Tottenham have a short turnaround for their trip to Norwich City, with their manager far from happy with the Premier League fixture list

Jose Mourinho has criticised the hectic festive fixture listin the Premier League, describing it as a "crime" that clubs will be playing again on December 28.

Spurs were involved in the early kick-off on Boxing Day, rallying from a half-time deficit at home to record a hard-fought 2-1 triumph over Brighton and Hove Albion.

However, the victory came at a cost, with Harry Winks andMoussa Sissoko both picking up yellow cards that mean the duo will be suspended forSaturday's game at Norwich City.

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Son Heung-min is also banned following his red card against Chelsea, leaving Mourinho with a lack of options -as well aslittle preparation time -for the trip to Carrow Road.

However, before his focus switched to the next game, the Portuguese took aim at the schedule.

"I cannot imagine these boys, not just my boys, but the [Graham] Potter's boys, how they can play in 48 hours," Mourinho told the media.

"If you go to control the distances they run, the intensity, the breaks, if you are going to control that and if we are going to tell anyone who understands physiology, it is a crime that they are going to play football again on the 28th.

"It is against every rule of physiology, biology, biochemistry, every rule. But that is the way it is, even with three guys suspended.

"I think from the three, two of them are unfair, Sonny unfair, Winks unfair, I can only say Sissoko had a reason for the fifth yellow card. We have to go."

Tanguy Ndombele may provide a solution to the absences inmidfield after the Frenchman was not involved against Brighton.

Mourinho clarified that while the record signing from Lyon was not injured, the player had raised concerns over his physical condition prior to the game.

"I cannot say he is injured, in five minutes we start a training session and you can go to the stands and watch it, he is going to be training normally so I cannot say he is injured," Mourinho said.

"I can say that yesterday he told me he was not feeling in condition to play the game. Not based on injuries, based on fears of previous injuries that he has had since the beginning of the season.

"Feeling not ready to start the game, but I cannot say he is injured, I can say he is not in condition to start the game, which is different."

The rest is here:
Mourinho: Festive schedule against every rule of physiology, biology, biochemistry - Goal.com

On Monday, 13 months after He Jiankui announced that he had created the worlds first gene-edited babies, the Chinese scientist was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $430,000.

Working with two embryologists, who were also sentenced to fines and imprisonment, and an unsuspecting doctor, He used in vitro fertilization to create single cell embryos, whose DNA he then altered with the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to carry a gene variant thought to confer resistance to HIV. Couples recruited for the experiment included HIV positive men, who, He reasoned, would understand the value of resistance to the virus.

Edited embryos were transferred to their intended mothers. Twin girls were born in October 2018 and, we learned yesterday, a baby girl was born in 2019.

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He Jiankui was proud of his experiment, which he deemed a success even though one of the twin girls was born with a mix of edited and unedited genes. The scientist likened his achievement to the work of Dr. Robert G. Edwards, the British physician who won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of IVF.

The international scientific community didnt see it that way. Its reaction was almost uniform condemnation. Scientific leaders called it irresponsible and premature, saying it failed to conform with international norms.

Whether the work was also a violation of Chinese law wasnt immediately clear to the international community. Several months later, however, a task force of the Health Commission of China in Guangdong Province reported that He Jiankui had violated general clinical research laws and rules, such as using a fake ethical review certificate and misleading participants about the studys risks, and also violated an ethics guidance from 2003 that barred the reproductive use of research embryos. At yesterdays sentencing, those violations were bundled together under the crime of illegal medical practice essentially practicing medicine without a license which in China carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

If He Jiankui had been a U.S. scientist, his alleged misleading of research participants and forging an ethics approval would have been considered unethical, and he would likely have been subject to sanctions from his employer, loss of research funding, and disqualification from clinical research. But the work would also have been illegal, although in a somewhat circuitous and distinctly American way.

In the 1990s and 2000s, well before the latest gene editing tools were developed but following advances in reproductive technology and completion of the human genome project, many countries passed national laws prohibiting the reproductive use of genetically modified human embryos. In the United Kingdom, which since 1990 has had one of the most developed legal frameworks for reproductive technology, transferring a genetically modified human embryo for gestation carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

No directly analogous laws were ever passed in the U.S. until December 2015, when Congress included a brief 101-word provision in a budget appropriations bill that effectively outlawed human germline editing in the U.S.

