Tag Archives: Wall Street Journal

Exercise: “Shelter In Place” Home Circuit Workouts For Older Adults (WSJ)

From a Wall Street Journal article (March 21, 2020):

As we age, our balance declines, says Dani Johnson, a physical therapist with the Mayo Clinic’s Healthy Living Program in Rochester, Minn. Implementing balance exercises as simple as standing on one leg as you brush your teeth can help prevent falls. Getting a daily dose of cardio can boost the immune system.

This at-home circuit routine will get your heart rate up while also challenging strength and balance. Perform the circuit three times. Walk up and down steps or march in place for two to three minutes between sets. To up the effort, she suggests adding dumbbells or improvising with cans or tube socks filled with coins or rice.

Chair squats

Stand in front of a chair with your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend your knees, lowering your hips back, keeping weight in your heels and your chest upright. Start by sitting into the chair and standing back up 10 to 12 times. If this is easy, hover above the chair then return to standing.

 

 

Counter push-ups

Image result for incline push up at home gif animationPlace your hands on the edge of a counter, just beyond shoulder-width apart. Lower into a push-up then press back up. Repeat 10 to 12 times. For more of a challenge, walk your feet farther away from the counter.

Chair triceps dips

Sit upright in a chair with your hands on the armrests, elbows bent at 90 degrees. Straighten your arms, lifting your body off the chair. Hold briefly. Then lower yourself down. Use your legs to balance. Repeat 10 to 12 times.

Calf raises

Begin in a standing position. Rise up onto your toes, hold briefly, then lower back down. Repeat 10 to 12 times. Place one or both hands on a table or chair for more support. For an added challenge, perform on one leg at a time.

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Health: “How Coronavirus / Covid-19 Became A Global Pandemic” (WSJ Video)

On Dec. 1, 2019, a patient in Wuhan, China, started showing symptoms of what doctors determined was a new coronavirus. Since then, the virus has spread to infect more than 100,000 people. Here’s how the virus grew to a global pandemic. Photo illustration: Carter McCall/WSJ

Health: “What It’s Like to Take a Drive-Through Coronavirus Test” (WSJ)

As coronavirus spreads across the world, countries are setting up drive-through clinics to make it easier for their citizens to get tested. WSJ’s Andrew Jeong visited a test site in South Korea to see how it works.

Profiles: 82-Year Old American Abstract Painter Larry Poons

From a Wall Street Journal online profile (March 3, 2020):

I had a handful of school friends, including Francis Ford Coppola, who was in the grade behind me. He was known then as Frank. He directed school plays, such as “Finian’s Rainbow.” That’s where I fell in love with the girl. She was a dancer in the cast.

Painting, music and poetry all spoke to me, especially music. I applied to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Larry Poons, 82, is an abstract painter best known for his “dot” and “throw” paintings. “Larry Poons” (Abbeville), a book-length monograph of his work from the 1950s to the present, will be published in September. He spoke with Marc Myers.

The first time I painted on canvas board, I was lovesick. I had a crush on a girl in high school and had just finished reading Irving Stone’s Van Gogh biographical novel, “Lust for Life.”

I took my easel to a nearby park and painted trees. As I worked the paint with a small brush, it helped get my feelings out.

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Surrealism: “Midnight In Paris, 1929″(Dalí Museum)

Excerpts from a Wall Street Journal online review (Feb 25, 2020):

Midnight in Paris Surrealism at the Crossroads 1929 Special Exhibit Dali MuseumMasson, a founding Surrealist, saw the movement as an immersion “into what the German romantics call the night side of things.” However, “towards 1930,” Masson wrote, “a formidable disaster appeared in its midst: the demagogy of the irrational.” “Midnight in Paris” touches on Surrealism’s highs and lows, its darkness, poetry, beauty and banalities, reminding viewers—at the heart of the Dalí Museum, no less—that the movement is much, much more than melting watches.

In 1920s Paris, Surrealist revolution and transgression were in the air, but not everyone agreed on how to make Surrealist works or what they should look like. “Midnight in Paris: Surrealism at the Crossroads, 1929,” an exhibition of 80 paintings, prints, sculptures, drawings, collages, photographs, films and documents at St. Petersburg’s Dalí Museum, proposes to examine Surrealism’s rich visual fabric, conflicts and rivalries during the movement’s heyday in the City of Light. Organized by Didier Ottinger, deputy director of the Musée national d’art moderne at the Centre Pompidou, and William Jeffett, chief curator of special exhibitions at the Dalí, it focuses on the moment just before Surrealism burst onto and began to dominate the world stage.

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Interviews: 57-Year Old Actor Bob Odenkirk On Aging, Getting “Nicer”

From a Wall Street Journal online article (Feb 21, 2020):

WSJ. Magazine“I don’t have this precious career as an actor that I had to preserve. I’m an older guy, I’ve had a career, and the most personal thing I’ve ever done was Mr. Show, so, in a way I’ve said my piece, so I just don’t have all that much to lose really compared to somebody who’s an actor for a living and dreaming of their own show. My daughter asked me this question. This was a kid who grew up in Hollywood. She said, “If it’s bad, how bad would it be?” And I thought, Well, it’s Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. The worst thing it would be, would be an experiment that just didn’t pan out, but an interesting one at the very least.”

