Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
How Long Will the Total Solar Eclipse Last?
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This article originally appeared on Time.com.
The upcoming total solar eclipse, which you can watch live on TIME.combeginning at 12 p.m. ET on Monday, will cross the U.S. in less than two hours, and Americans in some states will only witness seconds of it.
The once-in-a-lifetime event on Aug. 21 will engulf parts of 14 states in sudden darkness when it moves from the West Coast diagonally down toward the East Coast. The path of totality, which starts in Oregon and ends in South Carolina, is about 70 miles wide.
It’s the first total solar eclipse with a trajectory exclusive to America, as well as the first total eclipse of the sun that will be visible from the contiguous U.S. since 1979. Total solar eclipses can be seen when the moon passes directly between the sun and the Earth and the moon completely covers the entire face of the sun.
Watch Live as the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Crosses the U.S.
Here’s what to know about the timeframe of the August total solar eclipse:
How long is the upcoming total solar eclipse?
The total solar eclipse, which has been dubbed “The Great American Eclipse,” will last for about an hour and a half overall, but each city that catches the eclipse will only see it for a matter of minutes or seconds. The moon’s shadow travels at roughly 2,400 mph over the face of the Earth, according to Bill Kramer, a well-known expert in the eclipse chasing community.
Which cities are the first and last to see the eclipse in totality?
Skygazers in Lincoln Beach, Ore. will witness the rare event first. A partial eclipse begins there at 9:05 a.m. PST and totality starts at 10:16 a.m. The eclipse then makes its way through Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, clipping several other states on the way. It ends near Charleston, S.C. at 2:48 p.m. EDT, just about an hour and a half after it began.
Which city will see the eclipse for the longest?
NASA says the longest duration of totality will be near Carbondale, Ill., where the sun will be completely covered for two minutes and 40 seconds. Some places, like Kansas City, Kans.— which is at the edge of totality — will only witness totality for about 20 seconds. The total solar eclipse will be visible in a hard-to-reach part of Montana for less than a minute. Here’s where you can see what the eclipse will look like for you.
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Saturday, August 19, 2017
What You Need to Know About Swimmer's Ear–Even If You Never Swim
The term “namaste” has become so popular it immediately conjures images of zen-like yogis, but have you ever wondered what the yoga phrase actually means?
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Why Do People Say Namaste at the End of Yoga Class?
I was 14 years old when I went from flat-chested girl to voluptuous woman—almost overnight. Every girls dream, right? Not really. Having a D cup in your teens and a DD in your 20s is not so much fun.
Besides being uncomfortable naked and in a bathing suit, my neck and shoulders were killing me. And my belief that I looked OK in clothes was shot to pieces one day in my late 20s when I reviewed a taped segment of myself (I was an on-air TV reporter) and saw that I looked like I had two huge grapefruits under my sweater. I was horrified and never appeared on-screen again in anything but a business suit.
Life could have gone on like this—with me enduring the pain in my neck and rib cage, being tired of the sweat that accumulated at night between the two mounds of heavy skin while I tried to sleep, and strapping on several sports bras before every jog—if my mother hadnt met a woman whod had breast-reduction surgery. Id considered reduction mammoplasty, sure, but I really couldnt afford it. (The average cost is $6,000-plus, according to plastic surgery organizations.) But the woman my mother told me about had the surgery and loved it, and her insurance paid for it.
I had no idea my top-heaviness was a medical condition that might be covered. But I was about to find that out. Heres my journey and what you need to know.
The approval process
Insurance companies need to be convinced that breast reduction is medically necessary. And convincing them requires more than just a doctors recommendation. You need real proof. To get it, I went to see an aesthetic-and-reconstructive plastic surgeon. After a quick examination, he told me what I already knew. My breasts were large for my frame, one was a good deal larger than the other, and I had the typical indentation marks on the top of each shoulder where bra straps had pressed into my skin for years. In his opinion, I was a good candidate.
