Your brain can't function. You are asked to make decisions about treatment almost immediately, when you are not in your right mind. And yet you pull yourself together and start asking questions. Beside you is your doctor, whose job it is to solve the awful puzzle of bone marrow gone wrong. The two of you are in it together. In When Blood Breaks Down, Mikkael Sekeres, a leading cancer specialist, takes readers on the journey that patient and doctor travel together.Sekeres, who writes regularly for the Well section of the New York Times, tells the compelling stories of three people who receive diagnoses of adult leukemia within hours of each other: Joan, a 48-year-old surgical nurse, a caregiver who becomes a patient; David, a 68-year-old former factory worker who bows to his family's wishes and pursues the most aggressive treatment; and Sarah, a 36-year-old pregnant woman who must decide whether to undergo chemotherapy and put her fetus at risk. We join the intimacy of the conversations Sekeres has with his patients, and watch as he teaches trainees. Along the way, Sekeres also explores leukemia in its different forms and the development of drugs to treat it--describing, among many other fascinating details, the invention of the bone marrow transplant (first performed experimentally on beagles) and a treatment that targets the genetics of leukemia.The lessons to be learned from leukemia, Sekeres shows, are not merely medical; they teach us about courage and grace and defying the odds.

    Two ends of the same spectrum. And sometimes the only person standing between is a tired, overworked resident with personal problems of her own.Welcome to the world of Catching Babies. In the halls of a busy metropolitan teaching hospital, a group of OB/GYN doctors complete their residencies and embark on ambitious careers, all while trying to hold their lives together at the seams. Jay is running from a life he’s tried to leave behind, while Katie sacrifices everything she has to serve an endless parade of needy patients. Anna is out trying to save the world, while Tracy is trying to save twins dying in utero. Based on true stories from delivery rooms and labor decks, Catching Babies spins the doctors’ stories into a gripping mosaic of the obsessions, the anxieties, and the heroism of doctors who have chosen to preside over life’s greatest medical drama—high-risk childbirth.

    So often, we take our bodies for granted. We’re rarely curious about how they work and what we can do to make them work better. In The Body, Bill Bryson takes you on a tour inside your body so you can gain a better understanding of how it functions and its amazing ability to heal itself. At the times you doubt yourself, or think of yourself as less than wonderful, this summary of The Body will remind you of the miracle you truly are.

    It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation.In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies." Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.

    Well, I was diagnosed 24 years ago, and I still learned something new on every page.”—Michael Kinsley, Vanity Fair columnist and author of Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide Here is the book that John Vine and his wife, Joanne, wish they could have consulted when John was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease—a nontechnical, personal guide written from the patient’s perspective. Relying on his experiences over the past 12 years, John writes knowledgeably about all aspects of the disease. John also interviewed other Parkinson’s patients and their partners, whose stories and advice he includes throughout the book. “I wish we’d had John Vine’s book when my brother-in-law was diagnosed. The book is highly informative, unflinchingly honest, and reassuringly optimistic. It’s just what the doctor should have ordered.”—Cokie Roberts, best-selling author and political commentator on ABC News and NPR “John Vine details, in a compelling and accessible way, his experience with Parkinson’s disease. His book is an extraordinary guide to living successfully with Parkinson’s, and a must read for all who want to better understand the condition. Although diagnosed with Parkinson’s, my father lived an active and productive life until his death at age 94. As the book makes clear, while each patient’s journey is unique, common approaches are indispensable in treating the symptoms of the disease.”—Eric H. Holder, Jr. served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015 “John Vine has written the best primer I’ve ever read for newly diagnosed Parkinson’s patients and their families. It helps them cope with the shock of diagnosis, gives them (jargon-free) the scientific basics they need to know, describes the symptoms they may experience (making clear that every case is different) and catalogs the resources available to navigate living with Parkinson’s. John humanizes the book by describing his own experience and that of 22 other patients and their partners. I’d urge every neurologist to have copies of Vine’s primer on hand to help new PD on their journey forward.”—Morton Kondracke, author of Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson’s Disease and a member of the Founders' Council of the Michael J. Fox Foundation “My husband has PD, and I devoured this book. It’s wise, wonderfully readable, and, above all, helpful. Since John Vine has PD, he speaks with great authority about the challenges, both physical and psychological. If you have Parkinson’s, live with someone who has it, or just know someone battling the disease, A Parkinson’s Primer is for you.”—Lesley Stahl, award-winning television journalist on the CBS News program 60 Minutes “This is a remarkable book describing the personal experiences of many individuals, including the author, living with Parkinson’s disease. It captures the fact that although there are many possible symptoms in this disease, each person experiences different symptoms and copes with them in various ways. The thoughtful and insightful comments and coping strategies should be helpful for persons with PD, and their partners, regardless of the stage of the disease.”—Stephen Grill, MD, PhD, Director of the Parkinson’s & Movement Disorders Center of Maryland John M. Vine is a lawyer at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, DC, where he is the senior member and former head of the firm’s employee benefits group. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2004.

