed air.

It’ll do 0-60 mph (0-98 km/h) in 2.9 seconds, and a quarter mile in a ridiculous 10.8 seconds in its highest performance variant. In top spec, it’ll go as far as 500 miles (800 km) on a charge, making it a genuine option for multi-day off-road adventures, and its 250-plus kilowatt charging capability means fast top-ups are on the cards, too. Towing capacity is over 7,500 lb (3,400 kg), which Musk happily demonstrated in an uphill tug of war against a hapless F150.

Website: https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck

Healthcare Surveys: Nursing Shortage Threatens System As Baby Boomers & Nurses Retire

From a Healthcare Finance news article:

AMN Survey of Registered NursesA third of the nurses who took the survey are baby boomers and 20% of survey takers said they planned to retire in the next five years. More than a quarter, 27%, said they were unlikely to be working at their current job in a year.

The shortage threatens to collide with the impending retirement of the baby boomers, all of whom will be 65 years old by 2030, said the survey titled “A Challenging Decade Ahead.” People over 65 are hospitalized three times as often as middle-aged individuals, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Amid a nursing shortage, hospitals are struggling to hire and keep nurses, with burnout and workplace violence cited as contributing factors, according to a new survey.

Flexibility and work-life balance had the most influence for 39% of nurses in whether they decided to stick with a job, though 31% say compensation and benefits were the biggest driving factor, according to AMN Healthcare’s 2019 Survey of Registered Nurses.

To read more: https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/node/139458

Animated Videos: “David Attenborough On Spiders, Mortality, And Nature’s Resilience” (New Yorker)

Animated and Directed by: Joe Donaldson

David Attenborough On Spiders, Mortality, And Nature's Resilience (New Yorker)

Senior Producer: Yara Bishara
Editor: Christopher Hwisu Kim
Composer and Sound Designer: Ambrose Yu
Executive Producer: Soo-Jeong Kang

david-attenborough-on-spiders-mortality-and-natures-resilience-new-yorker-1.jpg

The celebrated naturalist discusses the resilience of nature and his optimistic outlook on mortality.

Future Of Homebuilding: Prefab “Sunset BUD LivingHome” By Douglas W. Burdge Architects

From a PlantPrefab.com online review:

Douglas W. Burdge - Sunset BUD LivingHomeThe idea for this ADU was conceived in the wake of the 2018 Woolsey Fire, as a way to help families reinhabit their properties while rebuilding their primary residence. All “BUD” designs provide beautiful living spaces that can be delivered quickly and enjoyed for generations as a valuable addition to almost any property.

Burdge Architects
https://www.buaia.com/

This innovative accessory dwelling unit (ADU) offers four different size and layout options to fit almost any property. From a compact studio, to a two-bed, two-bath home with garage, all configurations meet California ADU size allowances and are designed for fast and efficient prefabrication at Plant.

To read more: https://www.plantprefab.com/models/19

Art Book Of The Year: “Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist” By Elizabeth Goldring (Apollo)

From an Apollo Magazine online review:

Nicholas Hilliard Life of an ArtistOne of the most impressive aspects of the book is the wealth of contextual material, which never feels digressional but illuminatingly sets the scene for Hilliard’s remarkable life and achievement. His early life in Exeter; the family networks of goldsmiths in Devon and London; the political, religious and cultural worlds he would have encountered in London, Geneva, Paris and also – usually overlooked – in Wesel and Frankfurt; all make for compelling reading. This book is not just the definitive biography of Hilliard but essential reading for anyone interested in late 16th- and early 17th-century England.

Apollo Magazine 2019 Book of the Year

This year was the 400th anniversary of the death of the miniaturist, medallist, illuminator and painter Nicholas Hilliard, arguably the first internationally acclaimed English artist. This art-historical biography is both timely and exemplary. It presents Hilliard as a man and an artist, exploring his life in unprecedented depth but also with remarkable breadth. It creates an endlessly fascinating context for his extraordinary works, which are lavishly illustrated and perceptively analysed, and it casts new light on all sorts of other issues, events and individuals connected with Hilliard’s life and artistic output.

To read more: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/book-of-the-year-winner-apollo-awards-2019/

Health Organizations: “Leukemia & Lymphoma Society” (Animated Video)

Director: Natalie Labarre
Agency: Oberland
Production Co: Hornet
Executive Producer: Hana Shimizu
Development Producer: Kristin Labriola
Producer: Matt Creeden
Editor: Anita Chao
Production Coordinator: Riley Spencer

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Promotional Video

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) and creative agency Oberland approached Hornet to create a 45-second spot detailing how LLS can help people come to terms with the earth-shattering news of a cancer diagnosis. Hornet’s own Natalie Labarre directed the spot. In her words, it was supposed to be “a visual representation of what it’s like to have your life fall apart.” So, she made it literally fall apart with an unraveling of structures around the characters, a blurry focus, and a swirl of levitating objects. The message is that once LLS comes into the picture, these characters feel grounded again. Ultimately, the film is a heartfelt, soothing, beautifully-illustrated 2D animation that has a heavy, yet hopeful, tone.

Website: https://www.lls.org/

Top Science Podcasts: Tracking Landslides In Taiwan, The Universality Of Music (ScienceMag)

scimag_pc_logo_120_120 (2)You may have seen the aftermath of a landslide, driving along a twisty mountain road—a scattering of rocks and scree impinging on the pavement. And up until now, that’s pretty much how scientists have tracked landslides—roadside observations and spotty satellite images. Now, researchers are hoping to track landslides systematically by instrumenting an entire national park in Taiwan. The park is riddled with landslides—so much so that visitors wear helmets. Host Sarah Crespi talks with one of those visitors—freelance science journalist Katherine Kornei—about what we can learn from landslides.

In a second rocking segment, Sarah also talks with Manvir Singh about the universality of music. His team asked the big questions in a Science paper out this week: Do all societies make music? What are the common elements that can be picked out from songs worldwide? Sarah and Manvir listen to songs and talk about what love ballads and lullabies have in common, regardless of their culture of origin.

To read more: https://www.sciencemag.org/podcast/building-landslide-observatory-and-universality-music

 

Profiles: Stanford Physicist Robert Byer, 77, Helped Develop “Most Stable Laser In The World”

From a Stanford University News article:

Robert Byer uses an infrared viewing device to check the alignment of a near-IR laser through a linear crystal. Image credit Misha BrukByer also helped develop the quietest, most stable laser in the world, called the diode-pumped YAG laser. YAG lasers are today found in everything from communications satellites to green handheld laser pointers, which Byer co-developed with two of his graduate students and cites as one of his favorite inventions (he had joined Stanford in 1969). YAG lasers also form the main beams of the gravitational wave-detecting instrument, LIGO, which in 2015 achieved the most precise measurement ever made by humans when its antenna detected the tenuous spacetime fluctuations generated by two colliding black holes 1.3 billion light-years away.

Robert Byer was 22 years old when he first saw the light that changed his life.

Stanford NewsOne summer morning in 1964, Byer drove the hour from Berkeley down to Mountain View for a job interview at a California company called Spectra Physics. He walked in to find an empty lobby but could hear clapping and cheering in the back of the building. After politely waiting for several minutes, he followed the commotion to a darkened room filled with men whose jubilant faces were illuminated by a rod of red-orange light that seemed to float above an instrument-strewn table

To read more: https://news.stanford.edu/2019/11/19/life-changing-first-glimpse-laser/

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