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The world is unfair. The world is discriminatory. The world is dangerous, and full of malice, and murder, and genocide. This, of course, isn't the whole story. Nevertheless, it is a big part of our current reality. In addition, It's likely that things will only continue to get worse, for all of us. The slim possibility of a sharp turn into a utopian society based on love and respect for one another, other species, and the planet we exist on is not something to plan for. We mu

Part 2 of a 3-Part Interview With Dr. Arijit Chakravarty, "5 Years of the COVID Pandemic" AC : Cancers were rising before SAR-CoV-2 showed up. In the 2010s, cancer rates were rising among young people. This can distort the signal caused by SARS-CoV-2 infections. If SARS-CoV-2 causes cancers to increase, if it is carcinogenic, it’ll take a big increase in that rate of cancer before people acknowledge that SARS-CoV-2 is now a contributing factor. Similarly, heart disease rates

Part 1 of a 3-Part Interview With Dr. Arijit Chakravarty, "5 Years of the COVID Pandemic" Dr. Arijit Chakravarty is the CEO of Fractal Therapeutics, a science services company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that “offers model-based drug discovery and developmental services that help make drug R&D more efficient.” When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a global threat in early 2020, the company decided to employ its modeling expertise in “building a clearer understanding of

Here is a rule that applies to everyday life, and also to the life in which the remains of civilized society unravel like a sweater's thread: movement and flow, strength and flexibility, and the ability to adapt are absolutely necessary. The laws of nature show us that water is both the gentlest and strongest force on earth. But society encourages us to be like small, brittle rocks, blown from here to there. Worn down by external forces. Crumbling at the least bit of opposit

Part 3 of a 3-Part Interview With Dr. Arijit Chakravarty, "5 Years of the COVID Pandemic" What I find remarkable is not that [the Avian Flu] pandemic is imminent . It is that they have created conditions that make a pandemic not only plausible, but likely. BM : Rather than enhancing our public health posture and scientific understanding of diseases, there’s been the opposite effect through growing vaccine hesitancy, mistrust of science, cavalier attitudes towards infections a

"Hospital", by Maxime Delacambre is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0. “We have never seen health as a right. It has been conceived as a privilege, available only to those who can afford it. This is the real reason the American health care system is in such a scandalous state.” — Shirley Chisholm In part 1 of this article (published last year), I wrote about how to take care of your own health as prescriptions become harder to get and doctor appointments are booked out for the

by David Ramsey Advertisement for Camel cigarettes, 1946. Look, we’ve been here before. My grandpa smoked two packs a day for most of my memory of him. Everyone did. Doctors literally prescribed cigarettes for stress. They said it was good for you. Made you look cool. Helped you lose weight. Whatever. He felt fine until he didn’t. That’s exactly what’s happening with COVID right now, and nobody wants to hear it. People are catching this thing two, three times a year and actin

"Return to the state of the uncarved block. When the block is carved, it becomes useful. When the sage uses it, he becomes the ruler. Thus, 'A great tailor cuts little.'" -Lao Tzu, from the Tao Te Ching I have had the Tao Te Ching in my book collection for years, and I have read it a few times — but today, I opened it up to the passage above and realized that I never really got the Tao Te Ching . Not that

I am no stranger to worrying about the future. In fact, it's almost impossible, in our day and age, to always be in the present moment, never thinking about the past or the future. Almost . In chaotic, difficult times, we must see to it that we are living deeply. Not simply on autopilot, gliding on the surface of life. It is easy to get lost in the details and drama of everyday life, forgetting that life exists outside of work, beyond appointments and plans and responsibili

It is the beginning of the summer in 2025, and I am still wearing a protective face mask. I wear it inside almost always (with the...

Ah. Primary Care Practitioners (PCPs.) When was the last time you saw yours? Was anything solved? Are you on prescription drugs with side effects that are worse than the original problem? Just call in and make an appointment, although the next available may not be for 6 months or a year. Don’t be pissed at the doctor, though. This situation we are in is not the fault of medical practitioners themselves. An economic system in a downward spiral, worldwide pandemics, and a broke