Whether the US bans it completely is basically up to the next president
Category: Health / Healthcare / Illness / Vaccines
The clown doctor will see you now – and you’ll get better, quicker
September 9, 2024 Ellen Phiddian
(Back in the 80s I heard a story of Norman Cousins putting his apple juice in a specimen cup, then later taking a sip while listening to a visitor. I think of Norman Cousins when I see headlines like this one. I don’t believe he was a clown, but others’s mileage may vary, as to humor in the hospital, also Norman Cousins, not to mention clowns.)
Medical clowns are known to have a positive therapeutic impact on kids in hospitals for a range of health issues, and now it’s been shown they can reduce the length of stay and antibiotic use for children with pneumonia.
A study, done on 51 children, found that those visited by medical clowns on average left hospital more than a day earlier than those who weren’t.
“Medical clowns undergo specific training to work in hospitals,” says Dr Karin Yaacoby-Bianu, a researcher at the Carmel Medical Centre and Israel Institute of Technology, Israel.
“They have been shown to reduce pain and alleviate stress and anxiety in children and their families during medical treatment, and have been gradually integrated into many aspects of hospital care.
“But their impact on children being treated for pneumonia has not been investigated.”
Yaacoby-Bianu presented her team’s research at the 2024 European Respiratory Society Congress.
“Community acquired pneumonia is one of the leading causes of hospitalisation in children, globally,” she says.
The team split 51 children, aged between 2 and 18, who had been hospitalised with pneumonia, into 2 groups.
They all received standard care, but one group also had four 15-minute visits from a medical clown from the Dream Doctors Project during their stays.
The clowns did a variety of activities including music, singing, and guided imagination.
The group visited by clowns stayed in hospital for 43.5 hours on average, while the control group stayed in hospital for 70 hours on average.
Children visited by clowns needed an average of 2 days of IV antibiotic treatment, while the control group required 3. Other medical markers, like heart rate and inflammation, were lower in the clown group.
“While the practice of medical clowning is not a standardised interaction, we believe that it helps to alleviate stress and anxiety, improves psychological adjustment to the hospital environment and allows patients to better participate in treatment plans like adherence to oral antibiotics and fluids,” explains Yaacoby-Bianu.
“Laughter and humour may also have direct physiological benefits by lowering respiratory and heart rates, reducing air trapping, modulating hormones, and enhancing the immune function.”
Dr Stefan Unger, a paediatrician at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People Edinburgh, UK, who wasn’t involved in the research, says the study shows the positive effect humour can have in healthcare. (snip-MORE)
https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/medical-clowns-pneumonia/
Sunday news into video 9 8 2024
A thoughtful post by Suze Hartline
Did I just duplicate a post?
As a reminder, Trump has publicly floated Loomer to be his next White House press secretary and he has reposted hundreds of her tweets on Truth Social.
Molson Coors joins Ford, Harley Davidson, Lowes, Tractor Supply, John Deere, and the maker of Jack Daniel’s in retreating from diversity and pro-LGBTQ programs.
Coors beer, once the subject of a nationwide boycott by gay bars over its founder’s anti-LGBTQ stance, has been prominent at Pride events in recent years. Last year, for example, Coors Light was the main sponsor of Denver Pride despite attacks by the cult.
In 2015, when the company was called MillerCoors, its chairman and then-US Senate candidate Pete Coors, dropped out of a speaking gig at the convention of Legatus, the ex-gay and pro-ex-gay torture Catholic group, after widespread criticism.
The company’s current brands include Coors, Coors Light, Blue Moon, Icehouse, Miller, Miller Light, Keystone, Molson, and dozens of others.
Own Jones and Israel and Gaza
‘ERASE All Palestinians’ – Popular Israeli Podcasters Claim Most Share Their Genocidal Fantasy
Bad republicans
Some cultists in the caravan were armed.
Last year Texas police were ordered to pay $175,000 for failing to respond to frantic calls from people on the bus.
