The Science of Self-Learning – by Peter Hollins

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Teaching oneself new things is often the most difficult kind of bootstrapping, especially when one is unsure of such critical things as:

  • Where to begin? How, for that matter, do we find where to begin?
  • What can/should a learning journey look like?
  • What challenges should we expect, and how will we overcome them?

Hollins answers all of these questions and more. The greatest value of this book is perhaps in its clear presentation of concrete step-by-step instructions. Hollins gives illustrated examples too, but most importantly, he gives models that can be applied to any given type of learning.

The book also covers the most difficult problems most people face when trying to learn something by themselves, including:

  • Keeping oneself on-task (maintaining discipline)
  • Measuring progress (self-testing beyond memorization)
  • Keeping a fair pace of progress (avoiding plateaus)
  • How to know when one’s knowledge is sufficient or not (avoiding Dunning-Kruger Club)

All in all, if you’re looking to learn a new subject or skill, this could be a first step that saves you a lot of time later!

Get your copy of the Science of Self-Learning on Amazon today!

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  • 4 things ancient Greeks and Romans got right about mental health
    Ancient wisdom on mental health: from Homer’s struggles to holistic healing techniques, discover what the Greeks and Romans understood about the mind’s influence on our well-being.

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  • No, COVID-19 vaccines don’t cause ‘turbo cancer’

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    What you need to know

    • COVID-19 vaccines do not cause “turbo cancer” or contain SV40, a virus that has been suspected of causing cancer.
    • There is no link between rising cancer rates and COVID-19 vaccines.
    • Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines is a safe, free way to support long-term health.

    Myths that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer have been circulating since the vaccines were first developed. These false claims resurfaced last month after Princess Kate Middleton announced that she is undergoing cancer treatment, with some vaccine opponents falsely claiming Middleton has a “turbo cancer” caused by COVID-19 vaccines.

    Here’s what we know: “Turbo cancer” is a made-up term for a fake phenomenon, and there is strong evidence that COVID-19 vaccines do not cause cancer or increase cancer risk.

    Read on to learn how to recognize false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and cancer.


    Do COVID-19 vaccines contain cancer-causing ingredients?

    No. Some vaccine opponents claim that COVID-19 vaccines contain SV40, a virus that has been suspected of causing cancer. This claim is false.

    A piece of SV40’s DNA sequence—called a “promoter”—was used as starting material to develop COVID-19 vaccines, but the virus itself is not present in the vaccines. The promoter does not contain the part of the virus that enters the cell nucleus, so it poses no risk.

    COVID-19 vaccines and their ingredients have been rigorously studied in millions of people worldwide and have been determined to be safe. The National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society agree that COVID-19 vaccines do not increase cancer risk or accelerate cancer growth.

    Why are cancer rates rising in the U.S.?

    Since the 1990s, cancer rates have been on the rise globally and in the U.S., most notably in people under 50. Increased cancer screening may partially explain the rising number of cancer diagnoses. Exposure to air pollution and lifestyle factors like tobacco use, alcohol use, and diet may also be contributing factors.

    What are the benefits of staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines?

    Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines is a safe way to protect our long-term health. COVID-19 vaccines prevent severe illness, hospitalization, death, and long COVID.

    The CDC says staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines is a safer and more reliable way to build protection against COVID-19 than getting sick from COVID-19.

    For more information, talk to your health care provider.

    This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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  • Top Foods Against Neuroinflammation

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Chronic inflammation is something you might feel in your joints, but it will usually be in the brain too. There, neuroinflammation can disrupt brain function, affecting stress responses, mood, cognition, and even alter brain structure. It’s also heavily implicated in the pathogenesis of various forms of dementia.

    What to do about it

    Dr. Tracey Marks, psychiatrist, bids us eat:

    1. Fatty fish: omega-3-rich fish like salmon reduce neuroinflammation.
    2. Leafy greens: spinach, kale, and collards protect brain cells and support neurotransmitter production.
    3. Berries: blueberries and strawberries improve memory and protect neurons.
    4. Nuts and seeds: walnuts, almonds, and flaxseeds support brain health and reduce inflammation.
    5. Turmeric: curcumin combats inflammation and supports neuron growth (best with supplements).
    6. Fermented foods: yogurt and sauerkraut improve gut health, benefiting the brain via the gut-brain axis; not just the vagus nerve, but also, remember that various neurotransmitters (including serotonin) are made in the gut.