The provision is a budget rider a condition of federal funding for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. For the past four years, it has prohibited the FDA from considering any application to conduct research in which a human embryo is intentionally created or modified to include a heritable genetic modification.

The 101 words amount to a ban because the FDA has asserted jurisdiction over all clinical uses of genetically manipulated human cells. As a result, anyone planning to use gene-edited cells in humans must submit an investigational new drug (IND) application to the FDA.

If the application proposes transfusing gene-edited cells into adults with sickle cell disease or some other genetic condition as certain ongoing and proposed studies do then the FDA will consider whether to issue the application or a waiver. But if the IND application involves transferring a genetically modified human embryo for gestation even if only in one patient or one research subject the FDA is absolutely barred from even considering it.

Sanctions for proceeding without an IND application include administrative actions like disqualification by the FDA from ongoing and future research. But violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act also carry criminal penalties, including fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years.

Budget riders, however, expire. Since 2015, Congress has a chance every year to alter the language in this defacto germline editing ban or remove the provision altogether and turn the question over to the FDAs regular decision-making processes. But it hasnt done this.

In the summer of 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives was urged to amend the rider to carve out from the general prohibition a procedure that aims to prevent transmission of mitochondrial disease. Although Congress ultimately left the rider unchanged, it was, apparently for the first time, openly discussed by the House Appropriations Committee. Several members called for a fuller debate of the issue, noting that the prospect of germline genome modification raises profound questions that go well beyond where the federal government should spend its money.

If and when that fuller debate occurs, American lawmakers and the American public will have a chance to engage with the scientific and ethical complexities of gene editing technologies and to consider together how best to police its use in humans.

Until then, researchers in the U.S., like He Jiankui in China, risk prison time if they attempt germline gene editing.

Josephine Johnston is director of research and research scholar at The Hastings Center, and co-editor of the book Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing (Oxford University Press, 2019).

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He Jiankui is going to jail. Would the US criminally prosecute a rogue gene-editing researcher? - STAT

For a complete list of our obituaries, seehere.

SYDNEY BRENNER SCIENTIFIC SYMPOSIUM

Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner died in April at the age of 92.

Brenner was best known for his discovery of sequences that stop protein translation, mRNA, and his investigation of the nematode C. elegans, which he realized would be an ideal model organism to study cell differentiation and organ development. That work won him the 2002 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

[H]is great strength was in experiments, and in particular the choice and execution of ones that were both important and ingenious, Francis Crick, the codiscoverer of DNA who shared an office with Brenner at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in the UK, wrote in atribute to Brenner in The Scientist in 2002.

US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY

American geneticist Liane Russell, famous for her work on the deleterious effects of prenatal radiation exposure and the chromosomal basis for sex determination in mammals, died in July at age 95.

She and her husband William Russell established the Oak Ridge National Laboratorys (ORNL) Mouse House, an extensive colony of mutant mice bred to model the effects of exposure to radiation.

Russells work led to a healthcare policy to ask women if they are pregnant before X-raying them and also to avoid X-rays shortly after menstruation in women of childbearing age.

Inventor of the polymerase chain reaction technique and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993, Kary Mullis, died in August at age 74.

Mullis was known as a weird figure in science and a flamboyant philanderer who evangelized the use of LSD, denied the evidence for both global warming and HIV as a cause of AIDS, consulted for O.J. Simpsons legal defense, and formed a company that sold jewelry embedded with celebrities DNA, according to a 1998 profile in The Washington Post.

Mullis wrote in The Scientist in 2003 that his first attempt at PCR in 1983 was a long-shot experiment. . . . so [at midnight] I poured myself a cold Becks into a prechilled 500 ml beaker from the isotope freezer for luck, and went home. I ran a gel the next afternoon [and] stained it with ethidium. It took several months to arrive at conditions [that] would produce a convincing result.

Even still, Science and Natureboth rejected the resulting manuscript, which was ultimately published in Methods in Enzymology in 1987 and helped earn Mullis his Nobel.

Chemical engineer George Rosenkranz, the director of the pharmaceutical company that first synthesized a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone, died in June at the age of 102.

He and colleagues developed norethindrone, a synthetic version of progesterone, which was then used in the combined oral contraceptive pill and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1959. The work, along with efforts in biotech, earned him many awards from scientific organizations and from the Mexican government.