The next step was harder. I had to be photographed from the neck down, and the pictures were sent to my insurer. A panel of doctors would determine if a reduction was appropriate and, most important, if my bill would be paid.
Insurance companies typically make the call by relying on a set of charts that consider height, weight, and the amount of removable tissue in each breast, according to Amy S. Colwell, MD, a specialist in aesthetic-and-reconstructive breast surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The surgery is covered 90 percent of the time when the tissue to be removed meets insurers standard criteria. (It weighs between 400 grams to 2,000 grams, or about 1 to 4 pounds.) Women with DD, DDD, and H cups usually qualify. But Dr. Colwell says the criteria of different insurers can be fuzzy, and a recent study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found that insurers breast-reduction rules arent always based on medical science.
Weeks passed as I waited to hear what a panel of strangers had decided about my naked body. When the call finally came, I was shocked and thrilled all at the same time: The insurance company had approved my surgery, and I would probably go from an overflowing DD to a B. At 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds, I thought that sounded a little bit small, but I knew I needed the surgery. And now, finally, at 30 years old, I could afford it. The cost? My small deductible of $150.
There are several ways to perform a breast reduction. In my case, tissue was removed from the bottom of each breast, and my nipples were moved up without disconnecting them from the blood flow, allowing me to quickly regain sensation. “Nobodys leavin till theyre even,” was my surgeons motto in the operating room.
What about the risks? They include infection, wound breakdown, scarring, and the need for re-operating. Studies suggest that 10 to 50% of women undergoing a reduction may have some complications. But the healthier you are, experts say, the more likely surgery will be a success. Dr. Colwell says most women are extremely satisfied.
With mild pain medication and a full week of rest, recovery was easier than I had anticipated. Early on, I had feeling in one breast but not the other. With time, sensation returned to both, just as the doc said it would.
Two years later, the scars around my nipple and the lower-middle section
of each breast are barely visible. The scars underneath each breast are light-colored and hidden by the natural shape of perky boobs. Because theyre around and below the nipple, they dont show in bikini tops or plunging necklines. To be honest, I love the scars. They are a reminder that I took control of a part of my body that was out of control.
Although it takes months for breasts to take on their permanent shape after a reduction, I quickly looked and felt different. The weight on my neck and rib cage was gone, and, for the first time in a long time, I felt proportional. And my bra size? I turned out to be a perfect 34D. (Once in surgery, my doctor was able to meet the weight-removal requirements set by the insurance company and still leave me with breasts that felt right to me.)
Now that Im out of the Big Bra Club and feel great, Im on a mission to convert other women whose large breasts are a health issue. They need to know that feeling top-heavy, uncomfortable, and embarrassed isnt just a part of life that they need put up with. They need to know its not normal to have to search constantly for a bra that fits or to have backbreaking pain. And although a reduction can limit a womans ability to breast-feed, its unlikely to affect mammograms. Ultimately, these women need to know that big-breast problems can be fixed. For good.
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Thursday, August 10, 2017
Why Sunlight Is So Good For You
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This article originally appeared on Time.com.
Even Hippocrates believed that the changing seasons had something to do with health—and that the key was how much available daylight there was during different times of the year.
Many centuries later, it’s clear he was onto something. As people spend more time indoors staring at computer and television screens, scientists are starting to appreciate how exposure to sunlight affects various body systems.
The most interesting support for our dependence on daylight emerged with a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. The term was coined by Dr. Normal Rosenthal at Georgetown University to describe the so-called winter blues: the lethargy and feelings of sadness and hopelessness that come when the weather forces people to spend more time indoors and the season provides little opportunity for exposure to natural light. Some people have speculated that our modern lifestyle, which keeps people indoors under artificial light for so many hours, may be encouraging a form of SAD year-round.
Rosenthal found that while not everyone is as strongly affected by a lack of sunlight, for the people who are, light boxes that blast a few minutes of bright light in the frequency of natural sunlight each morning can help to elevate mood and re-energize them to face the day.
