Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Want to know when you’re going to die? Your life span is written in your DNA, and we’re learning to read the code. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It's the ultimate unanswerable question we all face: When will I die? If we knew, would we live differently? So far, science has been no more accurate at predicting life span than a $10 fortune teller. But that’s starting to change. The measures being developed will never get good enough to forecast an exact date or time of death, but insurance companies are already finding them useful, as are hospitals and palliative care teams....

Following last year’s flu season — the worst in decades, killing an estimated 80,000 Americans — health professionals have a strong warning for citizens as this year’s flu season arrives: get your flu shot. “The flu shot is incredibly important because it reduces your risk of contracting the flu,” Michelle Lin, an emergency room doctor, and professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, told Fox News on Thursday. Blah, blah, blah

For years, an organization called Women on Web has given women a way to perform their own medication-induced abortions at home. The organization would remotely do online consultations, fill prescriptions, and ship pills that trigger miscarriages to women who live in countries where abortion is illegal. Several studies have shown that the service is safe. For American women who’ve wanted pills, though, there’s been one major problem: Women on Web wouldn’t ship to the United States. American women could (and do) instead search online for abortion pills, but some of the medicines and pharmacies they’ve found have been less than...

Last week, a federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union had filed in 2016 challenging the government’s award of grants to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to provide services to unaccompanied minor illegal aliens and trafficking victims. In the lawsuit, the ACLU argued the grants violated the Establishment Clause because the Department of Health and Human Services allowed the Catholic organization (and its sub-grantees) to deny girls and women in their care contraceptives and abortion. The court rejected the ACLU’s Establishment Clause claim in a methodical 34-page opinion, explaining that the federal funds...

According to a recently-uncovered medical case from 2015, one man may have died after eating one too many squirrels. His penchant for squirrel meat seems to have inadvertently exposed him to an incredibly rare fatal brain disorder, the first time this disorder was ever contracted in the United States. Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is a rare brain disorder caused by misfolding brain proteins called prions. Prion proteins are unique in that when one is misfolded, it causes other prion proteins to misfold too. These misfolded proteins are unable to function properly, and the result is that the victim suffers from memory loss,...

The ongoing debate in America is about how "violent" football is, and how it is causing paralyzation, depression, suicide, etc. Would you allow your son/grandson to play football?

In King Henry VIII’s pleasure palace, Hampton Court, there was no escaping class—not even in the loo. The King, of course, had a luxurious place to squat. According to the Hampton Court Palace website, he and other royals sat atop a padded chair "covered in sheepskin, black velvet, and ribbons" lofted above a pewter chamber pot. This toilet was private, located in a so-called "stool room" that was attended to by a high-ranking courtier known as the Groom of the Stool. It was a privileged, well-respected gig to handle the monarch's waste. (Apparently the groom would even take notes on...

VIDEO After my September 28 public weigh-in which was recorded by Brian Craig, co-host of the Steve Kane Radio Show, I called in the following Monday, October 1. Brian cut my call into a radio commercial for Crave Stop and the Sav A Lot Nutrition Center in Margate, FL. The commercial you hear here with my voice starts about 20 seconds in. Perhaps I will upload the full commercial with the intro in the near future. To sum up, as I stated in the commercial, I started out at 320 pounds on May 27. For the first month I was...

Researchers looked at pairs of identical twins where one of each set was straight The homosexual twin tended to have a more 'male' hand with differing fingers Essex University scientists said the differences may be determined in the womb _____________________________________________________________________ The length of a person's fingers could provide a clue to their sexuality, with women whose ring fingers are longer than their index digits more likely to be lesbian, a study has suggested. Researchers at Essex University looked at sets of identical twins where one of the siblings was heterosexual. They found that the homosexual twin tended to have a...

At least 33 people have been infected with the deadly Ebola virus in the past week, 24 of which have since passed away, the health ministry of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said. According to the ministry, the cases were discovered between October 8 and October 14. So far, 211 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola have been reported since early July, when the latest outbreak of the disease started, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. Of those, 138 people have died from the highly deadly hemorrhagic fever. DR Congo to deploy army to protect Ebola funeral workers...

