Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
We’ve known for some time now that Americans are increasingly dying younger, but the scale and nature of the problem has been a little bit murky. There was speculation that the downturn in American life expectancy was all thanks to “deaths of despair,” but some experts have said that might not be the full story,…
Shaheen Shivji was happier in Kabul. There were bombs going off outside the compound where she worked for a development agency, but she preferred life in the Afghan capital to the one she had at home in Abbotsford, B.C., for one simple reason: She wasn’t lonely. “For the first time in my adult life, I…
You might not think of yourself as a dancer. In fact, maybe even the idea of dancing makes your palms sweat. But growing scientific evidence suggests that getting up and grooving with others has a lot of benefits. In our recent study, we found that synchronizing with others while dancing raised pain tolerance. It also…
Photo: AP On Tuesday, former CMS administrator under Obama Andy Slavitt announced United States of Care, a “non-partisan non-profit” with undisclosed funding that plans on “building and mobilizing a movement to achieve long-lasting solutions that make health care better for everyone.” “We can’t just wait for politicians in DC to come together solve our health…
Along with the usual things that come with winning the lottery — a new car, a vacation — Donald Savastano was excited about finally being able to see a doctor after winning a $1 million prize in December. The self-employed carpenter in New York told local media he hadn’t been able to afford to do…
On the second Tuesday in June, I start to feel fluish. If this is 2016 and I’m still a freelance writer, I’m losing money immediately on the assignments I can’t complete because my vision is blurry and my thoughts are erratic. If this is 2013, I am soon taken off the roster at the cafe…
Hold your canteen under a natural spring and you’ll come away with crystal clear water, potentially brimming with beneficial bacteria as well as minerals from the earth. That’s what proponents of the “raw water” movement are banking on: selling people on the idea of drinking water that contains the things they say nature intended without the chemicals, such as chlorine, often used in…
High-profile Bay Area denizens are skipping tap water in favor of drinking unfiltered, untreated, and expensive “raw” water that comes straight out of the ground, Nellie Bowles reports for The New York Times. Proponents claim that raw water’s health benefits include naturally occurring minerals and microbes. But the reality for any inadequately treated water from…
Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.05% has struck again. Only this time the internet giant is shaking up an industry it hasn’t yet entered. Amazon’s potential entry into the pharmacy-services industry helped spur CVS HealthCorp.’s CVS -2.94% $66 billion bid for insurance giant Aetna Inc., AET 11.54% according to a person familiar with the matter. An acquisition of a major insurer was among roughly a dozen strategies CVS’s management team…
“Alexa, I’m depressed.” “Alexa, I’m being abused.” “Alexa, I’m considering suicide.” When Amazon introduced Alexa in 2014, it quickly discovered that users wanted more than traffic reports and Taylor Swift songs. According to the company, more than 50% of interactions with Alexa are “nonutilitarian and entertainment related,” a category that includes professions of love for…