Category: Science and Health

I never would have believed that we could have reached maximum potential occupancy in our apartment, but over the holidays we managed to have 14 people – eight adults and six children under the age of six, including a newborn and a four-month-old – sharing our space, day and night. As the last children get […]

Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds, the name given to chemical bonds formed between two molecules when the carboxyl group – a combination of two functional groups attached to a single carbon atom – of one molecule reacts with the amino group of the other molecule. A new Israeli/Japanese study […]

The actor Paul Newman was once asked why he didn’t cheat on his wife, actress Joanne Woodward. His response: “Why would I go out for a hamburger when I have steak at home?” This statement was famously held up as a model of marital fidelity. Less famous is Woodward’s own reaction. She is reported to have said: […]

Ten years ago, the UK-based nonprofit Alcohol Change created Dry January, a public health campaign that promoted abstaining from alcohol for 30 days at the start of the calendar year. The campaign has spread around the world and grown in popularity, with millions of people participating, and the term Dry January (and its cousin Dryuary) […]

Let’s start with what’s definite: feelings are the key to building a relationship.  We fall in love with someone, are excited to see and talk to them, feel safe with and talk to them and are excited to dream together about the future. On the other hand, emotions are also the key to a bad […]

Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa announced Wednesday that they have opened emergency rooms to deal with the possibility of atomic, chemical or biological warfare in the future. The emergency rooms, which will also treat patients dealing with injuries and physical trauma as a result of earthquakes,  were dedicated by billionaire philanthropist George Schaeffer at […]

Half the country was upset by the result of last week’s Knesset election and some may have even lost sleep over it. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston who conducted just-publicized research on the US elections in 2020 found that such political events can have dramatic global impacts on psychological health […]

In a legal context, two sentences that run consecutively are served one after the other while two that run concurrently overlap. So for example, if you’re sentenced for two crimes, each with a sentence of three years, you might be in for six years if the sentences are consecutive. But if they run concurrently — […]

As we have already seen, a key distinction between vows and oaths is that vows refer to objects while oaths refer to people. A mishnah on today’s daf informs us of another difference between them: There is a vow within a vow. But there is no oath within an oath.  This seems to mean that […]

The Flint, Michigan water crisis has brought concern about lead toxicity in drinking water back into the headlines. But the public health issue goes well beyond Flint: According to recent estimates, more than half the population of the US was exposed to high levels of lead as children. This information has presented scientists with a […]