Despite that, he was a very humble man, Roberto Rosenkranz, one of his sons, told the Los Angeles Times. He never was out to take credit.

Ophthalmologist and inventor Patricia Bath, whose research on lasers advanced cataract surgery, died in May at the age of 76.

During her medical internship in New York, she conducted an epidemiological study on blindness and found the rate of the condition among the black population was twice that of the white population. The finding led her to start the field of community ophthalmology, caring for underserved populations. She promoted the field by traveling to perform surgeries, training clinicians, and donating equipment.

Bath then moved to the University of California, Los Angeles, medical center in 1974 and in the 1980s began studying lasers for their potential to treat eye disorders. In 1988, she patented a device called Laserphaco Probe, which removes cataracts.

I had a few obstacles but I had to shake it off, Bath told ABC News in 2018. Hater-ation, segregation, racism, thats the noise you have to ignore that and keep your eyes focused on the prize, its just like Dr. Martin Luther King said, so thats what I did.

Nobel laureate Paul Greengard, who discovered that the brain communicates with chemical signals, died in April. He was 93.

Paul was an iconic scientist whose extraordinary seven-decade career transformed our understanding of neuroscience, Richard Lifton, president of Rockefeller University, where Greengard had been a faculty member, said in a statement. His discoveries laid out a new paradigm requiring the understanding of the biochemistry of nerve cells rather than simply their electrical activities. This work has had great impact.

Greengards work revealed how the brain uses dopamine and other chemicals to send signals from one nerve cell to another, discoveries that won him a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000. Greengard used the prize money to establish an award for women doing outstanding biomedical research and named the prize after his birth mother. Drawing attention to the achievements of women working in science, he and Baylor College of Medicine professor Huda Zoghbi wrote in The Scientist in 2014, sets a powerful example for those women still dreaming of their own success.

Public health whistleblower, physician, and researcher, Shuping Wang, died in September at the age of 59.

Wangs career started in China in the 1980s, where she was a doctor and hepatitis researcher. In 1992, she was testing blood serum samples from a plasma collection station where she worked and realized that unsanitary blood collection methods had led to a hepatitis C epidemic among people who donated and received plasma at the clinic. She reported the findings to officials and was fired, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

She took a job at the Zhoukou Health Bureau and, analyzing the blood samples there, she found 13 percent of donors had HIV and the cross-contamination there was also leading to the spread of the virus. Officials challenged her results and asked her to change the data for a report that would be sent to the provincial Department of Health. Again, she refused.

Her findings lead to the shutdown of her clinic and the establishment of HIV testing for donors. Still, roughly 1 million farmers were infected with HIV from selling their blood plasma at Chinese collection sites during the epidemic, according to The Washington Post.

In September, a few days before Wangs death, a play about her life, The King of Hells Palace, opened at Hampstead Theatre in London.

COURTESY OF RUTGERS UNIVERSITY

The developer of a widely used DNA analysis technique called shotgun sequencing, Joachim Messing, died in September. He was 73.

Jos approach to the development of his DNA sequencing tools was to spread them freely and widelythat is, he did not patent them, Robert Goodman, the executive dean of agriculture and natural resources at Rutgers University, where Messing was a faculty member, told The New York Times. He was an incredibly generous man.

His development of the DNA analysis technique and his use of it made Messing the most-cited scientist of the 1980s, according to the Institute for Scientific Information. He went on to study crop modifications, such as boosting amino acids in corn to make it more nutritious and increasing crops drought resistance.

TUFTS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Tufts University researcher Stuart Levy died in September at the age of 80.

Levy studied antibiotic resistance and in the 1970s showed that bacteria resistant to the drugs could move from the intestine of farm animals to farm workers, a discovery that had implications for bacterial spread in facilities such as hospitals. After Levy published his findings, other researchers started to study antibiotic resistance in hospitals.

It is hard to overstate his importance in limiting the spread of antibiotic resistance, particularly in hospital settings, Ralph Isberg, a professor of molecular biology & microbiology at Tufts, and his colleague John Leong wrote in a statement sent to The Scientist.

Neuroscientist Rahul Desikan, who developed an MRI-based map of the human cortex and identified genetic risk factors for neurogenerative diseases, died in July from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He was 41.