Studies of shift workers also support the possible role that exposure to sunlight has on mood. Messing up the normal light and dark cycles by sleeping during the day and being awake at night, under artificial light, can disrupt the body’s metabolism. That can have domino effects on nearly everything: how we break down energy from food, how strong our immune systems are and the vast array of brain chemicals and other substances that contribute to mood, weight, energy and more. People who consistently work night shifts, for example, tend to be heavier than people who don’t.
There is also intriguing evidence finding that people who work at night and don’t get exposed to daylight may produce less melatonin, a hormone that is dependent on light. Normally, people produce more melatonin toward the evening, as the body gets ready for sleep. As more light creeps in during the morning, the levels of the hormone start dropping again. In winter months when the days are shorter, melatonin levels may peak earlier or later in the day, which can lead to some of the mood changes linked to SAD. Studies in shift workers found that less melatonin may also lead to lower levels of important chemicals the body uses to repair DNA. That could potentially lead to more mutated cells that can trigger cancer.
Some studies also suggest that the light cycle may regulate the production of blood stem cells from the bone marrow. More research here is needed, but that could be important for the timing of bone marrow transplants for cancer patients, and hitting the transplant at just the right time of the light cycle may improve the chances of harvesting enough cells from donors.
MORE: You Asked: Is It Bad to Be Inside All Day?
Other work found that the dreaded risk of rejection of transplanted bone marrow cells might also be avoided with the help of light — in this case, ultraviolent light. Scientists treating mice who received skin transplants found that zapping the transplanted cells with UV light eliminated the group of cells most responsible for triggering rejection reactions.
The strongest support for the role of sunlight in health, however, comes from its effect on mood. Studies generally focus on the brain chemical that’s most directly linked to mood, serotonin: higher levels of serotonin correlate with better mood and feelings of satisfaction and calmness, and lower levels link to depression and anxiety. (Many antidepressants work by boosting levels of serotonin among brain neurons.)
One Australian study that measured levels of brain chemicals flowing directly out of the brain found that people had higher serotonin levels on bright sunny days than on cloudy ones. That effect remained no matter how cold or hot the weather was. Other autopsy studies found that people who died of non-psychiatric causes in the summer, when days are longer, tended to have higher levels of serotonin than people who died in the winter when sunlight is scarce
MORE: New Ways to Improve Wellbeing at Work
Other interesting research, this time of people using tanning beds, hints that ultraviolet light may trigger feelings of euphoria, which may explain why some people become dependent on getting regular sessions in the beds. There’s also evidence that UV light can push melanocytes—the cells that produce dark pigment in skin—to release endorphins, a feel-good chemical.
But the connection isn’t entirely clear yet. It would follow that sunlight, then, would be a good treatment for people with depression and low levels of serotonin. It works for some people with SAD, but whether the light therapy can help people with non-seasonal depression isn’t so obvious. For one, it seems that people who suffer from SAD don’t tend to show significant drops in serotonin levels, like people with depression. Studies also have not found differences in depression between sunnier and less sunny climes, either. What’s more, rates of suicide tend to climb as days get longer and decline as the days get shorter.
While there have been some rigorous studies looking at how sunlight can affect such non-seasonal depression, most show that if it can cause a lift in mood, it takes much longer than the kind that can occur with seasonal depression. While light therapy can improve mood in people with SAD in a few days, it may take several weeks for light have an effect on non-seasonal depression.
Doctors may not be prescribing sunlight therapy yet. But if you find yourself in the doldrums after hours at your desk, it might not hurt to get up and look for some light—as long as it comes from the sun, not the ceiling.
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Here's How to Take a Perfect Vacation
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This article originally appeared on Time.com.
Taking time off from work or the daily grind not only helps people de-stress and feel happier, but it also helps productivity and mood—as long as you do it right.