A group of women in Chicago say they operated a covert abortion network for years in the 1960s and early 1970s, skirting the then-federal ban on abortion by discreetly sending messages to one another about abortion services. “Pregnant? Don’t want to be? Call Jane,” read a 1969 newspaper advertisement from the “Jane Collective,” The New York Times reported Sunday. Formerly known as the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation, the Jane Collective helped women have abortions before Roe V. Wade made it legal in 1973, according to TheNYT. Roe v. Wade gave women the permission to abort until the point...

Allen passed away Monday afternoon in Seattle at 65 years old, Vulcan said. His sister, Jody, said he was "a remarkable individual on every level." "While most knew Paul Allen as a technologist and philanthropist, for us he was a much-loved brother and uncle, and an exceptional friend. Paul's family and friends were blessed to experience his wit, warmth, his generosity and deep concern," she said in a statement. "For all the demands on his schedule, there was always time for family and friends. At this time of loss and grief for us – and so many others – we...

A Sunday feature from the BBC highlighted a woman with a macabre career: abortion doula. The BBC interviewed Vicki Bloom, a doula who has reassured women through abortions—more than 2,000 of them. Typically, doulas aid women as they undergo the childbirth process, but in Bloom’s case, she helps women as they abort their children. “I will stand up by their head and be looking into that person’s eyes, ready for whatever they need, while the doctor is doing the procedure,” Bloom said. Some of the things that abortion doulas do involve talking with the women about their lives, holding their...

Never say 'Get Real' to elderly parents. If you do - they will remove the wig, or toupee, the glasses, hearing aides, teeth, prosthetic bras, pace-makers and catheters. Then try to recognize them.

It’s a good thing Democrats made health insurance “affordable” when they passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. I’d hate to see how much health insurance would cost if it were expensive. The Kaiser Family Foundation just released its annual survey of employer-sponsored coverage, finding that the average premium for family coverage increased 5 percent to $19,616. To put that in perspective, the real median household income in 2017 was $61,372. Thus family health coverage costs nearly a third of the median family’s income. But citing the average family premium of nearly $20,000, as high as that...

VIDEO Dunching or Dunch (contraction of Dinner and Lunch) is the one a day low carb meal which will have the effect of fasting (namely LOSING weight) without actually fasting. A big reason for this is by eating Dunch in the middle of the afternoon, your stomach has sufficient time to digest most if not all the food before you go to sleep. As you can see in this video, Dunch will more than fill you up so by dinner time you will still not be hungry. Your stomach will have about an additional 3 hours in which to digest...

It’s long been known that physical activity can reduce inflammation in your body and improve heart health. This study recently published in cell.com shows that High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is more effective than weight training or cardio for improving metabolic health, is superior for fighting age related decline, and may yield anti-aging benefits down to the cellular level. HIIT was found to be even more effective at improving mitochondria biogenesis in older individuals. “HIIT reversed many age-related differ- ences in the proteome, particularly of mitochondrial proteins in concert with increased mitochondrial pro- tein synthesis.” “HIIT increased maximal absolute mitochondrial respiration...

Congo is reporting five new confirmed Ebola deaths in its latest outbreak, while a worker with the United Nations peacekeeping mission is among several new cases under treatment. Congo’s health ministry says the number of confirmed Ebola cases is now 170, including 95 deaths, as health workers express concern at the rising rate of new infections since the beginning of this month. …

For many brides what to wear on their big day is one of the most important decisions they'll make. Ivory or white? A-line or mermaid? Long or short? Fitted or puffy? But for Princess Eugenie there was an extra factor at play. The Queen's granddaughter had major surgery on her back to treat a curvature of the spine at the age of 12. Sixteen years on, and the princess chose to wear a wedding dress that showed her scar, saying she hoped it would honour those who had helped her and inspire others with the condition of scoliosis. "I had...

Doctors' use of Caesarean section to deliver babies has nearly doubled in 15 years to reach "alarming" proportions in some countries, a study says. Rates surged from about 16 million births (12%) in 2000 to an estimated 29.7 million (21%) in 2015, the report in the medical journal The Lancet said. The nation with the highest rate for using the surgery to assist childbirth is the Dominican Republic with 58.1%. Doctors say in many cases the use of the medical procedure is unjustified A Caesarean section can be a life-saving procedure for both mother and infant if, for example, a...