The MRI-based map, which quickly became one of the most widely-used tools in the neuroscience community, has been cited more than 4500 times, Christopher Hess, a colleague of Desikan at University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a memorial. Color figures of the atlas in its various forms still fill the pages of our leading scientific journals.

Desikan and his colleagues had just started, in 2016, what was then the largest study on the genetics of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when he began to experience his first symptoms the disease. He was diagnosed with ALS a few months later.

I went into medicine to take care of patients with brain diseases. Now, I have one of the diseases that I study, Desikan said in a press release earlier this year. Even with the disease, he said, he continued to find neurology fascinating and beautiful.

Ashley Yeager is an associate editor atThe Scientist. Email her at ayeager@the-scientist.com. Follow her on Twitter @AshleyJYeager.

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Those We Lost in 2019 - The Scientist

From drinking ones own urine as a cure for broken bones to blood-letting to sending electrical shocks through a persons body as a cure for mental illness healthcare has a somewhat jaded past. Fortunately, as technology has improved our ability to study human physiology, medical professionals have become increasingly adept at diagnosing and curing many different illnesses. Here are four trends that are transforming the future of healthcare.

Still, theres plenty of room for improvement to be made. Almost 20% of Americans cant afford healthcare, according to ABC News. And millions of people die from diseases like cancer and diabetes every single year.We might not ever reach immortality, but some trends can radically transform the future of healthcare in some promising ways.

In almost every industry, imaginable from gaming to every-day transportation artificial intelligence is making a big splash. And it didnt skip healthcare. One example of artificial intelligences impact on the healthcare industry is OWKIN Socrates, an AI-based technology platform created for medical professionals and their businesses.

The bot can monitor symptoms, diagnose disease, recommend treatments, and even predict outcomes, all much faster than a human can. Were probably far from being wholly dependent on artificial intelligence for medical services, but who knows what the bots will be doing next performing surgeries? Will bots be managing pharmacies? How many bots does it take to run a test? How long before bots are diagnosing disease?

One things for sure: AI is going to play a significant role in the future of healthcare the size and scope of that role are yet to be determined.

Perhaps virtual reality is having a more significant impact on healthcare than any other technological advancement. If thats the case, it would seem to be for a good reason: its working. Already, medical students are using virtual technology to learn and perform mock-surgeries. Its also being used in physical therapy to help people recover from injury or trauma.VISUALIZE reports on research that shows VR immersion for those undergoing physical therapy. VR has been used for physical therapy has also been shown to be effective in speeding up recovery time.

Overall, virtual reality is being used to calm patients, relieve pain, and adjust a patients awareness of bodily signals. The effectiveness of this tech on healthcare will likely improve as medical professionals have more time to explore its applications.

If youre disabled, a senior with low mobility, or at home alone in serious physical pain, what are you supposed to do? You cant easily drive yourself to the hospital, and calling an ambulance might be unnecessary for the symptoms youre experiencing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25% of older adults fall every year, and 20% of those falls are severe.

Companies like Heal let people schedule an appointment with a licensed and certified doctor at their place of residence. Not to mention the advancements of assistive technology some of which can detect falls and automatically request immediate assistance for seniors who may have been injured due to a fall. And why not? That feels like a natural and necessary progression of the healthcare process. Some unwell people cant easily leave their home, and they shouldnt have to.

It might sound overly ambitious, but Prellis Biologics is a company thats dedicated to solving the shortage of human organs and tissues for transplantation. And theyve got at least one thing right: there is undoubtedly a shortage of organs and human tissue for transplantation. Every single day, about 20 people die waiting for a life-saving transplant that never happened. This information is according to the American Transplant Foundation.

Using laser printing technology, Prellis Biologics has managed to mimic the human cell and replicate human organs. This technology is still partly experimental, but who knows how far it will come if given a few more years or even a decade. Professionals might be able to print a new human organ as easily as prescribing medication.

All of these innovations are exciting trends but ones that still need more time to develop fully.

"Marketer to Watch" (Forbes). "Industry leader" (SAP). "Top 100 FinTech Influencer" . Tech blogger with exposure to millions. Advising startups across Europe, NYC, and Tel Aviv.

