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3 Important Reasons Why Reading Can Save Your Brain Health

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In: economics, featured, health, media, mind, power, Reading, social media, truth, Writing

A lot of us are using machines to do stuff for us, these days. We have been encouraged to think that hacks are smart strategies in life. The truth is rather different, when it comes to neglecting your own brain in favour of technology. Use it or lose it! Our brain functions do not improve with neglect. Reading and writing are the two things that set us apart from all other animals on planet earth. Language is our innate superpower and if we outsource the processing of it to machines and AI, we will be the mentally poorer for it. Here are 3 important reasons why reading can save your brain health.Continue Reading

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Americanisation

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In: corruption, crime, democracy, economics, featured, Government, health, history, identity, latest post, media, mind, movies, oral fetish, politics, power, social media, sport

You know, I see quite a few of these YouTube videos where Americans compare stuff to what happens in Australia. It is not these that peak my interest, but rather that the global Americanisation is so ubiquitous. Everything about modern life is largely the same in the western world. Have a think about the computer age and where that originated. The internet and social media are American inventions. Smart phones are a big part of this and they too are a US innovation. Beyond this, to more prosaic trends and think about working out, bigger muscles and tattoos. These too, are American cultural shifts, which occurred over the last couple of decades.Continue Reading

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emergency signage

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In: economics, health, latest post, politics

Private equity investments are bad for health. These American style investments are incredibly unhealthy for the vehicles they, often, drive into the ground. Healthscope: The private equity fail for hospitals in Australia. What private equity does is saddle the thing that they buy with all the debt raised to purchase it in the first place. Then, it liquidates whatever juicy assets in the possession of the targeted investment vehicle. In this case, it was selling all the real estate upon which these dozens of private hospitals reside. This raised billions for the private equity firm. Following this all the hospitals had to pay commercial rents to the new owners of the land. Making operating the businesses more expensive.Continue Reading

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Bite and Smile book cover

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In: health, history, latest post, nutrition, oral fetish, truth

Do you know why humanity has so much trouble with its teeth and gums? It is a sweet betrayal that has engendered centuries of pain. Take a moment to feel the sharpest strike of the exposed nerve of a dying tooth inside your mouth. Tooth ache is such an inadequate term for this throbbing agony. You cannot even bloody eat; it has stripped that basic pleasure away. A drink of water can bring on waves of pain that last for too f****** long. We all have to bite and smile in the face of the sugar conspiracy.Continue Reading

focused african american researcher conducting biochemical experiment in clinic

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In: featured, health, history, latest post, literature, religion

I have been reading some interesting stuff about how the Black Death shaped humanity. Plague has been with humankind at least 5, 000 years and has been one of our most efficient killers.

“Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, a zoonotic bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas. It is transmitted between animals through fleas.”

(https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/plague#:~:text=Plague%20is%20an%20infectious%20disease,transmitted%20between%20animals%20through%20fleas.)

Yersinia pestis is the official name of this malevolent bacteria, which has a predilection for human victims. It manifests in bubonic and pneumonic ways to spread death and disease. It has been found in ancient DNA by scientists and looks to have originated on the steppes of Eurasia.Continue Reading

man doing a sample test in the laboratory

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In: economics, featured, Government, health, latest post

The Australian capital and federal parliament was graced with a visit from a bunch of what we used to call chemists. Their unruly behaviour under the auspices of the Opposition caught many observers off guard. Filthy pharmacists flout parliament with their rude and aggressive carry on. Their sense of entitlement has obviously been groomed and well fed over the last decade of LNP governments. Small businesses making money at the expense of their customers with health problems is something close to the heart of Peter Dutton and his hardline right wing mates. They encouraged the OTT behaviour by these subsidised drug dealers in the halls of parliament.Continue Reading

silhouette of flying birds on a twilight sky

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In: featured, healing, health, latest post, mind

A good heart these days is hard to find and the most important one is your own. Amid the hustle and bustle of social media, forums, and online debate it is very easy to get wound up. To seethe and hate or mope and despair. To writhe in anger or anguish and rage against the dimming light of reason. Peace be upon you brother and sister. Fill your heart and soul with tranquil thoughts and healing energy. Thus spake Zarathustra. Well, perhaps not, but it is a fairly good idea, every now and then, to take a time-out from the fray.Continue Reading

light man people woman

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In: health

The human condition is not something many of us ponder until something goes wrong upstairs. Whether it be within our own psyche or that of a loved one mental illness can be a black hole of unknown dimensions adversely effecting lives. Things like anxiety and depression are often frightening due to their impact upon relatively unexplored realms. Our minds are vast repositories of memories, thoughts, feelings, and sensations (Florey, 2021). When things go wrong in our lives, we can slip into a scary world of dark shadows seemingly immune to the warmth of the sun. Beyond Blue reports that anxiety is the most common mental health issue in Australia, with one in four experiencing it at some point in their lives. Therefore, the idea that these frightening states can be influenced by the trillions of tiny creatures inhabiting our gut is immediately arresting and thought provoking.Continue Reading

person holding laboratory flask

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In: health

There are two seriously debilitating conditions looming large over the Australian population, as they approach later middle age. Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are becoming increasingly common within our western communities around the globe. Their impact upon quality of life are considerable and in Alzheimer’s case decidedly fatal. Alzheimer’s is the most prevalent form of dementia in human beings. (Vogt, 2017) Medical science continues to look for answers and cures for both these all too common diseases. Diabetes and Alzheimer’s effected by gut microbiome: New research is shining a light from an altogether new angle. (Haridy, 2021) This new, bottom up, perspective is providing valuable information and possibly new therapeutic approaches to these scourges of the twenty first century.Continue Reading

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In: health, Older Stuff

As I sit here heading into another Covid lockdown, this time from the Delta variant, I ponder about our future. Will Covid Sars-2 prove to be our dinosaur extinction moment? Will the Homo sapien’s story end here at the hands of a virus. Perhaps a virus engineered in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, which was funded by American corporate interests. It all sounds like a scenario drawn from the pages of an airport bookstore thriller. However, over 4 million people have lost their lives from this pandemic and deaths are not slowing up anytime soon.Continue Reading