    O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardAn award-winning physician and scientist makes the game-changing case that genetic females are stronger than males at every stage of lifeHere are some facts: Women live longer than men. They have stronger immune systems. They're better at fighting cancer and surviving famine, and even see the world in a wider variety of colors. They are simply stronger than men at every stage of life. Why is this? And why are we taught the opposite?To find out, Dr. Sharon Moalem drew on his own medical experiences - treating premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit; recruiting the elderly for neurogenetic studies; tending to HIV-positive orphans in Thailand - and tried to understand why in every instance men were consistently less likely to thrive. The answer, he discovered, lies in our genetics: two X chromosomes offer a powerful survival advantage.With clear, captivating prose that weaves together eye-opening research, case studies, diverse examples ranging from the behavior of honeybees to American pioneers, as well as experiences from his personal life and his own patients, Moalem explains why genetic females triumph over males when it comes to resiliency, intellect, stamina, immunity and much more. He also calls for a reconsideration of our male-centric, one-size-fits-all view of medical studies and even how we prescribe medications - a view that still sees women through the lens of men.Revolutionary and yet utterly convincing, The Better Half will make you see humanity and the survival of our species anew.

    Now, more than ever before, our country needs to see full legalization of medical/recreational marijuana and hemp. Any way you look at it, for whoever is using it, marijuana is a medicinal plant, in abundant supply. Every month and every year that goes by, we find out more positive things about it. Medicinal marijuana has been demonized through the years but obviously this plant has a great deal of positive attributes, and it’s also a renewable resource. Being a cash crop, marijuana is bad for the pharmaceutical industry. Is Big Pharma pressuring the government to continue to deny sick people access? If so, that’s truly a crime against American citizens. And as Ventura writes: “Our government won’t do the right thing and legalize marijuana unless we the people demand it, because there are so many people within our government on the payroll, all thanks to the War on Drugs." Jesse Ventura’s Marijuana Manifesto calls for an end to the War on Drugs. Just because something is illegal, that doesn’t mean it goes away, it just means that criminals run it. Legalizing marijuana and marijuana dispensaries will serve to rejuvenate our pathetic economy, and just might make people a little happier. Ventura’s book will show us all how we can take our country back.

    Global sea levels, as the result of rapidly melting polar ice rose by more than 300 feet in a very short period of time, causing the planet to become unstable.In Egypt, Peru, Bolivia, Lebanon and other locations we see the existence of ancient damaged but very sophisticated megalithic stone structures which we would be hard pressed to re-create today. They hint that once upon a time one or "Atlantean" civilizations indeed did exist

    

    What seemed like a harmless cold morphed into a global pandemic that would wipe out as many as a hundred-million people - ten times as many as the Great War. German troops faltered lending the allies the winning advantage, India turned its sights to independence while South Africa turned to God. In Western Samoa a quarter of the population died; in some parts of Alaska, whole villages were wiped out. Civil unrest sparked by influenza shaped nations and heralded a new era of public health where people were no longer blamed for contracting disease. Using real case histories, we take a journey through the world in 1918, and look at the impact of Spanish flu on populations from America, to France, to the Arctic, and the scientific legacy this deadly virus has left behind.

    Written not from a post-crisis perspective – but from a preventative point of view – this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You'll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest. Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. By exploring the heart of the shadow economy, you'll be better prepared to ride the rough waves of finance into the turbulent future. Delve into one of the world's least-understood but highest-impact industries Understand the key principles of quantitative finance and the evolution of the field Learn what quantitative finance has become, and how it affects us all Discover how the industry's next steps dictate the economy's future How do you create a quadrillion dollars out of nothing, blow it away and leave a hole so large that even years of "quantitative easing" can't fill it – and then go back to doing the same thing? Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.

    

    He was eager to begin his first practice, but it turned out to be more than he bargained for. In just two years, in September, 1918, the entire village was sickened in rapid succession in the flu pandemic that killed quickly and indiscriminately throughout the world. It was wartime, and Nixon was unable to find help., This story is an up close and personal account of what it was like to be sick with the HINI type virus in 1918. It is a tale of a dedicated doctor whose selflessness, compassion and courage helped the villagers survive in the pandemic that killed more people in a year than the Black Death killed in a century...

    

    David Horowitz’s classic Why Israel is the Victim, updated by the author, sets the record straight about the basic truths of the Middle East conflict. In addition to restoring the authentic history of the region – a history of obsessive aggression first by Arab countries determined to physically annihilate the Jewish State and later by terror groups determined to destroy its will to survive and right to exist—this booklet brings the story up to date by showing the systematic way in which Hamas and Hezbollah, under Iran’s direction, have subverted peace in the Middle East. As Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield notes in his insightful introduction, this pamphlet “tells us why we should reject the “Blame Israel First” narrative that has so thoroughly saturated the mainstream media… It confronts the myth of Palestinian victimhood… and it delivers a rousing restatement of the true history of the hate that led us to all this.” America should be Israel’s protector. Instead, as David Horowitz notes, under the leadership of Barack Obama, it has become its prosecutor.