Monthly Archives: February 2010
Sea Levels 81,000 Years Ago
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 28th February 2010Climate scientists have used sea levels past and present to help predict those of the future. Temperature affects land ice; increased land ice will lower sea levels while the melting of this ice will raise these levels. Thus increased sea levels (secondary to ice melting) reflect a warmer global temperature. The scientific debate about what…
› Read the full entry
Forgotten Miracle
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th February 2010Glory does not always blaze; sometimes it goes dark. The 1960 USA hockey team is an of example of forgotten greatness. Olympic hockey is now one of the winter games premiere events. Professional players from the NHL form the core of the strong teams’ rosters. This year’s Winter Olympics mark the 30th anniversary of the…
› Read the full entry
The Obesity Paradox
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th February 2010A paper in the February Mayo Clinic Proceeding gives food for thought: Obesity Paradox and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in 12,417 Male Veterans Aged 40 to 70 Years. Everyone is aware of the negative health consequences of obesity. Less familiar is the consistent inverse correlation (the so-called obesity paradox) between mortality and body mass index (BMI) among…
› Read the full entry
The Ultimate Problem
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th February 2010The article below was originally published in 1983. I think it’s still relevant to any current discussion of euthanasia. It also appears under the Seminars in Nephrology Editorials. Mr. Lincoln (not his name) was a 54-year-old man with metastatic prostatic cancer and chronic renal failure. He had been on dialysis for a number of years…
› Read the full entry
Dietary Salt Reduction and Cardiovascular Disease
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th February 2010A paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, Projected Effect of Dietary Salt Reductions on Future Cardiovascular Disease, concludes that “Modest reductions in dietary salt could substantially reduce cardiovascular events and medical costs and should be a public health target.” This conclusion is based on the use of a very complicated computer model of…
› Read the full entry
Simon Boccanegra in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th February 2010Verdi’s majestically flawed masterpiece was televised February 6, 2010. Simon Boccanegra stays in the repertory because of it’s glorious music and its great title role. It always fails to completely satisfy because of its insane libretto and because of it’s imperfect structure. Piave’s libretto makes that of Il Trovatore look like the exemplar of the…
› Read the full entry
