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POPSThe Uninsured are Dying Who says it isn't hurting anyone to be without health insurance....not I...it makes sense to put off check ups when you don't have the money to pay or to wait as long as you can hoping you feel better when you get sick...They know it is hurting us, They did a Study on on it. So how can we ignore the truth?
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POPSCradle of maternity in the brain discovered The study also showed that a partial restoration of Pet-1 function in the developing brain of females partially restored their serotonin levels, and maternal behaviour in adulthood. The finding indicated that subtle changes in the embryonic formation of the brain serotonin system in females could impact the quality of the maternal care they later provide for their offspring. The researchers say that future studies with Pet-1 deficient mothers may help to further elucidate the link between serotonin and maternal behaviour, and lead to the development of new therapeutic approaches for treatment of post-partum depression and child neglect.
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POPSDo Plants Live and Die According A Precise Scale? New Research Says "Yes" Although they have found the delicate balance between mortality and birth rates, the actual mechanisms governing plant life and death are still unknown. Controls probably include an assortment of metabolic processes interacting at all levels, from molecular on up, which would include respiration, reproduction, cellular damage, and structural imbalances. Plants retain their reproductive capacity throughout their lives, unlike animals. Therefore, evolution might put greater selective pressure on plants’ lifespans. Similar studies are bring planned to continue the effort to unlock the many mysteries of the green kingdom.
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POPSMost Ethical Destinations? Worried about your travel footprint? Want to support tourism in a developing country but don't want to support bad environmental practices or human rights abuses? Check out this list of "most ethical destinations" compiled by ethicaltraveler.org.
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POPSCancer's Unexpected Blessings In memory of someone I greatly admire and pray I can emulate when I arrive at this ultimate time in life. To finish well...what an ultimate blessing.
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POPSUSA Health Care System: Highest in Cost & Worst in Quality Again and again studies show similar results, yet Americans continue to delude themselves that their system is the envy of the world. Those Americans who think it are the intellectual equivalent of flat earthers. The system is broken. The debate is over and has been for some time. We need single-payer, universal health care.
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POPSUSA's Unhealthy Health Care Rating
**Up to 100,000 fewer people would die from causes that could have been prevented by good health care if the US achieved the lower mortality rates of leading countries **Thirty-seven million more adults would have an accessible primary care provider, and 70 million more adults would receive all recommended preventive care **The Medicare program could potentially save at least $12 billion a year by reducing hospital readmissions or by reducing hospitalizations for preventable conditions. **Reducing health insurance administrative costs to the average level of countries with mixed private/public insurance systems (Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland) would free up $51 billion annually, or more than half the cost of providing comprehensive coverage to all the uninsured in the US. Reaching the lowest rate benchmarks (2 to 3 % of national health expenditures spent on adm. costs) set by the lowest countries Finland, Japan, and Australia—could save an estimated $102 billion per yea
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POPS US Slips Down Development Index Among other findings: * Of the world's richest nations, the US has the most children (15%) living in poverty * Of the OECD nations, the US has the most people in prison - as a percentage and in absolute numbers * 25% of 15-year-old students performed at or below the lowest level in an international maths test - worse than Canada, France, Germany and Japan * If the US infant mortality rate were equal to first-ranked Sweden, more than 20,000 babies would survive beyond their first year of life It also provides a snapshot of the inequalities between the richest and the poorest Americans and between different ethnic groups. "The Measure of America reveals huge gaps among some groups in our country to access opportunity and reach their potential," said the report's author, Sarah Burd-Sharps. "Some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living.
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POPSPhotographs and Meditations on Death We are well used to reflections on individual mortality - it is the shaping force in the narrative of our existence. It emerges in childhood as a baffling fact, re-emerges possibly in adolescence as a tragic reality which all around us appear to be denying, then perhaps fades in busy middle life, to return, say, in a sudden premonitory bout of insomnia. One of the supreme secular meditations on death is Larkin's "Aubade": ... The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to be here, Not to be anywhere, And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. We confront our mortality in private conversations, in the familiar consolations of religion - "That vast moth-eaten musical brocade," thought Larkin, "Created to pretend we never die."
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POPSThe Urge to End It Is suicide the deadly result of a deep psychological condition - or a fleeting impulse brought on by opportunity?