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David Goggins
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Bryan Cranston
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Liv Boeree
International Poker Champion
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Amaryllis Fox
Former CIA Clandestine Operative
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Chris Hadfield
Retired Canadian Astronaut & Author
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Sooner or later we all face death. Will a sense of meaning help us?
As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner.
31 May, 2020
Photo by Alex Boyd on Unsplash
'Despite all our medical advances,' my friend Jason used to quip, 'the mortality rate has remained constant – one per person.'
<p>Jason and I studied medicine together back in the 1980s. Along with everyone else in our course, we spent six long years memorising everything that could go wrong with the human body. We diligently worked our way through a textbook called <em>Pathologic Basis of Disease</em> that described, in detail, every single ailment that could befall a human being. It's no wonder medical students become hypochondriacal, attributing sinister causes to any lump, bump or rash they find on their own person.</p><p>Jason's oft-repeated observation reminded me that death (and disease) are unavoidable aspects of life. It sometimes seems, though, that we've developed a delusional denial of this in the West. We pour billions into prolonging life with increasingly expensive medical and surgical interventions, most of them employed in our final, decrepit years. From a big-picture perspective, this seems a futile waste of our precious health-dollars.</p><p>Don't get me wrong. If I get struck down with cancer, heart disease or any of the myriad life-threatening ailments I learnt about in medicine, I want all the futile and expensive treatments I can get my hands on. I value my life. In fact, like most humans, I value staying alive above pretty much everything else. But also, like most, I tend to not really value my life unless I'm faced with the imminent possibility of it being taken away from me.</p>
<p>Another old friend of mine, Ross, was studying philosophy while I studied medicine. At the time, he wrote an essay called 'Death the Teacher' that had a profound effect on me. It argued that the best thing we could do to appreciate life was to keep the inevitability of our death always at the forefront of our minds.</p><p>When the Australian palliative care nurse Bronnie Ware interviewed scores of people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, she asked them their greatest regrets. The most frequent, published in her <a href="https://www.hayhouse.com/the-top-five-regrets-of-the-dying" target="_blank">book</a> <em>The Top Five Regrets of the Dying</em> (2011), were:</p><ol><li>I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me;</li><li>I wish I hadn't worked so hard;</li><li>I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings;</li><li>I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends; and</li><li>I wish that I had let myself be happier.</li></ol><p>The relationship between death-awareness and leading a fulfilling life was a central concern of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, whose work inspired Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialist thinkers. Heidegger lamented that too many people wasted their lives running with the 'herd' rather than being true to themselves. But Heidegger actually struggled to live up to his own ideals; in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party, hoping it would advance his career.</p>
<p>Despite his shortcomings as a man, Heidegger's ideas would go on to influence a wide range of philosophers, artists, theologians and other thinkers. Heidegger believed that Aristotle's notion of Being – which had run as a thread through Western thinking for more than 2,000 years, and been instrumental in the development of scientific thinking – was flawed at a most fundamental level. Whereas Aristotle saw all of existence, including human beings, as things we could classify and analyse to increase our understanding of the world, in <em>Being and Time</em> (1927) Heidegger argued that, before we start classifying Being, we should first ask the question: 'Who or what is doing all this questioning?'</p><p>Heidegger pointed out that we who are asking questions about Being are qualitatively different to the rest of existence: the rocks, oceans, trees, birds and insects that we are asking about. He invented a special word for this Being that asks, looks and cares. He called it <em>Dasein</em>, which loosely translates as 'being there'. He coined the term <em>Dasein</em> because he believed that we had become immune to words such as 'person', 'human' and 'human being', losing our sense of wonder about our own consciousness.</p><p>Heidegger's philosophy remains attractive to many today who see how science struggles to explain the experience of being a moral, caring person aware that his precious, mysterious, beautiful life will, one day, come to an end. According to Heidegger, this awareness of our own inevitable demise makes us, unlike the rocks and trees, hunger to make our life worthwhile, to give it meaning, purpose and value.</p>