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4 Trends that are Transforming the Future of Healthcare - ReadWrite

Leaders have specific characteristics that define them as figures that others look up to and as people. Effective leaders typically have a routine with key habits and processes practiced daily. While most people have heard about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, many leaders don't follow that model. Truly great leaders develop their own set of habits that dictate how their days go and how they can reach their fullest potential.

What are some of the practices that define today's great leaders? Fifteen members of Forbes Coaches Council explain the patterns of behavior that they think good leaders should adopt, and how those actions can make them into more successful individuals in the long term.

Forbes Coaches Council members offer insight on the customs of good leaders.

1. Take Time To Be

As a society, we are focused on the next goal and the never-ending to-do list. We do not spend enough time just being. This means complete silence at times to let your thoughts flow through you, write thoughts down and listen to what your subconscious is trying to tell you. Some of the best ideas I have come up with have not been when I am doing, but when I am just being. - Galit Ventura-Rozen, Empowering U

2. Start Each Day Offline

Its amazing how many clients jump on their phone or tablet first thing in the morning to check the markets, see what emails arrived overnight or simply browse their Twitter feed. Consider starting each day free of online activities. You might meditate, pray, exercise, read or spend time with your spouse or kids instead. The possibilities for starting the day healthier are endlessjust not online. - John Hittler, Evoking Genius

3. Take Time To Connect With Yourself

As leaders, the stuff we do drives us to show up determined, focused and decisive. Leaders push down uncertainties and emotions and we do everything we can to be free of or ignore gut feelings. Spend time connecting with your heart, gut and head each day. The people you are leading are fully human and they deserve to have you show up in the same way. - Brian Gorman, TransformingLives.Coach

4. Establish A Morning Routine

Begin each day with a morning routine that sets you up for success. Your morning routine might include meditation, exercise or a gratitude practice. By taking care of yourself first, you will be able to contribute to others, navigate difficult situations effectively and increase your ability to lead and listen. It's best if you finish your routine before you turn on your phone and computer. - Gina Lavery, Gina Lavery Inc.

5. Track Your Physiology

We tend to overlook our physiology in the world of leadership. We talk about having emotional intelligence, providing motivation and increasing the likes, but a lot of our ability to do these effectively lies in our physiology. I use tools and techniques with my clients so they can scientifically track their physiology and make actual beneficial improvements they can see to have more impact as a leader. - Cody Dakota Wooten, The Leadership Guide

6. Walk Around

Most leaders get set into a routine where they talk and meet with the same people every day. Great leaders break that habit by walking around and meeting new peopleespecially employeeswhen they're not expected to. Informally dropping in on a team or part of the organization you seldom interact with will make you a more authentic, grounded and approachable leader. - Eric Beaudan, Odgers Berndtson

7. Set Your Intention For The Day

Before checking the various mediacalendar, voicemail, emailthat will distract you and demand your time or attention, set your intention for the day. Activate the mindset that will drive your actions to create the leadership impact and influence you want to have rather than getting bogged down merely reacting to external forces. Lead your day before it leads you. - Mia Eng, Cognascent Inc.

8. Implement Reading Time

I have had the pleasure to work with many entrepreneurs over my career. The single factor that all the successful ones had in common was their reading habits. It goes something along the lines of there being a time block set aside to catch up on readings. Short of a disaster that has to be dealt with, that time is nonnegotiable and will stay off limits for any other activity. - Kamyar Shah, World Consulting Group

9. Embrace Relentless Learning

Effective leaders understand the value of continuous learning and also realize that it can happen anywhere and at any time. Commit yourself to learning something new each day, whether it be from your barista, frontline employees, board or grandchildren. Intentionally adopting a learning mindset creates the space for openness and curiosity and allows you to show up as a relentless learner. - Palena Neale, Ph.D, unabridged

10. Practice Daily Meditation

Meditation is like a Swiss army knife that has more unpredictably positive outcomes than any other good habit, but take the time to learn the right way to do it. It's not about not thinking as many people believe; it's about realizing you're not your thoughts. The result is more energy, less friction due to judgment, clearer decision making because you don't need to be right and much more. - Josef Shapiro, Clear and Open

11. Create A Meaningful Habit

Im from the village that says you should create your own habit. Someone elses habits may not necessarily be a fit for you. Create a habit that has meaning to you and your employees and acknowledges their contributions. I pass out a chocolate square at least two afternoons a week to each employee every week. It keeps me conscious of who Im leading and how much I appreciate their contributions. - Thomas Larkin, Communico, Westport CT

