science health and medicine on mavenandmeddler.com

My backyard birds: Reno, Nevada

2010-03-10T00:09:56Z

We’re having a great time bird watching here at Rancho Maven again, this winter. I’ve been putting out a lot of seed, but also more of the suet/seed bricks this year, since I adore the Flickers and Downey Woodpeckers.

Here’s a rundown of some of the more interesting birds this month:

There is currently a lovely pair of Downey Woodpeckers

Dinosaur's: Why more colorful that previously thought?

2010-03-06T01:57:50Z

Diet fact, fiction or maven's way?

2010-03-05T04:23:53Z

I usually find the ‘diet factss’ just as lame as the bullshit they replace. So, here’s my take on the debate as presented in Women’s Health:

The advice: Chug eight glasses of water a day.

Why it’s useless: Peeing every 20 minutes seriously interferes with life.

The real deal: Believe it or not, the eight-glass quota isn’t etched in stone. Yes, we need to be well-hydrated, but if your urine is clear or close to it, you’re probably getting enough fluids. If your No. 1 is neon yellow, lighten things up by adding one or two glasses a day. Once your body adjusts to getting more fluid (and you don’t have to run to the can every 10 minutes), add another, says Karen Benzinger, R.D., a dietary consultant in Chicago who specializes in health care. And don’t forget that all liquids—including tea, juice, even the tonic in your vodka drink—help keep your body sufficiently saturated.

Maven’s way: Yes, indeedy. Look at your pee.

Chile earthquake just shortened your workday!

2010-03-03T05:15:03Z

Really, it did. Unfortunately, you and your boss aren’t likely to notice.

This, according to Huffington Post:

NEW YORK — Earth’s days may have gotten a little bit shorter since the massive earthquake in Chile, but don’t feel bad if you haven’t noticed.

The difference would be only about one-millionth of a second.

Controlling Your Cancer Care Costs

2010-03-03T04:28:33Z

The very last thing my husband and I were worried about when I was diagnosed with Stage IIIa breast cancer was how we would deal with the costs. When you’ve suddenly had your own mortality crammed into your face, the bills aren’t at the top of the list.

As the year+ of treatment wore on, however, and we travelled again and again from Reno to Houston for the best care possible, the bills did add up. We finally ended up taking out an equity line of credit against the house to help ease the cash crunch.

Earthquake! Be prepared.

2010-02-28T00:10:48Z

We live in earthquake country, here in Nevada. But earthquakes can and have occurred throughout much of the United States. Travelling to earthquake prone areas of the world can also leave you at risk, so it’s wise to have some earthquake awareness.

The difference in fatalities and overall destruction between the Haitian quake and the much larger (100 times bigger ) 8.8 earthquake in Chile boils down to much better construction standards in Chile in addition to a much higher earthquaker awareness among Chile’s citizens.

Even the day of the big quake, persons interviewed in Chile, while not exactly blase about it, are relatively calm even as many are being evacuated from unsafe areas.

As engineers like to say: “earthquakes don’t kill people. Falling buildings do.”

Snacking: A necessary evil that can be tamed

2010-02-27T06:05:04Z

Normally, I don’t approve of snacking between meals. I mean, really, if your a normal, reasonably healthy person and you can’t get through three to four hours without feeding yourself …. get real. Snacking is usually a symptom of:

1- Being bored or thirsty.

2- Not having eaten a proper meal, such as a healthy breakfast or sat down and mindfully eaten your lunch or dinner. Scarfing faux food on the fly is one reason you’ll be driven to snacking on unhealthy, unsatisfying choices.

Snacking mindlessly, on unhealthy faux-foods, is where it really goes off the tracks and into the dietary ditch. So, why not arm yourself with the right snacks, if you’re snacking inclined?

Dealing with motion sickness

2010-02-27T05:41:56Z

I was reading about motion sickness the other day, and reflecting on my own experiences with it - largely as a part of flying low-level search and rescue in small airplanes in turbulent conditions around mountains. I’ve handed bag after bag to big, grownup men in the backseat of a Cessna 210. I’ve also had to deal with youngsters who go queasy in the backseat of a moving car.

The cause of motion sickness, according to WebMD:

“Motion sickness occurs when the inner ear, the eyes, and other areas of the body that detect motion send conflicting messages to the brain. One part of your balance-sensing system (your inner ear, vision, and sensory nerves that help you keep your balance) may indicate that your body is moving, while the other parts do not sense motion. For example, if you are in the cabin of a moving ship, your inner ear may sense the motion of big waves, but your eyes don’t see any movement. This leads to a conflict between the senses and results in motion sickness.”

The best cure for motion sickness is to prevent it.

Don't get tricked by so-called 'healthy' hamburgers

2010-02-17T06:51:23Z

The fast food franchises are slugging it out in an attempt to out-huge each other, largely in response to Carl’s Jr. and its iconic jaw-dropping burgers. The Carl’s $6.00 Burger tips the calorie scale at 890 calories, before you even add the drink and fries.

The new McDonalds’ Angus Deluxe Burger is bigger than a Big Mac, and sets your diet back by 750 calories. By comparison the standard McDonald’s hamburger, that I grew up on, is 250 calories.

The McDonalds regular hamburger actually has fewer calories than any other menu item - less than their wrap sandwich offering even. In fact, most of the fast food salads start at more calories than the regular hamburger.

No wonder we weren’t all obese back in the day. A burger was also an occasional treat.

Reporter diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer

2010-02-12T00:39:48Z

Mr. Maven came running into the other room, saying “Hey, come watch this thing about breast cancer. You might be interested.”

Yes, you could say so.

You see, Fox News reporter, Jennifer Griffin, was telling about her new battle beyond the war zones of the world - it was with Stage III, Triple Negative breast cance r. The deadliest kind.

That’s what I had.

Reporter battles deadliest breast cancer

I wish they had spent more time on what makes a breast cancer a Triple Negative, but perhaps that’s my job.

I was diagnosed in 2002, upon a second opinion examination at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. In Reno, where I live and first got the news about having cancer, they’d told me that they’d caught it early, and it was very small.

Hardly the correct picture, hence the critical need for a second opinion.

My tumor, upon biopsy and examination was huge, more than six centimeters across. The cells, upon microscopic examination, were negative for HER 2 protein Receptor, so the targeted therapy of Herceptin would not be available to me.