<p>While Western medical science, which is based on Aristotelian thinking, sees the human body as a material thing that can be understood by examining it and breaking it down to its constituent parts like any other piece of matter, Heidegger's ontology puts human experience at the centre of our understanding of the world.</p><p>Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with melanoma. As a doctor, I knew how aggressive and rapidly fatal this cancer could be. Fortunately for me, the surgery seemed to achieve a cure (touch wood). But I was also fortunate in another sense. I became aware, in a way I never had before, that I was going to die – if not from melanoma, then from something else, eventually. I have been much happier since then. For me, this realisation, this acceptance, this awareness that I am going to die is at least as important to my wellbeing as all the advances of medicine, because it reminds me to live my life to the full every day. I don't want to experience the regret that Ware heard about more than any other, of not living 'a life true to myself'.</p><p>Most Eastern philosophical traditions appreciate the importance of death-awareness for a well-lived life. <em>The</em> <em>Tibetan Book of the Dead</em>, for example, is a central text of Tibetan culture. The Tibetans spend a lot of time living with death, if that isn't an oxymoron.</p><p>The East's greatest philosopher, Siddhartha Gautama, also known as the <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/was-the-buddha-an-awakened-prince-or-a-humble-itinerant" target="_blank">Buddha</a>, realised the importance of keeping the end in sight. He saw desire as the cause of all suffering, and counselled us not to get too attached to worldly pleasures but, rather, to focus on more important things such as loving others, developing equanimity of mind, and staying in the present.</p><p>The last thing the Buddha said to his followers was: 'Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your salvation with diligence!' As a doctor, I am reminded every day of the fragility of the human body, how closely mortality lurks just around the corner. As a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, however, I am also reminded how empty life can be if we have no sense of meaning or purpose. An awareness of our mortality, of our precious finitude, can, paradoxically, move us to seek – and, if necessary, create – the meaning that we so desperately crave.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/71b0539e-67f6-466c-a52b-da10d9ca0cf3.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/sooner-or-later-we-all-face-death-will-a-sense-of-meaning-help-us" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Ask a Chemist: How does handwashing kill coronavirus?
The physical action of handwashing plus the properties of soap is a one-two punch for the virus.
08 May, 2020
- A common recommendation from experts to help protect against coronavirus is to wash your hands often, but why? It turns out that each time you do it is an effective two-pronged attack.
- As Kate the Chemist explains, the virus has a weak outer membrane. By using the proper handwashing technique, you're actually breaking through that membrane and ripping the virus apart.
- Soap is an important part of the equation because of its two sides: the hydrophobic side (which grabs onto the virus), and the hydrophilic side (which grabs onto the water). Washing your hands with soap for at least 20 seconds allows the virus to be rinsed away.
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Only 1 in 75 households are cooking chicken safely, survey finds
Most homes are using insufficient methods to determine when chicken is done cooking and safe to eat.
06 May, 2020
Photo by Harry Dona from Pexels
- Checking the inside color of chicken is not a sufficient way to test its doneness.
- According to experts, the best way to ensure that chicken is safe to eat is to cook it to an internal temperature of 165°F (74°C).
- From 2009 to 2015, more than 3,100 people were sickened by chicken.