12. Prioritize The Habit Of Gratitude

Committing to a daily gratitude journal practice where you write a list of three or more things you're grateful for each day can be transformative for leaders. It's simple, quick (mine takes about 90 seconds) and orients you toward positivity every single day. When you journal about positive stuff at night, it helps you sleep better. Journaling in the morning can help you get off to a great start! - Kate Dixon, Dixon Consulting

13. Practice The Art Of Visualization

One natural ability to develop is the art of visualization, which can be extraordinarily powerful on top of a regular habit of meditation. Our capacity to use our imagination through purposeful visualization can be a differentiator for leaders, and layering visualization on top of meditation adds a multiplying effect. As a starter, try visualizing various scenarios from a relaxed state. - James Glasnapp, James Glasnapp Coaching

14. Ask How Questions

Leaders make tons of decisions daily, so it's crucial that they have good problem-solving skills. What doesn't help is asking too many "why" questions that cause you to dwell on the problem. For example, "Why did this happen to me? Ask more "how" questions instead, like "How can I fix this issue? You can go from powerless to powerful and successful. - Lizette Ojeda, Dr. Lizette LLC

15. Lead With Energy

Integrating a daily physical fitness routine prepares leaders for the mental and intellectual challenges they face. Regular exercise is one form of self-care needed for a leader's well-being as it allows them to sustain the emotional energy required to lead an organization. By modeling self-care, leaders encourage similar behaviors in their employees, which in turn impacts their well-being. - Jonathan Silk, Bridge 3 LLC

Link:
15 Daily Habits Of Great Leaders - Forbes

Know a UI alum youd like us to track down? Were taking requests at jdalessio@news-gazette.com.

Among the 1,974 former students and faculty members featured on our Gies College of Business-powered UI at 150 & Beyond website: two-degree alumna, Champaign architect and Parkland professor BRIDGETT WAKEFIELD.

***

This Illini memory is dedicated to the late, great James Warfield, who saw the world with different eyes and invited his students into that world, says one of those students, Bridgett Wakefield.

The view of architecture that he professed was people-centric, and his methods were intimately effective, adds the Parkland College professor and Reifsteck Reid & Company architect, who earned her UI bachelors degree in 1996 and her masters two years later.

Professor Warfield was the advisor for my thesis, Through the Eyes of a Child: Building Environments that Work. The first six months flew by as my research easily flowed into place. I combined psychology, education theories and physiology of children to determine what their ideal environment would be at each elementary grade level.

However, since I had so much great research, I found myself stumbling when trying to translate it into the design. I will never forget the day that Professor Warfield raided my desk removing all of the drawing utensils and paper.

He handed me a large sumi-e brush, a well of black ink and a pad of thick paper. Only draw with this for a week.

I thought he was insane. But of course, I did as he requested. The result was an award-winning design.

Professor Warfield has since passed away, but his memory will definitely live on through the students he guided.

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UI at 150 & Beyond: 'His memory will definitely live on' - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

Those who sleep in cold environments, meanwhile, tend to fare better. A study of people with a sleep disorder found that they slept longer in temperatures of 61 degrees Fahrenheit versus 75 degrees. The cold-sleepers were also more alert the next morning. The basic physiology is that your body undergoes several changes at night to ease you into sleep: Your core and brain temperatures decrease, and both blood sugar and heart rate drop. Keeping a bedroom hot essentially fights against this process. Insomnia has even been linked to a basic malfunctioning of the bodys heat-regulation cyclesmeaning some cases could be a disorder of body temperature.

In light of this physiology, sleep experts unanimously suggest keeping your bedroom cooler than the standard daytime temperature of your home. There is no universally accepted temperature that is the correct one, but various medical entities have suggested ideal temperature ranges. The most common recommendation, cited by places like the Cleveland Clinic and the National Sleep Foundation, is 60 to 67 degrees Fahrenheit. Within that range, experts vary. A neurologist in Virginia told Health.com that the magic number is 65. Others have advised an upper limit of 64.

Read: How to sleep

The U.S. Department of Energy recommends keeping your home at 68 degrees during the day and lower while youre asleep. That guideline is based on money, not health: It was originally suggested by President Richard Nixon as a way of conserving oil during an embargo. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter went further, suggesting 65 degrees in daytime and 55 at night. He ordered that the White House thermostat be lowered accordingly, and subsequently extended the rule to all public buildings. The change was estimated to have saved around 300,000 gallons of oil daily.