But the barrier to entry is high, since many Americans don’t even take their allotted vacation time. Fewer Americans are going on vacation now than in the past: Data suggests that Americans used to take nearly three weeks of vacation a year in 2000, but took just slightly more than two weeks in 2015. Even when people are on vacation, more than 60% say they keep working remotely.
Yet the benefits of vacation are clear. “We know that taking a break is extremely good for one’s mental health,” says Susan Krauss Whitbourne, an adjunct professor of gerontology at the University of Massachusetts Boston, who frequently writes about the benefits of vacation. “It puts you in a different frame of mind, gets you out of your standard patterns and can give you time with family.”
MORE: TIME Guide To Happiness
It also helps busy people hit refresh, in a sense. In one survey of 414 travelers, 94% said they had as much or more energy after coming back after a good trip, and 55% who had a low-stress trip returned to work with even higher levels of energy than before.. “It’s good to just get out of the day to day drudgery,” says Whitbourne.
The type of vacation matters, of course. If planned poorly, a vacation can actually lead to more stress. According to a 2010 report, a vacation where there’s lots of travel stress, like figuring out transportation logistics or feeling unsafe, can make vacationers feel less happy and more frazzled than they were before the trip. Taking the time to plan the trip can help ensure things run smoothly. In that same survey, 28% of people who said they had a bad vacation also said they left planning to the last minute.
Managing expectations is also key to having an enjoyable break. Your happiness will fluctuate during a vacation, after all. “If you understand people have different happiness levels over the course of vacation, that can give you some ideas for how to spend it,” says Whitbourne. “Have alone time or take a break, then come back together.”
MORE: TIME Guide To Happiness
And don’t forget to document your trip on your camera. “Take pictures, so that you can look back on them and the memories of vacation,” says Whitbourne.
Even if your trip seems to be filled with more mishaps than good memories, all is not lost: you can usually turn weird, bad or disappointing experiences into family jokes. “Everyone has those nightmare travel stories,” Whitbourne says. “But those can really bond families or partners.”
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Saturday, August 5, 2017
Friday, August 4, 2017
U.S. Scientists Use CRISPR to Fix Genetic Disease in Human Embryos For the First Time
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This article originally appeared on Time.com.
Scientists have successfully used CRISPR, a tool that cuts DNA with more precision than any other genome editing technology, to fix a genetic defect in human embryos that can cause serious heart problems, according to a landmark new study in the journal Nature. This is the first use of CRISPR on human embryos in the U.S.
Chinese scientists have reported using CRISPR to correct genetic defects in human embryos, but some of the embryos they used weren’t viable.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, from Oregon Health & Science University, collaborated with researchers at the Salk Institute, as well as with scientists from China and South Korea, to improve on those results. They applied CRISPR at the earliest stage possible—when the embryo is still a single cell—to ensure that the genetic changes they introduced were propagated to every cell of the embryo as it divided and developed. Because the embryos were created for research purposes only, none were allowed to develop beyond three days.
MORE: First CRISPR Human Trial Approved in the U.S.
CRISPR, which was introduced in 2012, precisely cuts DNA but does not repair it. If combined with other techniques, however, researchers say it could both cut out disease-causing genes and replace them with healthy versions to essentially cure genetic human diseases. So in order to further the science, Mitalipov and his colleagues wanted to test what happened when CRISPR was used in a human embryo. Theoretically, once CRISPR broke the DNA in the appropriate place to cut out a mutation, the cell’s natural repair mechanisms would kick in to repair the injury, fixing the defect this time with the proper code—much like how a word processor’s autocorrect function fixes spelling mistakes.
Unfortunately, this process isn’t very efficient in adult cells in which CRISPR has been tested, so Mitalipov expected similarly low yields in the embryos.
To his surprise, however, he found that embryos were very effective at fixing breaks in DNA.