<p>Chicken is America's favorite meat. But, chances are, you aren't preparing it safely.</p><p>An alarming new study found that only <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0230928" target="_blank">1 out of every 75 households</a> are cooking chicken properly by using a thermometer. This is according to research from the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research. Nearly 4,000 households in five European countries were asked about common methods for checking the doneness of chicken, and the findings were unsettling. </p>
Forget the color-check method
<p>While this is a common technique used by half of the households in the survey, the researchers reported that the color of the inside of a chicken changes at temperatures that are too low to kill common poultry pathogens like <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/salmonella-enterocolitis" target="_blank"><em>salmonella</em></a><em>,</em> <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/diseases/clostridium-perfringens.html" target="_blank"><em>clostridium perfringens</em></a><em>,</em> and the most common,<em> Campylobacter</em>. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, poultry that is sufficiently cooked and safe to eat can come in shades of white, pink, and tan just like insufficiently cooked poultry.</p><p>Thermometers are perhaps the most reliable ways of indicating if a chicken is safe to eat, but less than 1.3 percent of households in the study used them while cooking chicken. </p>Chicken pathogens
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a95b7b0158b3bdc4ce0ac2c880cc75b4"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-yxA3r0xI-A?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>In addition to being the most popular meat in the United States, chicken is also the number one cause of foodborne illnesses. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6710a1.htm" target="_blank">According to a CDC study</a>, 3,113 people reported being sickened by chicken via the National Outbreak Reporting System web app between 2009 and 2015, more than by any other food category.</p><p>Eating undercooked chicken can cause foodborne illness with symptoms like fever, diarrhea, digestive malfunction, abdominal cramps, vomiting, and dehydration. This affects more than 1 million people in the United States every year, according to the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/chicken.html" target="_blank">CDC</a>. <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/salmonella/symptoms-causes/syc-20355329" target="_blank"><em>Salmonella</em> symptoms</a> typically begin 6 hours to 6 days after infection, and can last from 4 to 7 days. Symptoms associated with a <em>Campylobacter</em> infection start 2 to 5 days after the infection and can last up to a week. As for <em>C.</em> <em>perfringens</em>, the symptoms come on suddenly, typically occurring between 8 to 12 hours after infection, and last for less than 24 hours. Unlike <em>s</em><em>almonella</em> and <em>Campylobacter</em>, vomiting and a high fever are not symptoms associated with <em>C.</em> <em>perfringens</em>.</p>How to safely prepare chicken
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI0MzIyNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NzI3NzAyOX0.Iask-3R_e3L6BkrXCDrRBeuLPmM6IjtO05KKqNPjlj4/img.jpg?width=980" id="0685c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a191cb3ffdf863e3a4f164c222a29474" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="chicken dish" />Photo by Mark DeYoung on Unsplash
<p>So, how should poultry lovers go forth?</p><p><a href="https://www.carolinewestllc.com/" target="_blank">Caroline West Passerrello</a>, MS, RDN, LDN, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/cooking-chicken-safety-tips-cooking-preparing#Safety-starts-at-the-grocery-store" target="_blank">told Healthline</a> that safety is not subjective. </p><p>"To be sure chicken is safe to eat, use an objective measure instead of a subjective observation," she explained. In other words, <a href="https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep-food-safe/4-steps-to-food-safety#cook" target="_blank">use a food thermometer</a>. </p><p>165°F (74°C) is the standard internal temperature that chicken needs to reach before it is considered safe to eat. <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/cooking-chicken-safety-tips-cooking-preparing#Safety-starts-at-the-grocery-store" target="_blank">Passerrello said</a> to aim for the thickest part of the meat, making sure that the tip of the thermometer isn't touching any of the bird's bones or fat. You should also check the temperature in more than one place to confirm that it is evenly cooked and safe to consume. </p><p>While a meat thermometer will certainly help, you should also pay special attention to thoroughly heat the entire surface of the chicken, where most of the bacteria lingers. The researchers in the study reported that bacteria continued to remain on the surface chicken in places that had not been in contact with a frying pan even <em>after</em> it was fully internally cooked. </p><p>"We were surprised to find that these recommendations are not safe, not based on scientific evidence and rarely used by consumers," Dr. Solveig Langsrud, the lead author of the study and senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200429144916.htm" target="_blank">said in a press release</a>. "Primarily, consumers should check that all surfaces of the meat are cooked, as most bacteria are present on the surface. Secondly, they should check the core. When the core meat is fibrous and not glossy, it has reached a safe temperature."</p><p>But you can, and should, take safety precautions as soon as the poultry is purchased. </p><p><a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/cooking-chicken-safety-tips-cooking-preparing#Safety-starts-at-the-grocery-store" target="_blank">Passerrello explained to Healthline</a> that shoppers should "place raw chicken in a disposable bag before putting it in the bottom of your grocery cart to avoid cross-contamination of other items you're purchasing."</p><p>As for storage, you should place your package of chicken at the very bottom of your refrigerator so as to avoid any juices dripping onto other food. When the time comes to cook your chicken, the best practice is to use gloves when placing the raw slab of meat on a cutting board reserved for poultry only. This is to prevent the chicken juices from potentially cross-contaminating other food that could go on the board. While you should definitely wash your hands, <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/dont-wash-that-chicken-before-cooking-it-heres-why" target="_blank">you should not wash the chicken</a>. This could facilitate the spread of pathogens in water droplets around the sink area and beyond.</p><p>For more tips on how to safely prepare chicken, check out the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/chicken.html" target="_blank">CDC's online guide</a>. Bon appétit. </p>
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The plasma debate: The ethics of paying for human blood
Should pharmaceutical companies pay people for their plasma? Here's why paid plasma is a hot ethical issue.