Even though no one was fined under the thermostat rule, Ronald Reagan promptly undid it in 1981, citing unnecessary regulatory burden. No such executive thermoregulatory fiats have since been attempted. If you want to work and sleep in a sauna-like sweat box, that is your God-given right as a red-blooded American. But it should be done with the knowledge that thermostat decisions affect far more than ones own personal sleep. The burning of fossil fuels contributes to the air pollution that kills millions of people every year, and the health effects of climate change are far-reaching.

As for individual health guidelines, human variation makes giving any specific number almost impossibleand borderline irresponsible. Different temperatures will suit different people differently. At the same time, a range like 60 to 67 degrees can feel nebulously broad. Its less satisfying than a single number, and it doesnt solve the bed-partner argument. So I will say this: 60 degrees is the correct temperature for winter sleep. Anything warmer is incorrect.

Continued here:
Your Bedroom Is Too Hot - The Atlantic

Aaron Judge is the face of the New York Yankees. Gleyber Torres is giving him a run for his money, but the team is all about Judge right now. That being said, they ought to be concerned for him.

Yes, taking a pitch on the wrist is not exactly his fault, but that makes all four seasons of his career where hes been dogged by injury.

His rookie season was cut short by a lat injury. He played less than 30 games after getting called up in July (I was there, and yes, the home run was THAT majestic). They shut him down to help preserve him.

Yes, he played a full season in 2017. But he was bothered by injury most of the second half of the season. His offense took a nosedive after June, and he needed to remove debris from his throwing shoulder surgically.

2018, yes, the wrist, as mentioned earlier.

Then he missed 60 games due to ANOTHER lat injury in 2019.

Ive documented Hicks injury history. Giancarlo Stanton has been hampered by various soft muscle injuries throughout his career, due to his size and physiology. Aaron Judge is taller than Stanton and has similar physiology to Stanton. Think about it all of our outfielders last year played just barely half a season each, paving the way for Brett Gardners offensive juggernaut of a season.

We saw last year that we can get by without Stanton, even though he improves our lineup twenty fold. Someone will replace Hicks regularly throughout his current 7-year contract. We wont miss him as much as others think we will. But Judge needs to stay healthy for 120+ games a season. He can be better than Mike Trout. But he hasnt been able to prove just what hes completely capable of yet. What if that 2017 season is the best we ever see of Judge. Its too much of a risk.

The New York Yankees top priority for 2020 is to ensure Aaron Judge stays healthy for an entire season.

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The New York Yankees Should Be Worried About Aaron Judge - Empire Sports Media

Over time as our understanding and instrumentation have changed and improved, we have reframed the villain from particulate matter as a whole to its various components. The evil du jour has been PM2.5, the smaller particles, but some scientists are focusing on the even smaller components of PM2.5 as the bad actors. A new paper in the Journal of Physiology feels it has identified a new culprit, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). To say that PAH's, as a class is a new concern is not entirely true, levels at the World Trade Center site increased 65-fold and raised questions of cancer risk. More recently, and relevant to this study, PAH levels were a concern as a water pollutant entering the food chain after the Deepwater Horizon blowout. And this is the starting point for this latest study.

The Hypothesis

Despite "clear differences in air pollutants and aquatic environmental pollution (e.g., physicochemical properties of the pollutants, interaction between pollutants and the environment, the biology of the species exposed and the route of exposure) it has become apparent that parallels exist, especially in terms of the ability of these pollutants to cause cardiovascular toxicity."

While the lung is the gateway for air pollution, the researchers put to the side any linkage of pollution to asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Instead, they focus on the presumptive impact of air polluted with PM2.5s on the heart and its roles in cardiovascular disease. But how to explain how these particles affect more distant organs?

