North Atlantic Clam That Lives for Centuries Yields Insights on Cardiac Aging | NCCIH

The typical heart in aquatic invertebrate animals such as clams, oysters, and mussels has many strong similarities to the human heart. The Arctica islandica, or ocean quahog, is the longest-living, non-colony-dwelling animal ever identified; so far, the oldest identified specimen survived to age 508 (age is identified by counting shell growth rings).

via North Atlantic Clam That Lives for Centuries Yields Insights on Cardiac Aging | NCCIH.

So your child swallowed a button battery. Here’s what you need to know.

So your child swallowed a button battery. Here’s what you need to know..

Every three hours, a child or teenager will visit an emergency department to be examined or treated for battery ingestion. From the most recent data in 2009, Emergency Departments saw nearly 6,000 U.S. children for button battery related exposures.

Let’s Stop the Unnecessary Treatment of Heart Disease

Let’s Stop the Unnecessary Treatment of Heart Disease.

recent population-based prospective studyof Swedish men suggested almost four of five MIs in men could be preventable.[1](That’s not a typo.) Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Medicine in Stockholm, Sweden, followed 20 721 men from 1997 to 2009. They specifically asked about five modifiable lifestyle behaviors: a healthy diet, moderate alcohol consumption, no smoking, being physically active, and having no abdominal fat (waist circumference.) There were 1361 cases of MI in the 11-year follow-up period.

heartwire journalist Michael O’Riordan recaps the details of the study here. The short story was that each of the five low-risk behaviors independently reduced the chance of having a heart attack. Not smoking was the strongest risk reducer. Men who combined all five behaviors were 86% less likely than those who had zero behaviors to have a heart attack.

Anne Lamott – Time Lost and Found

Finding time – Sunset.

 

I sometimes teach classes on writing, during which I tell my students every single thing I know about the craft and habit. This takes approximately 45 minutes. I begin with my core belief—and the foundation of almost all wisdom traditions—that there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.

Then I bring up the bad news: You have to make time to do this.

This means you have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement. That multitasking can argue a wasted life. That a close friendship is worth more than material success.