04 May, 2020
- Human blood is made up of red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. Plasma is the liquid part of blood. It is used to treat rare blood conditions and has an increasing number of medical applications.
- It is a $26 billion industry, and the US is a major exporter of plasma to other nations. Most nations do not collect enough plasma to sustain therapies for their own citizens. The US has such a large supply of plasma because it pays people to donate plasma—a controversial practice.
- Is it ethical for people to be paid for their plasma? Here, Peter Jaworski, an ethics scholar, explains five key arguments people make against paying people for plasma—safety, security, altruism, commodification, and exploitation—and explains his views on them. What do you think?
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How various levels of social distancing can decrease the spread of COVID-19
Understanding the math behind social distancing.
31 March, 2020
Photo by galsand on Shutterstock
- Proper social distancing includes staying 6ft (2m) away from other people, avoiding all non-essential gatherings or crowds, and working from home if possible.
- During the COVID-19 incubation period of 5 days, each infected person can infect 2.5 more people.
- Using this math, it's easy to determine how many people will go on to be infected after the initial person contracted COVID-19 using various levels of social distancing (0%, 50% and 75% examples are found in this article).
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Quarantine and isolation for COVID-19, explained
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNTM5OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDE1ODE0M30.ehm3SCWC7SG781GVK0D3JL8x2REUOwsyWTn65Z38G8o/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=25%2C0%2C73%2C0&height=700" id="de0c8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="28f421302ea3a309b8c2931944e5cbbf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="stay home stay safe dice conception social distancing self quarantine COVID-19" />Health professionals suggest 14 days self-quarantine if you feel you may have been in contact with the virus.
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<p>"Self-quarantine" and "flattening the curve" appear to be common phrases so far in 2020, along with hashtags on social media such as #StayHomeSaveLives and #SelfIsolation...but what does all of this truly mean?</p><p>Senior Director of Infection Prevention at Johns Hopkins (<a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-social-distancing-and-self-quarantine" target="_blank">Dr. Lisa Maragakis</a>) explains just how critical social distancing measures are when it comes to fighting the spread of the new strain of coronavirus. </p><p><strong>What is self-quarantine? </strong></p><p>Self-quarantine is the practice of separating yourself away from others due to the potential that you may be sick (maybe you or someone in your household has shown symptoms of COVID-19, for example). </p><p>If you feel you may have been in contact with the virus at some point, health professionals including Dr. Maragakis suggest a self-quarantine of <a href="https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/coronavirus-incubation" target="_blank">14 (fourteen) days minimum</a> to determine if you will become ill and/or could be contagious to others. </p><p>During this time, <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/coronavirus" target="_blank">you should</a>:</p><ul><li>Use standard hygiene and washing hands frequently (avoid touching your face)</li><li>Stay at home (have someone else pick up your groceries or use an order-in service)</li><li>Not have visitors</li><li>Refrain from sharing utensils, towels or hygiene products with others in your home</li></ul><p>Once you have completed the minimum quarantine time and no longer show symptoms, this is when you go into "self-isolation" to ensure you do not pick up the virus somewhere and pass it along to others. </p><p><strong>What is self-isolation? </strong></p><p>Isolation, in medical terms, simply means keeping an infected patient away from others to avoid passing the infection. </p><p>Self-isolation in regards to COVID-19 refers to the act of isolating yourself, not specifically with doctor's orders, to avoid contracting the infection and passing it along. </p><p>"<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/flatten-curve-coronavirus.html" target="_blank">Flattening the curve</a>" of COVID-19 refers to using protective measures to slow the spread of the infection. </p>The math behind social distancing: How does it help?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkwNTM5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDYwODU5Mn0.FsZXw4yDFrQmEHGNKRnSSdkMxKjPupfiKx52BIgOjQQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="b1cce" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5ebe339897c94177e0137adb14079f6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="concept of social distancing COVID-19" />Scientists measure the intensity of an infectious disease by it's "reproduction number", which is the average number of people a sick person could infect.
