Today's Lunch Break:
The Cost Conundrum, by Atul Gawande
I started to summarize my favorite points from this piece, but I decided against it. Because...you need to read the article in its entirety [1]. It's that good.
Today's Lunch Break:
The evangelical atheists and Mormon anti-evolutionists have joined forces
Those who know me well know that science is a subject very dear to my heart. When given the chance to speak at my graduation convocation for the College of Life Sciences a year ago, I spent my entire alloted time quoting Elder John Widtsoe and Dr. Francis Collins and gushing about the beauty of biology and evolution.
Those who know me well have probably also had me pestering them to check out The Mormon Organon, a blog written by my former BYU professor. The following excerpt is from his latest post, and is today's featured LB article.
Today's Lunch Break:
Dude, You've Got Problems
A while back I declared I wanted to phase out cleaning chemicals and instead use vinegar, baking soda, etc. for household cleaners. (This isn't totally related to the LB article, but bear with me for a moment.) Elliott is great at supporting me in what I want to do, so of course he was okay with it (especially after I assured him the house wouldn't constantly smell like pickles). In fact, he recently cleaned the bathroom while I wasn't home and used vinegar, even though other cleaners were in the cabinet. But the first thing Elliott said when I made my announcement was, with a big grin, "We're going to be the hippie family, aren't we?"
Today's Lunch Break:
Making Ends Meet in the Great Depression
New unemployment figures were released today and it's not pretty. At 8.5% unemployment, we're at the highest rate in 25 years.
The comparison between this recession and the Great Depression of the 1930s is pervasive. But we're at 8.5%. In 1933, unemployment in the US hit 25%. That's three times higher than where we're at now.
Today's Lunch Break:
Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe
While the disaster movies would have you believe that it's going to be an asteroid, nuclear war, or virus outbreak that kills most of us off, it may be nothing less than a case of bad weather.
Well, space weather, that is. A large enough ejection of coronal mass from the sun (a phenomenon often coinciding with solar flares) would disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, induce large currents in wires, melt transformers, knock out continental power grids, and render large sections of our interconnected and electricity-dependant infrastructure completely useless.
Today's Lunch Break:
Early soy diet may protect against breast cancer
It has long been known that breast cancer rates in Asian women are lower than average but that the difference quickly diminishes in subsequent generations after immigration to the West (suggesting a factor other than genetics). The study above lays out strong evidence pointing to childhood soy intake as a major protective factor[1].
Today's Lunch Break:
Name days
My birthday is over and it was great. Its passing puts me in my late 20s, which is fine, I'm just not sure where the last 5 years went. I still feel 22.
In many countries, including in Europe and Latin America, people celebrate not only their birthdays, but also their name days. You can read up on it here and go here to see if you have a name day. I was surprised to find my name has a day, but Elliott isn't so lucky. And today, happy name day to all the Rebeccas and Beckys!
Lunch Break will return next week. We've been entertaining out-of-town visitors this week, and today Lara is off to California for business meetings (I would be very jealous, except the weather suddenly turned amazing here).
And one surprising discovery. I googled "Elliott and Lara" (in quotes) a couple days back (out of vanity and to see which blogs were giving us the link love), and I learned...that another Elliott and Lara are getting married this August! Congratulations guys! (And nice kitchenware choices!) [1,2]
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danje said: seriously, that was the only picture of our virginia beach trip? what ... [More]