Free Republic

Poverty in the U.S. is often associated with deprivation, in areas including housing, employment, and education. Now a study co-authored by two MIT researchers has shown, in unprecedented geographic detail, another stark reality: Poor people live shorter lives, too. More precisely, the study shows that in the U.S., the richest 1 percent of men lives 14.6 years longer on average than the poorest 1 percent of men, while among women in those wealth percentiles, the difference is 10.1 years on average. This eye-opening gap is also growing rapidly: Over roughly the last 15 years, life expectancy increased by 2.34 years...

Michael J. Fox is a tragic shell of his former self and so crippled by Parkinson’s disease that he needs help getting into a car. On Feb. 15, the reclusive 54-year-old actor tried to enjoy a rare night out with his actress wife Tracy Pollan at the Hollywood restaurant Craig's. As Pollan followed, the stricken Back to the Future star, whose speech is slurred and who walks with a limp while dragging his left foot, was put into the vehicle by several helpers. "It was heartbreaking," an insider told RadarOnline.com. "Michael's bravery knows no bounds. But as the disease takes...

We’ve recently explored the ways college pro-abortion activists are woefully ill-equipped to confront pro-life thought, and now a recent segment on Fox News gives us a glimpse why. Megyn Kelly recently interviewed Rachel Huebner, a Harvard student and staff writer with the Harvard Crimson, who says she has witnessed “open discourse [being] stifled” and a “lack of freedom of expression,” which is “occurring at Harvard and campuses nationwide.” She cites a particularly glaring incident involving abortion: HUEBNER: We were discussing general guidelines for class and specific things that people might find offensive, and this was just one specific instance of...

You eat, but you aren’t able to taste your food. You try to write your paper, or work on your p-set, but all you can do is think to yourself, “What is the point?” You try to get out of bed in the morning, but you just can’t escape its almost magnetic hold over you. So you sleep. And you sleep. And you sleep. Sleep becomes your drug of choice, and you abuse it constantly. Your old hobbies and passions no longer have the same appeal. None of them match the sense of security you feel when you’re wrapped up...

T. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Some need a pick me-up in the early mornings. Many people head to Starbucks for their dose of caffeine. However, one customer received an unexpected comment on their coffee cup label: “DIABETES HERE I COME.” That's the message printed on a grande cup of white mocha served to a customer at the Palencia Starbucks. A photo of the message on the cup was shared with Action News Jax on Facebook. “That first word just automatically brought the picture of both sisters in my head, and I was taken aback,” said the Starbucks customer.

WASHINGTON — Public health officials used their strongest language to date in warning about a Zika outbreak in the United States, as the Obama administration lobbied Congress for $1.9 billion to combat the mosquito-borne virus. "Most of what we've learned is not reassuring," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought." As summer approaches, officials are warning that mosquito eradication efforts, lab tests and vaccine research may not be able to catch up. There are...

Scientists in Brazil have uncovered a new brain disorder associated with Zika infections in adults: an autoimmune syndrome called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM, that attacks the brain and spinal cord. Zika has already been linked with the autoimmune disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome, which attacks peripheral nerves outside the brain and spinal cord, causing temporary paralysis that can in some cases require patients to rely on respirators for breathing. The new discovery now shows Zika may provoke an immune attack on the central nervous system as well. The findings add to the growing list of neurological damage ...

The nation’s biggest health insurer has decided to stop selling coverage on public insurance exchanges in two states for next year, but consumers shouldn’t take this as an early warning that a mass exodus is brewing from a key element of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion.Analysts say these exchanges may be improving for insurers after a difficult start. However, they also expect insurers to continue leaving some unprofitable markets as the coverage expansion heads toward its fourth year. UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it will not sell coverage on exchanges in Arkansas and Georgia for 2017, and it is continuing...

Reportedly, the DroneDefender can hit objects up to 400 meters with an effective cone diameter of 30°. This is about as far as Battelle goes with the technical details, so the actual frequency ranges of the rifle still remain unknown. However, it is easy to determine which ISM radio bands they most likely run on by looking at the consumer UAV market. The DJI Phantom series, for example, as seen in video above, shows that the DroneDefender is likely targeting the 2.4 GHz range (if it is attacking the Phantom 1 or Phantom 2). This puts them on the same...