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<p> <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html" target="_blank">Social distancing</a> is another term that has become extremely common this year. If carried out properly, social distancing really can save lives. </p><p> <strong>Proper social distancing involves: </strong> </p><ul> <li>Keeping at least 6ft (2m) away from others at all times </li> <li>Avoiding non-essential gatherings and crowds</li> <li>Limiting contact with high-risk groups (the elderly, newborns, etc)</li> <li>Working from home if possible </li> <li>Greeting neighbors or colleagues with a wave instead of handshakes </li> <li>Avoiding going out except for when it's absolutely needed (grocery shopping, to pick up medications, etc) </li> </ul><p> With many places around the world entering "lock-down mode", gatherings including sporting events and concerts have been postponed and people who are able to work from home are being advised to do so to slow down the spread of this virus. </p><p> <strong>How does social distancing help flatten the curve? </strong> </p><p> It all comes down to the math. Scientists at <a href="http://social-distancing.com/" target="_blank">Signer Laboratory</a> in the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California San Diego measure the intensity of an infectious disease by its "reproduction number," which is the average number of people a sick person could infect. </p><p> It's important to keep a couple things in mind when explaining social distancing: </p><ol> <li>There is a direct correlation between social exposure and the reproduction number, which the researchers call R<sub>0</sub>). </li> <li>The incubation period of COVID-19 is approximately 5 days - after this period, the person will either experience symptoms and self-quarantine or be "in the clear". </li> </ol><p> For COVID-19, the average reproduction number (R<sub>0</sub>) has been estimated at 2.5. This means that during the incubation period, each infected person can infect 2.5 more people. </p><p>Here's how the math breaks down for various levels of social distancing, from no measures taken, to 50 and 75 percent social distancing:</p><p> <strong><u>NO SOCIAL DISTANCING MEASURES </u></strong> </p><ul> <li>Continuing your daily life as though nothing is happening</li> <li>Not practicing social distancing at all</li> </ul><p> <strong>Day 1: </strong>Person A contracts the virus </p><p> <strong>Day 5:</strong> Person A infects up to 2.5 people </p><p> <strong>Day 30:</strong> 406 people have been infected </p><p> <strong><u>REDUCING SOCIAL EXPOSURE - 50% </u></strong> </p><ul> <li>Only leaving your house for work and to get groceries</li> <li>Practicing social distancing at work</li> <li>Not physically touching others</li> </ul><p> <strong>Day 1:</strong> Person A contracts the virus </p><p> <strong>Day 5:</strong> Person A infects up to 1.5 people </p><p> <strong>Day 30: </strong>15 people have been infected </p><p> <strong><u>REDUCING SOCIAL EXPOSURE - 75% </u></strong> </p><ul> <li>Self-isolation</li> <li>Only leave your home once or twice a week for the essential needs such as groceries or medical supplies</li> <li>Not having any visitors</li> </ul><p> <strong>Day 1: </strong>Person A contracts the virus </p><p> <strong>Day 5: </strong>Person A infects up to 0.625 people </p><p> <strong>Day 30:</strong> 2.5 people have been infected </p><p> Scientists and health care professionals agree on this one fundamental truth in these difficult times: social distancing can be thought of as the first line of defense against COVID-19. </p><p> <em>"This pandemic can seem overwhelming, but in truth, every person can help slow down the spread of COVID-19. By doing your part,"</em> explains Dr. Maragakis, <em>"you can make a big difference to your health and that of others around you." </em> </p>
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