It’s fair to say that in 1998, no one who saw Bob Odenkirk perform a Mr. Show sketch buck naked on the stage of Radio City Music Hall for Comic Relief VIII—a cupped hand his only nod to decency—would have predicted his turn to drama. Odenkirk is now critically celebrated for his portrayal of greasy lawyer Saul Goodman in AMC’s Better Call Saul.

The 57 year-old stars on the fifth and penultimate season of the show, which premieres this weekend and has moved far away from its first season branding as “a Breaking Bad spinoff.”

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Energy Trends: Beaming Solar Power, Brine, Wind & Living Solar Cells (WSJ)

From a Wall Street Journal online article (Feb 13, 2020):

Beaming Solar Power Wall Street Journal
Beaming Solar Power – Wall Street Journal

To meet the surge in demand projected by 2050, innovative engineers, utility operators and grid architects are planning for a future that blurs the distinctions between energy consumers and producers. Homeowners, businesses and other traditional utility customers are beginning to take on a new role as energy producers, through small-scale solar arrays, wind turbines and other new affordable technologies.

To coordinate so many different power sources and demands, the future power grid will depend on artificial intelligence, automated two-way communications and computer control systems to continuously collect and synthesize data from millions of smart sensors.

  • Beaming Solar Power – Scientists and engineers are working on spacecraft to capture sunlight and transform it into electricity that is wirelessly beamed to Earth. A prototype from the California Institute of Technology transmits power in a steerable beam. Japan’s space agency JAXA demonstrated a unit that converted 1.8 kilowatts of electricity into microwaves and then beamed it about 100 yards. China is planning an orbital solar power station.
  • Living Solar Cells – Researchers are exploring how to exploit the ability of many microorganisms to generate electric current through photosynthesis. Solar cells using microbes would be cleaner and cheaper than those based on conventional semiconductors. So far, the current is only about enough to drive a small fan. By using two kinds of microbes instead of one, scientists in China recently found a way to boost the electrical energy.
  • The Power of Brine – Scientists in Norway, the Netherlands, Japan and the U.S. are generating electricity by harnessing the difference in salt concentration between seawater and freshwater. In one experiment, a semipermeable membrane allows seawater ions to pass into the fresh water. The movement of the ions generates an electric current.

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Elder-Care Crisis: Early Screening For Dementia, Increased Preventative Primary-Care Are Needed

From a Wall Street Journal Opinion article (Feb 10, 2020):

How to address the elder-care crisis? Ideally, doctors would screen older patients for dementia. An early diagnosis helps patients understand treatment options, plan for the future and receive appropriate care in the hospital. 

Costs of Long-Term Elderly Care Kaiser Infographic

Other steps include: more preventive care, changes to Medicare’s rehabilitation policies, adopting new reimbursement methods, and developing new measures of success. Primary-care offices can prevent hospital visits, but Americans seeking primary care face an average wait time of 24 days. This might not be a problem for a patient in need of an annual physical, but conditions like chest pain or infections require prompt treatment. Primary-care offices that offer same-day sick visits, home visits for bed-bound older adults, or at-home monitoring of conditions could reduce emergency department volumes.

Read full article by Elizabeth Goldberg MD

Future Of Driving: Testing Electric-Vehicles In Four Countries (WSJ Video)

Dozens of new electric-vehicle models are expected to arrive at dealerships in the next few years. We followed eight Wall Street Journal reporters in four countries to see if they, and the world, are ready to make the switch.

Exercise: 75-Year Old Texas Woman’s Training Routine For The “2020 Eiffel Tower Vertical” Race (665 Steps)

From a Wall Street Journal online article:

At 75, Marsha O’Loughlin competes in tower running competitions and trains at the University of North Texas stadium in Denton, Texas. JUSTIN CLEMONS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
At 75, Marsha O’Loughlin competes in tower running competitions and trains at the University of North Texas stadium in Denton, Texas. JUSTIN CLEMONS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Ms. O’Loughlin participates in a sport called tower running, which involves racing up skyscrapers, towers and stadium stairs. She’s ranked first in her age group nationally and 76th among women globally, according to the Towerrunning World Association. “I never take an elevator up a building unless it’s the only way up,” says Ms. O’Loughlin, who lives in a retirement community in Denton, Texas.

Ms. O’Loughlin runs the 20 floors of a building at Texas Woman’s University in Denton on Mondays and Thursdays. There are 20 steps a floor and she usually runs three to four reps. Leading up to a race, she will increase to five reps, and she descends backward, holding the railing. “It saves your knees,” she says. “I realize I’m 75, not 20.”

When Marsha O’Loughlin goes to Paris this March, she won’t be snapping photos of the Eiffel Tower. She’ll be too busy running up its stairs.

The 75-year-old is one of 131 participants who plan to compete in the 2020 Verticale de la Tour Eiffel, a race up 665 of the tower’s stairs.

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