If people manage to be proud of being perverts, it stands to reason that they can also be proud of the horrible diseases they contract through their perversion. That’s why Twitter is acrawl with the #ShoutYourStatus hashtag, in honor of April being STD Awareness Month: Seems to me that with the virally disproportionate spread of STDs among practitioners of sodomy, it would make more sense to “raise awareness” about the natural consequences of sexual promiscuity during June, which President Obama regularly dubs “LGBT Pride Month.” Nonetheless, and speaking of pride and promiscuity, you oughta head on over to Twitter and...

This is mainly for the military retirees who access this site. I don't know whether to be happy or sad with this, but two weeks ago I ordered a pair of eyeglasses from NOSTA via email. I thought something was strange when I got two replies that they had received my order. Ten days later I received a new pair of bi-focal eyeglasses. Not the same BCGs that we had in the military but close. A day later I received a second pair of glasses. Now I have two pair of shooting glasses. While I don't mind having two pair...

FEW things arouse such warm adulation and sharp denunciation as alcohol. It is beloved by some and despised by others, and its consumption is governed by legal and religious rules. Wine is central to Christian rites but is widely considered by Muslims to be forbidden by the Quran. It is also the subject of debate within the scientific community: some researchers contend that alcohol, particularly wine, has health benefits, but others disagree. Pro-oenological forces point to a large body of evidence demonstrating wine’s positive effect on both the cardiovascular system and longevity. This viewpoint was given additional support this week...

We received a notice yesterday of our first case of confirmed Zika in Shelby County," says Alisa Haushalter, Director of Health Services in Shelby County. FOX13 has learned the man, who remains unidentified, contracted the Zika virus while he was in either South America, Central America or the Caribbean recently. Third case of Zika virus confirmed in Mississippi Haushalter says, “I know that it's a country that had Zika there.” Haushalter says when the man returned home he was feeling under the weather. He contacted the health department and then went to his doctor.

In July of 2015, 90-year-old Norma’s husband, Leo, passed away; they had been together for 67 years. During that same period, Norma was diagnosed with uterine cancer and given her treatment options. She told her doc: “I’m 90-years-old, I’m hitting the road.” Read More Here

The obesity crisis sweeping Britain is now so acute that dozens of shops are selling XXXXXXXXL size clothes. A huge 8XL T-shirt would fit an incredible 80in chest and 80in waist – the equivalent of almost seven feet in circumference. Demand for supersize clothes has increased so much in recent years that one in ten items now sold in plus size stores is 8XL

20,000 lesbians in the desert: welcome to the Dinah, a world without men For five days in Palm Springs, Arwa Mahdawi entered an alternate reality where gay women celebrate each other with pool parties, dancing and debauchery Every year at the end of March, 20,000 lesbians from around the world fly into the Californian desert for five days of debauchery, and I’m one of them. It’s my second time at the Dinah, also known as the largest girl festival in the world. I’m staying at the Hilton in Palm Springs, which is hosting the famous Dinah pool parties, and the...

The pace of evolution is typically measured in millions of years, as random, individual mutations accumulate over generations, but researchers at Cornell and Bar-Ilan Universities have uncovered a new mechanism for mutation in primates that is rapid, coordinated, and aggressive. The discovery raises questions about the accuracy of using the more typical mutation process as an estimate to date when two species diverged, as well as the extent to which this and related enzymes played a role in primate evolution. Alon Keinan, associate professor of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology at Cornell, and Erez Levanon, co-senior author and an associate...

A Texas woman says she remains "distraught" by comments she secretly recorded hospital staff making about her attitude as well as her weight as they worked on her unconscious body during a 2015 operation. "I can't even express how I feel," Ethel Easter told ABC News today. "He started abruptly yelling at me, saying, 'Who do you think you are?'" Easter said. Easter said she started crying and was later informed by a different doctor during another visit that the surgeon had left "bad notes" in her file. Easter said at that point, a "red flag" went up. She said...

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