He created embryos that contained a specific defect known to cause a heart condition by fertilizing healthy donor eggs from various women with sperm from a man who carried the genetic mutation for the disease. He then introduced CRISPR to splice out the mutated gene in more than 50 embryos just after the sperm fertilized the eggs, when the embryos were still just one cell. Several days later, 72% of the embryos showed no sign of the mutated gene; the gene was essentially corrected in all of their cells.
MORE: How the Science of CRISPR Can Change Your Genes
It turns out that the embryo relies on the normal copy of the gene, in this case from the egg, to fix the break made when CRISPR cut out the mutated gene. They key was to introduce CRISPR early enough so the embryo’s own DNA repair system could fix the mutated gene. That’s encouraging for one potential use of CRISPR in the future as a way to correct inherited genetic disease, says Mitalipov, since the embryo seems to have a built-in, reliable way of repairing the injury caused by splicing out an abnormal gene.
“Genetic diseases that are heritable can be treated this way as early as possible,” he says. “It’s the best way to treat the disease before the genetic mutation is actually transmitted to the embryo.”
MORE: New Technique That Lets Scientists Edit DNA Is Transforming Science—and Raising Difficult Questions
Currently, the most reliable way of screening for such inherited defects is by using IVF, screening the resulting embryos for the mutation and transferring only those without the mutation for pregnancy. But that may require several cycles of IVF, which is expensive and carries with it side effects and complications, before enough genetically healthy embryos are created.
The study results don’t mean that editing human embryos to correct genetic diseases will be available at hospitals anytime soon. While that’s the goal, the findings are just the first in a series of studies that will need to be done to document the safety and reliability of using CRISPR to fix human disease. For one, the efficiency of the CRISPR and repair process is still about 70%. “There is still work to do to improve the efficiency,” says Mitalopov. “But I think that’s possible to do.”
MORE: HIV Genes Have Been Cut Out of Live Animals Using CRISPR
He’s also encouraged by the fact that the gene editing and repair did not introduce other errors in the DNA. While it’s the most accurate DNA editor available, one of CRISPR’s drawbacks is that it can cut the genome in unintended places, especially where letters in the code look very similar to the target (again, similar to the way autocorrect can sometimes introduce more errors in attempting to fix a misspelling). Mitalipov’s team found no such off-target effects, a sign that CRISPR editing, at least in this study, was relatively safe. He notes, however, that may simply be an artifact of the particular gene he targeted; there may be coincidentally no parts of the genome that have similar sequences as the gene that CRISPR cut.
Even beyond the medical questions, there are also ethical concerns about the power inherent in manipulating the human genome. While correcting devastating diseases such as the heart condition Mitalipov studied, which can cause sudden death in young people, isn’t ethically controversial, using CRISPR to modify other genes—for intelligence, say, or athleticism or physical attributes like eye color or height—is much more problematic. The concerns are especially acute when it comes to eggs, sperm and embryos, since changes in these can be passed down to the next generation and forever change the human gene pool. The embryos that Mitalipov created were never intended to be transferred for pregnancy. But had they been allowed to develop, they would not contain the heart disease mutation, and they would not pass on the mutation to their offspring. The CRISPR editing would essentially eliminate the mutation from that family’s pedigree. Editing changes in already developed cells in adults aren’t inherited, so are less worrisome in terms of their legacy.
MORE: Pandora’s Baby: How A New Type Of Prenatal Genetic Testing Could Predict Your Child
For now, there are legal and regulatory hurdles to moving the research closer to human trials. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) does not provide funding for using CRISPR in human embryo research. The Food and Drug Administration is banned from considering studies that involve genetic altering of human eggs, sperm or embryos. Mitalipov and his team used funding from Oregon Health & Science and did not rely on any NIH support.
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5 Times You Really, Seriously Need to Go to the ER
Chinese scientists may have been the first to use CRISPR, a powerful new gene editing tool, to fix genetic defects in human embryos, but the first U.S. scientists to achieve the same feat say their method is more reliable.
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