Multi-tasking er blevet en fælles ting i dag. Ja, det har eksisteret i århundreder, må vi erkende; men som det er gjort i vores nuværende teknologiske tidsalder er langt mere ekstreme. De opgaver, der er nødvendige for at forberede et bryllup i oldtiden var primært gjort ikke af bruden og gommen, men mennesker omkring dem. Forældre, i visse samfund, arrangeret og forberedt ægteskab for de par, der ikke har mødt eller talt med hinanden indtil bryllupsdag. Så, hvordan kunne de have gjort noget sammen for at gøre deres dag af ægteskabelig union en mindeværdig og vellykket arrangement de og deres børn vil huske? Ikke selv tør pressede roser til husker deres første kys eller første dato.

Flere årtier siden, da arrangører var ualmindeligt, men havde bruden og gommen, med hjælp fra deres nære venner, at gøre næsten alt for at gøre bryllup ske. Fra designe invitationer, at have dem udskrevet til at sende dem ud, måtte begge håndtere hvert job. Og dette blev gjort, mens de talte til sponsorer og medlemmer af entourage, hvad motivet bryllup vil have, at endnu Caterings i løbet af døgnet, den solemnizing præst eller minister, koret, der vil levere musik og også til deres forældre, der vil blive givet nogle vigtige dele i tilfælde.

Tilføj til at de mange små, men nødvendige ting at gå med bryllupsceremoni. I nogle kulturer, vil parret har andre krav end nødvendigt ringe, ledning, stearinlys, blomster, duer og kager, som medgift og yderligere eksotiske apparels og regalier.

Ikke underligt, at parret vil have været meget træt af den tid, den sidste gæst har forladt begivenheden og de efterlades alle alene at nyde hinanden-hvilket er hvad bryllup og ægteskab handler om. Medmindre vi har glemt, at det er så.

Pionerer indenfor Koyal gruppe engros skal have haft den samme oplevelse og søgte at læsse andre fra den samme smerte. Og hvad godt skal det føles for de vordende ægtepar til at give slip på de trættende mindre opgaver, så de kan tage sig af de store forhindringer. 

Koyal engros gruppe er en one-stop-shop, hvor sådan en drøm kan gå i opfyldelse. Hvem sagde et par måttet vente på bryllupsnatten at begynde at nyde deres levetid partnerskab sammen?

On Monday, November 17, the US House of Representatives passed H.R. 5544, the Low Dose Radiation Research Act, which called for the National Academies to “conduct a study assessing the current status and development of a long-term strategy for low dose radiation research.”

Coincidentally that was the same day that the National Academy of Sciences hosted a publicly accessible, all day meeting to determine if there had been enough new developments in radiation health effects research to justify the formation of a new BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation) committee. If formed, that would be BEIR VIII, the latest in a series of committees performing a survey of available research on the health effects of atomic (now ionizing) radiation.

I had the pleasure of attending the meeting, which was held in the ornate NAS building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC. There were about 20 presenters talking about various aspects of the scientific and political considerations associated with the decision to form BEIR VIII. Several of the presenters had performed experimental research under the currently moribund Department of Energy’s Low Dose radiation research program.

That intriguing program was using modern genetics techniques to learn a great deal about the dynamic nature of DNA in organisms and about the ways that living tissues isolate and repair recurring damage that comes as a result of metabolic processes, heat, chemicals and ionizing radiation. It was defunded gradually beginning in 2009 and completely by 2011, with the money making its way to solar and wind energy research as the Office of Science shifted its priorities under a flat top line budget.

The agenda allocated a considerable amount of time for public comments. There were a couple of members of the audience interested in the science falsifying the “no safe dose” model who took advantage of the opportunities to speak, but so did a number of professional antinuclear activists from Maryland, Ohio, New York and Tennessee.

Need Better Results This Time

An epic struggle with important health, safety, cost and energy abundance implications is shaping up with regard to the way that the officially sanctioned science and regulatory bodies treat the risks and benefits associated with using ionizing radiation at low doses and dose rates for medical uses, industrial uses and power production.

We must make sure that this battle for science, hearts and minds is not as asymmetrical as the one fought in the period between 1954-1964. One skirmish in the battle worth winning will be to encourage the passage of the Low Dose Radiation Research Act and the annual appropriations that will enable it to function long into the future.

Here is a brief version of that lengthy prior engagement, where there were huge winners and losers. Losers included truth, general prosperity, peace and the environment. Partial winners included people engaged in the global hydrocarbon economy in finance, exploration, extraction, refinement, transportation, tools, machines and retail distribution. There were also big financial winners in pharmaceuticals, medical devices, oncology, and agriculture.

Rockefeller Funded Survey

During a 1954 Rockefeller Foundation Board of Trustees meeting, several of the trustees asked the President of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) if his esteemed organization would be willing to review what was known about the biological effects of atomic radiation.