    Of course, you should also avoid alcohol, nicotine, red meat, processed meat, and ideally also white flour products, and sugary foods (unless they are also rich in fiber, like whole fruit).

    For more on each of these, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

    Take care!

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  • A new government inquiry will examine women’s pain and treatment. How and why is it different?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    The Victorian government has announced an inquiry into women’s pain. Given women are disproportionately affected by pain, such a thorough investigation is long overdue.

    The inquiry, the first of its kind in Australia and the first we’re aware of internationally, is expected to take a year. It aims to improve care and services for Victorian girls and women experiencing pain in the future.

    The gender pain gap

    Globally, more women report chronic pain than men do. A survey of over 1,750 Victorian women found 40% are living with chronic pain.

    Approximately half of chronic pain conditions have a higher prevalence in women compared to men, including low back pain and osteoarthritis. And female-specific pain conditions, such as endometriosis, are much more common than male-specific pain conditions such as chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome.

    These statistics are seen across the lifespan, with higher rates of chronic pain being reported in females as young as two years old. This discrepancy increases with age, with 28% of Australian women aged over 85 experiencing chronic pain compared to 18% of men.

    It feels worse

    Women also experience pain differently to men. There is some evidence to suggest that when diagnosed with the same condition, women are more likely to report higher pain scores than men.

    Similarly, there is some evidence to suggest women are also more likely to report higher pain scores during experimental trials where the same painful pressure stimulus is applied to both women and men.

    Pain is also more burdensome for women. Depression is twice as prevalent in women with chronic pain than men with chronic pain. Women are also more likely to report more health care use and be hospitalised due to their pain than men.

    woman lies in bed in pain
    Women seem to feel pain more acutely and often feel ignored by doctors.
    Shutterstock

    Medical misogyny

    Women in pain are viewed and treated differently to men. Women are more likely to be told their pain is psychological and dismissed as not being real or “all in their head”.

    Hollywood actor Selma Blair recently shared her experience of having her symptoms repeatedly dismissed by doctors and put down to “menstrual issues”, before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2018.

    It’s an experience familiar to many women in Australia, where medical misogyny still runs deep. Our research has repeatedly shown Australian women with pelvic pain are similarly dismissed, leading to lengthy diagnostic delays and serious impacts on their quality of life.

    Misogyny exists in research too

    Historically, misogyny has also run deep in medical research, including pain research. Women have been viewed as smaller bodied men with different reproductive functions. As a result, most pre-clinical pain research has used male rodents as the default research subject. Some researchers say the menstrual cycle in female rodents adds additional variability and therefore uncertainty to experiments. And while variability due to the menstrual cycle may be true, it may be no greater than male-specific sources of variability (such as within-cage aggression and dominance) that can also influence research findings.

    The exclusion of female subjects in pre-clinical studies has hindered our understanding of sex differences in pain and of response to treatment. Only recently have we begun to understand various genetic, neurochemical, and neuroimmune factors contribute to sex differences in pain prevalence and sensitivity. And sex differences exist in pain processing itself. For instance, in the spinal cord, male and female rodents process potentially painful stimuli through entirely different immune cells.

    These differences have relevance for how pain should be treated in women, yet many of the existing pharmacological treatments for pain, including opioids, are largely or solely based upon research completed on male rodents.

    When women seek care, their pain is also treated differently. Studies show women receive less pain medication after surgery compared to men. In fact, one study found while men were prescribed opioids after joint surgery, women were more likely to be prescribed antidepressants. In another study, women were more likely to receive sedatives for pain relief following surgery, while men were more likely to receive pain medication.

    So, women are disproportionately affected by pain in terms of how common it is and sensitivity, but also in how their pain is viewed, treated, and even researched. Women continue to be excluded, dismissed, and receive sub-optimal care, and the recently announced inquiry aims to improve this.

    What will the inquiry involve?

    Consumers, health-care professionals and health-care organisations will be invited to share their experiences of treatment services for women’s pain in Victoria as part of the year-long inquiry. These experiences will be used to describe the current service delivery system available to Victorian women with pain, and to plan more appropriate services to be delivered in the future.