Marco Rubio, Trump Junior, and Jeanine Pirro were among the prominent cultists who celebrated the attack.
Trump later declared that the FBI should not investigate the attack, saying, “Those patriots did nothing wrong.”
Monkeys give each other names too
This is so cool!
September 4, 2024 Evrim Yazgin
Marmosets do something that only humans, dolphins and elephants have been known to do: give each other names.
“Phee-calls” – a specific vocal call – used to identify and communicate between individual marmosets are described in new research published in the journal Science. Listen:
https://players.brightcove.net/5483960636001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6361433757112
There are 22 species of marmoset native to South America and occasionally spotted in Central America. The generally live in small family groups of 2 to 8 individuals.
The common marmoset weighs just a few hundred grams and is about 19cm tall. They are easily recognised by their large, white ear tuffs.
Naming other individuals is a highly advanced cognitive skill in social animals. Interestingly, our closest evolutionary relatives, non-human primates, have until now appeared to lack this ability.
Researchers uncovered the phee-calls in marmosets by recording their conversations.
They found that, not only do the little monkeys use phee-calls to address specific individuals, they are also able to tell when a call was directed at them and responded more accurately when it was.
“This discovery highlights the complexity of social communication among marmosets,” explains study lead and senior author David Omer from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “These calls are not just used for self-localisation, as previously thought – marmosets use these specific calls to label and address specific individuals.”
The researchers also noticed marmosets within a family group used similar vocal labels to address different individuals. Adult marmosets were even able to learn the names of individuals they weren’t related to by blood.
Such vocalisations may help marmosets in dense rainforest habitats where visibility is limited.
Baby marmoset monkey named Bareket. Credit: David Omer’s Lab.
“Marmosets live in small monogamous family groups and take care of their young together, much like humans do,” says Omer. “These similarities suggest that they faced comparable evolutionary social challenges to our early pre-linguistic ancestors, which might have led them to develop similar communicating methods.”
Understanding how social communication developed in marmosets could help explain human language evolution.
In the Spring edition of Cosmos Magazine, Drew Rooke looks at the prospects of talking to whales, and Amalyah Hart looks at insect consciousness. Out September 26.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/animals/marmoset-monkey-names/
China-linked ‘Spamouflage’ network mimics Americans online to sway US political debate
This seems important.
By DAVID KLEPPER Updated 11:56 AM CDT, September 3, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — When he first emerged on social media, the user known as Harlan claimed to be a New Yorker and an Army veteran who supported Donald Trump for president. Harlan said he was 29, and his profile picture showed a smiling, handsome young man.
A few months later, Harlan underwent a transformation. Now, he claimed to be 31 and from Florida.
New research into Chinese disinformation networks targeting American voters shows Harlan’s claims were as fictitious as his profile picture, which analysts think was created using artificial intelligence.
As voters prepare to cast their ballots this fall, China has been making its own plans, cultivating networks of fake social media users designed to mimic Americans. Whoever or wherever he really is, Harlan is a small part of a larger effort by U.S. adversaries to use social media to influence and upend America’s political debate.
The account was traced back to Spamouflage, a Chinese disinformation group, by analysts at Graphika, a New York-based firm that tracks online networks. Known to online researchers for several years, Spamouflage earned its moniker through its habit of spreading large amounts of seemingly unrelated content alongside disinformation.
“One of the world’s largest covert online influence operations — an operation run by Chinese state actors — has become more aggressive in its efforts to infiltrate and to sway U.S. political conversations ahead of the election,” Jack Stubbs, Graphika’s chief intelligence officer, told The Associated Press.
Intelligence and national security officials have said that Russia, China and Iran have all mounted online influence operations targeting U.S. voters ahead of the November election. Russia remains the top threat, intelligence officials say, even as Iran has become more aggressive in recent months, covertly supporting U.S. protests against the war in Gaza and attempting to hack into the email systems of the two presidential candidates. (snip-More)
Scottie's Playtime 