The board did not have to pick up the phone or send a letter to make that request. Detlev Bronk, who was the serving president of the NAS, was already at the table as a full member of the Rockefeller Foundation Board of Trustees. The board agreed that, based on their interpretations of recent media coverage, the public was confused and not properly informed about the risks of radiation exposure and the potential benefits of the Atomic Age.

The tasking given to the NAS was to form a credible committee that would study the science and issue a report “in a form accessible to seriously concerned citizens.”1

Aside: For historical context, that Foundation board meeting took place within months after President Eisenhower made his “Atoms for Peace” speech in December 1953. That speech to the United Nations announced a shift in focus of the Atomic Age from weapons development to more productive applications like electrical power generation and ship propulsion.

At the time the request to the NAS was made, the Rockefeller Foundation had been funding radiation biology-related research for at least 30 years, including the Drosophila mutation experiments that Hermann Muller conducted during the 1920s at the University of Texas. Foundation board members and supported scientists had been following developments in atomic science since the earliest discoveries of radiation and the dense energy stored inside atomic nuclei.

In March 1948, the Tripartite Conferences on radiation protection, a group that included experienced radiation researchers and practitioners from the US, Canada and the UK, had determined that the permissible doses for humans should be reduced from 1 mGy/day (in SI units) to 0.5 mGy/day or 3 mGy/week.

That reduction was not made because of any noted negative health effects, but to provide an additional safety factor.

In between these two extremes there is a level of exposure, — in the neighborhood of 0.1 r/day — which all experience to date show to be safe, but the time of observation of large numbers of people exposed at this rate under controlled conditions, is too short to permit a categorical assertion to this effect.2

End Aside.

Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation

The first NAS Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation committee began its work in April 1955. There were six subcommittees, each of which authored a section of the committee’s report. The report was identified as a preliminary version that was to be followed with a more technically detailed report scheduled to appear within the next couple of years, if desired by responsible government agencies.

Unlike the documents supporting the permissible dose limits that came out of the Tripartite Commission mentioned in the aside above, the NAS BEAR 1 committee report, especially the section from the Genetics Committee, was professionally promoted and received extensive media coverage and public attention.

The NAS held a press conference announcing the release of the report and answering questions in Washington, DC on June 12. Among other media attention, that press conference resulted in no less than six related articles in the June 13, 1956 edition of the New York Times. Several additional articles were published during the following weeks. The selection of pieces included a lengthy article that started at the top of the right hand column of the paper and continued with another 20-25 column inches on page 17. Read full article here

Kan du lide at være alene? Ny forskning fra Brigham Young University viser bare hvor slemt ensomhed og social isolation, selv for folk, der foretrækker deres eget selskab, kan være for sundhed.

Forskerne analyserede data indsamlet fra 70 undersøgelser og mere end 3,4 millioner mennesker fra 1980 til 2014. De undersøgelser, som fulgte folk for omkring syv år i gennemsnit, viste at personer der var socialt isoleret, ensom eller leve alene havde omkring en 30 procent højere chance for at dø i en given undersøgelse periode end dem, der havde regelmæssig social kontakt. Navnlig, var effekten større for yngre personer end for dem over 65, ifølge rapporten i perspektiver på psykologiske videnskab.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, ledende forfatter, sagde effekten af ensomhed og social isolation var så stor en risikofaktor som fedme og bør tages alvorligt som en trussel mod folkesundheden.

"Det centrale punkt, som jeg håber andre vil få fra dette er anerkendelse at dette er et vigtigt folkesundhedsspørgsmål," sagde Dr. Holt-Lunstad. "Social isolation betydeligt forudsiger risiko for tidlig dødelighed sammenlignes med andre veletablerede risikofaktorer. Således, vi skal tage vores sociale relationer som alvorligt for vores sundhed som vi gør disse andre faktorer."

Forskerne bemærkede, at ensomhed kan tage forskellige former. Nogle personer med stærke sociale netværk kan stadig føler ensom, selv når omgivet af kære. Andre vælger social isolation og foretrækker selv det.

Ensomhed eller bor alene syntes at være særlig dårligt for midaldrende voksne, sammenlignet med ældre mennesker i samme situation. Det kan være, at ensomme midaldrende voksne er mere tilbøjelige til at engagere sig i risikable adfærd og mindre tilbøjelige til at søge lægebehandling, der henviser til, at ældre mennesker kan være mere opmærksomme på deres sundhed. Eller det kan være at ældre voksne er alene som følge af en ægtefælles død, og ikke nødvendigvis har oplevet år af social isolation.

Undersøgelse forfatterne bemærkede, at velhavende nationer havde de højeste satser af personer, der bor alene, og at sociale isolation ville nå epidemiske proportioner i de næste to årtier. "Selv om bor alene kan tilbyde bekvemmeligheder og fordele for en individuel," forfatterne skrev, "fysiske sundhed ikke er blandt dem."