    Inquiry submissions are now open until March 12 2024. If you are a Victorian woman living with pain, or provide care to Victorian women with pain, we encourage you to submit.

    The state has an excellent track record of improving women’s health in many areas, including heart, sexual, and reproductive health, but clearly, we have a way to go with women’s pain. We wait with bated breath to see the results of this much-needed investigation, and encourage other states and territories to take note of the findings.The Conversation

    Jane Chalmers, Senior Lecturer in Pain Sciences, University of South Australia and Amelia Mardon, PhD Candidate, University of South Australia

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related Posts

  • Winter Wellness – by Rachel de Thample
  • Super Gut – by Dr. William Davis

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    You may be wondering: what sets this book apart from the other gut health books we’ve reviewed? For this one, mostly it’s depth.

    This is the most scientifically dense book we’ve reviewed on gut health, so if you’re put off by that, this might not be one for you. However, you don’t need prior knowledge, as he does explain things as he goes. The advice in this book is not just the usual “gut health 101” stuff, either!

    A particular strength of this book is that it looks at a wide variety of gut- and gut-related disorders, and ways certain readers may need to do different things than others, to address those problems on the path to good gut health.

    The style, for all its hard science content, is quite sensationalist, and that may take some getting used to for non-Americans. However, it doesn’t affect the content!

    Bottom line: if you just want simple basic advice, then probably best to skip this one. However, if you are sincerely serious about gut health (or just like reading this sort of thing because learning is satisfying), then this book is packed with relevant and detailed information.

    Click here to check out Super Gut, and get to know and improve yours!

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  • Patient Underwent One Surgery but Was Billed for Two. Even After Being Sued, She Refused To Pay.

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    Jamie Holmes says a surgery center tried to make her pay for two operations after she underwent only one. She refused to buckle, even after a collection agency sued her last winter.

    Holmes, who lives in northwestern Washington state, had surgery in 2019 to have her fallopian tubes tied, a permanent birth-control procedure that her insurance company agreed ahead of time to cover.

    During the operation, while Holmes was under anesthesia, the surgeon noticed early signs of endometriosis, a common condition in which fibrous scar tissue grows around the uterus, Holmes said. She said the surgeon later told her he spent about 15 minutes cauterizing the troublesome tissue as a precaution. She recalls him saying he finished the whole operation within the 60 minutes that had been allotted for the tubal ligation procedure alone.

    She said the doctor assured her the extra treatment for endometriosis would cost her little, if anything.

    Then the bill came.

    The Patient: Jamie Holmes, 38, of Lynden, Washington, who was insured by Premera Blue Cross at the time.

    Medical Services: A tubal ligation operation, plus treatment of endometriosis found during the surgery.

    Service Provider: Pacific Rim Outpatient Surgery Center of Bellingham, Washington, which has since been purchased, closed, and reopened under a new name.

    Total Bill: $9,620. Insurance paid $1,262 to the in-network center. After adjusting for prices allowed under the insurer’s contract, the center billed Holmes $2,605. A collection agency later acquired the debt and sued her for $3,792.19, including interest and fees.

    What Gives: The surgery center, which provided the facility and support staff for her operation, sent a bill suggesting that Holmes underwent two separate operations, one to have her tubes tied and one to treat endometriosis. It charged $4,810 for each.

    Holmes said there were no such problems with the separate bills from the surgeon and anesthesiologist, which the insurer paid.

    Holmes figured someone in the center’s billing department mistakenly thought she’d been on the operating table twice. She said she tried to explain it to the staff, to no avail.

    She said it was as if she ordered a meal at a fast-food restaurant, was given extra fries, and then was charged for two whole meals. “I didn’t get the extra burger and drink and a toy,” she joked.

    Her insurer, Premera Blue Cross, declined to pay for two operations, she said. The surgery center billed Holmes for much of the difference. She refused to pay.

    Holmes said she understands the surgery center could have incurred additional costs for the approximately 15 minutes the surgeon spent cauterizing the spots of endometriosis. About $500 would have seemed like a fair charge to her. “I’m not opposed to paying for that,” she said. “I am opposed to paying for a whole bunch of things I didn’t receive.”