Within the lung, particles captured by alveolar macrophages trigger an inflammatory response, and it is hypothesized that a "sufficient particle dose, reactivity, or lack of clearance leads to amplification of the response causing systemic inflammation." Or that these particles, by an unknown mechanism, "stimulate alveolar sensory receptors" to ultimately altering the autonomic function of the heart and vasculature. Finally, advances in our understanding of the composition of PM2.5 have identified ultrafine particles (UFP), paving the way for a third hypothesis. The tiny size of UFPs allows them to translocate across the thin alveolar-capillary wall (by an as-yet-undetermined mechanism) and enter the circulation themselves to directly affect cardiovascular function." [1]

These statements have significant limitations. First, these mechanisms are theoretical, and as their citation states, "There is a wealth of evidence for and against each of these hypotheses." That the mechanisms are not explicitly described as theoretical can be forgiven because they are writing to their peers who presumably already are aware of the hypothetical nature of their argument. But there is an additional deal-breaking limitation, the PAH's an "ultrafine" particle within the PM2.5, and "Ultrafine PM cannot presently be routinely measured in the environment." Without a quantifiable measure, no amount of statistical sophistry will yield a dose-response curve, the biologic gradient necessary for an epidemiologic study.

"The translocation pathway is of importance as it provides a biological basis that could account for the widespread effects of inhaled PM across the cardiovascular system, and elsewhere in the body."

The evidence they do cite comes from the translocation of gold nanoparticles in both rats and human subjects. Here, volunteers inhaled gold particles off and on over two hours, and subsequent blood and tissue analysis found that at best, 0.2% of the inhaled gold translocated. But translocation is size-dependent, with smaller particle being translocated more readily. PAHs are five times the size of the gold particles so that the translocation pathway may be more important to the researcher's beliefs and funding than to a biologic pathway.

The heart of their argument begins with the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill putting a lot of PAHs into the water and the subsequent finding of significant cardiotoxic effects on the herring and salmon of the area. These effects involved not only the cardiac structure but the heart's rhythm and ability to pump. The Deepwater Horizon disaster demonstrated an additional reduction of cardiac work in fish spawning in the area. They also detail in vitro studies showing an effect by PAHs on electrical excitation of fish heart cells

The Path from Fish to Humans

The researcher point out that core function and physiologic properties, like those of the heart, are conserved evolutionarily. Vertebrates share some common characteristics; we are similar in some ways to fish. Their argument is bolstered by the "similar" cardiotoxic effects of some drugs, like tricyclic anti-depressants, on fish and humans. But those similarities need to be balanced by the "significant differences between human and zebrafish hearts." And of course we need not forget the "differences in routes of uptake between fish (water/gill/gut) and terrestrial mammals (air/lung/gut).

With ambiguity firmly in hand, they point to tantalizing, unproven, threads of possibility. The general format of their argument is that PAHs cause these particular effects in fish, that PM2.5 has been implicated in adverse cardiac health, that PAHs are contained in PM2.5 and therefore may well be the smoking gun. In writing about the general process of atherosclerosis, "These results suggest tissue-specific cytotoxic effects by individual PAHs and PM warrants further study."

At times they point out that in the PM2.5 studies considered, "specific PAHs were not described," at other times they are more disingenuous.

"Mammalian (including human) studies from urban areas around the world implicate PM2.5 and its associated tricyclic PAHs in the induction of cardiac arrhythmias, the exacerbation of heart failure, the triggering of myocardial infarction and other atherosclerotic/ischemic complications."

No ambiguity in that statement, and in writing those words, the authors cite two papers. Neither has any information linking PAH's to these outcomes. At best, the only comment I could find was this.

"Although there is only limited epidemiological evidence directly linking UFPs [ultrafine particulates, the fraction in which PAH would be found] with cardiovascular health problems, the toxicological and experimental exposure evidence is suggestive that this size fraction may pose a particularly high risk to the cardiovascular system." [1]

So, where are we left?

There are a few key messages.

What is the impact of air pollution on our health? The short answer is we do not know, although, as I have said before, it is hard to argue against cleaner air. Nor do we understand the underlying biological plausible mechanisms and their relationship to one another. Our understanding is in its infancy, and perhaps we should be more humble in our declarations.

[1] Nanomaterials Versus Ambient Ultrafine Particles: An Opportunity to Exchange Toxicology Knowledge Environmental Health Perspectives DOI: 10.1289/EHP424.

Source: Polyaromatic hydrocarbons in pollution: a heart-breaking matter Journal of Physiology DOI: 10.1113/JP278885.

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Linking Health And Air Pollution To Biologic Plausibility - Easier Said Than Proved - American Council on Science and Health