    The physician-owned surgery center was later purchased and closed by PeaceHealth, a regional health system. But the debt was turned over to a collection agency, SB&C, which filed suit against Holmes in December 2023, seeking $3,792.19, including interest and fees.

    The collection agency asked a judge to grant summary judgment, which could have allowed the company to garnish wages from Holmes’ job as a graphic artist and marketing specialist for real estate agents.

    Holmes said she filed a written response, then showed up on Zoom and at the courthouse for two hearings, during which she explained her side, without bringing a lawyer. The judge ruled in February that the collection agency was not entitled to summary judgment, because the facts of the case were in dispute.

    More From Bill Of The Month

    Representatives of the collection agency and the defunct surgery center declined to comment for this article.

    Sabrina Corlette, co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, said it was absurd for the surgery center to bill for two operations and then refuse to back down when the situation was explained. “It’s like a Kafka novel,” she said.

    Corlette said surgery center staffers should be accustomed to such scenarios. “It is quite common, I would think, for a surgeon to look inside somebody and say, ‘Oh, there’s this other thing going on. I’m going to deal with it while I’ve got the patient on the operating table.’”

    It wouldn’t have made medical or financial sense for the surgeon to make Holmes undergo a separate operation for the secondary issue, she said.

    Corlette said that if the surgery center was still in business, she would advise the patient to file a complaint with state regulators.

    The Resolution: So far, the collection agency has not pressed ahead with its lawsuit by seeking a trial after the judge’s ruling. Holmes said that if the agency continues to sue her over the debt, she might hire a lawyer and sue them back, seeking damages and attorney fees.

    She could have arranged to pay off the amount in installments. But she’s standing on principle, she said.

    “I just got stonewalled so badly. They treated me like an idiot,” she said. “If they’re going to be petty to me, I’m willing to be petty right back.”

    The Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to fight a bogus medical bill, even if the dispute goes to court.

    Debt collectors often seek summary judgment, which allows them to garnish wages or take other measures to seize money without going to the trouble of proving in a trial that they are entitled to payments. If the consumers being sued don’t show up to tell their side in court hearings, judges often grant summary judgment to the debt collectors.

    However, if the facts of a case are in dispute — for example, because the defendant shows up and argues she owes for just one surgery, not two — the judge may deny summary judgment and send the case to trial. That forces the debt collector to choose: spend more time and money pursuing the debt or drop it.

    “You know what? It pays to be stubborn in situations like this,” said Berneta Haynes, a senior attorney for the National Consumer Law Center who reviewed Holmes’ bill for KFF Health News.

    Many people don’t go to such hearings, sometimes because they didn’t get enough notice, don’t read English, or don’t have time, she said.

    “I think a lot of folks just cave” after they’re sued, Haynes said.

    Emily Siner reported the audio story.

    After six years, we’ll have a final installment with NPR of our Bill of the Month project in the fall. But Bill of the Month will continue at KFF Health News and elsewhere. We still want to hear about your confusing or outrageous medical bills. Visit Bill of the Month to share your story.

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • A Planet of Viruses – by Carl Zimmer

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve reviewed numerous books on the immune system before, and this one’s mostly not about that.

    Instead, this one focuses on the viruses themselves, and the part they play in our world, for good and for ill. Popular awareness tends to focus on the ill, of course.

    But, there’s a lot that viruses do for us too, including:

    • Weak/harmless viruses that keep our immune systems on their toes and ready
    • Bacteriophage viruses that kill and consume pathogens that, left unchecked, would do the same to us
    • Endogenous retroviruses that have become symbiotic with the human organism, without which our species would quickly go extinct

    He also talks about biological warfare, and how we cannot bury our heads in the sand by avoiding research on those grounds, because someone will always do it anyway, so (as the motto of the immune system itself might say), best to be prepared.

    The author is a science journalist, by the way, and has no PhD, but does have a flock of Fellowships and assorted scientific awards and honors, so he appears to be doing good work so far as the scientific community is concerned.

    Bottom line: if you’d like to know more about viruses than “they’re very small and can cause harm”, then this book will open a whole new world.

    Click here to check out A Planet of Viruses, and upgrade your knowledge!

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