There is yet another study showing that climbing stairs is great exercise and could help you live longer. It’s not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was presented at the recent scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Preventive Cardiology.
Conclusions were that, compared with not climbing stairs, doing so was associated with a 24% reduced risk of dying from any cause. There was a 39% reduced risk from dying of a cardiovascular disease.
One news story about this finding linked to an American Council of Exercise (ACE) article on an international sport called tower running. I’ve never heard of it before.
This could help get you ready for chasing extraterrestrials as shown in the famous fitness documentary Men in Black. Officer Edwards may have had “a real problem with authority” (ironic since he was a New York City cop). But as Agent K pointed out, “So do I. But this kid ran down a cephalopoid on foot, boss. That’s got to be tough enough.”
The point being: if you really know what’s good for you—you’ll take the stairs.
I have a 27-year-old shirt. It’s denim with a plaid pattern on the front. I wore it when we went on vacation to Hawaii in 1997. In the featured image, I’m wearing it as Sena and I pose for a photo after we got off the plane. We and a lot of other vacationers were festooned with leis as we entered the airport.
That makes this shirt 27 years old—at least. I’m sure I had it for a while before we went to Hawaii. I don’t remember where I got it. Sena says she probably bought it for me at Target.
I looked it up and found an identical shirt for sale on eBay—but it was advertised as being for ladies. The description is “VTG 90s Ladies Greatland Denim Flannel Shirt Size M Pocket Streetwear Grunge.
My first thought was: I’m wearing a lady’s shirt that sells for about twenty bucks on eBay? I couldn’t find one labeled for men. I asked Sena about it and found out for the first time that the buttons on a man’s shirt are on the right side and on a women’s shirt the buttons are on the left.
Then I looked at the eBay picture of the shirt again. The buttons are on the right. I guess the woman selling them doesn’t know the rule of right and left side buttons as it pertains to shirts for men and women.
Well, I guess I can stop being insecure about it. I don’t think anyone really knows why that gender-based rule about right and left side shirt buttons exists. I looked at a couple of web pages and they tend to repeat the same reasons and then end up saying nobody knows and it doesn’t matter.
The other thing to consider is whether my shirt could be considered vintage. According to some experts, anything between 20 and 99 years old can be vintage. I guess that makes me and my shirt vintage.
There is a new show on the KCCK radio station at FM 88.3 broadcast out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa (106.9 in Iowa City). It’s called the Big Mo Pod Show, which is keyed to his previous Friday night Big Mo Blues Show which starts at 6:00 PM.
The show generally quizzes the DJ, Big Mo (John Heim) on some of the tunes (name of artist, name of the song, why he played the song) he played the previous Friday night. A good example was Friday, April 19, 2024. You can access the show on different platforms, which are announced at the end of the show.
Big Mo did alright. He got most of the answers right, including the one by John Primer, “Crawlin’ Kingsnake.” I also like John Primer’s song “Hard Times.”
Remember, the Big Mo Pod Show is recorded and based on the Big Mo Blues Show from the previous Friday night. You can hear it by going to KCCKdotorg web site and click the Listen tab to find Shows on Demand to find “BigMoPodShow.”
We’ve been watching for the house finch eggs to hatch sometime soon here. Remember they’re the ones who are nesting in the artificial Christmas tree on our front porch.
The 2023 edition of the book Birds of Iowa Field Guide, written by Stan Tekiela says the house finch was first seen in Iowa in 1982. That makes it a big year for house finches and for Iowa.
It got me to wondering what other big things happened in Iowa in 1982. A number of events as it turns out.
Terry Branstad was first elected governor of Iowa in 1982. He was 36 years old and at the time was the country’s youngest chief executive. After that, it seemed like he never stopped being the governor—even when he wasn’t, which was seldom. He was governor for 22 years. He was notable for being the nation’s longest-serving governor in history as of 2016.
In 1982, the University of Iowa Hawkeye football team went to the Rose Bowl—and lost to Washington 28-0. Coach Hayden Fry was not happy. The biggest thing about it was the long running party before the game.
While we were in Ames in 1982, there was evidently a big fire that destroyed the Iowa State University Alpha Iota chapter fraternity house. We don’t recall it. One of the members of the fraternity named Steve Shamash, wrote a five-page story about it. One quote (author unknown at the time by Shamash) is worth sharing about how the fire affected the fraternity:
“Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle industrious.” In short, that fire gave our chapter a swift kick in the butt.
I hunted for the author of the quote and I think it’s by Orison Swett Marden who wrote How to Succeed or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune. The full quote is:
“Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle industrious. Neither do uninterrupted success and prosperity qualify men for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager.”
One of the biggest things was the Grateful Dead concert at the University of Iowa Field House. We never went because we were living in Ames at the time. I was an undergraduate at Iowa State University. You can hear the songs at the Internet Archive. The only one I recognize as being by the Grateful Dead is “Truckin.”
Sena surprised me by reminding me she bought me a colorful Jerry Garcia necktie while I was a resident in the Psychiatry Department at the University of Iowa in the mid-1990s. I don’t remember that at all, probably because my brain was fried from being post-call most of the time.
Heads up! The Carver College of Medicine Health Sciences Research Day is on April 26, 2024. The event is open to the public. Find your way to the Medical Research Facility (MERF) by google map.
On April 9, 2024, the University of Iowa educational podcast, Rounding@Iowa presented a discussion about the study of the use of psilocybin in the treatment of psychiatric and addiction disorders. You can access the podcast below. The title is “Psilocybin Benefits and Risks.” The format involves an interview by Dr. Gerard Clancy, MD, Senior Associate Dean for External Affairs, Professor of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine with distinguished University of Iowa faculty and clinician researchers.
In this presentation, the guest interviewees are Dr. Michael Flaum, MD, Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, and Dr. Peggy Nopoulos, MD, Chair and Department Executive Officer for the University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry, Professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, and Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
All three of these highly respected and accomplished faculty taught me when I was a trainee in the psychiatry department and afterward were esteemed colleagues.
Iowa's cancer rates are among the highest in the country, and they are rising. In this episode of Rounding@Iowa, Dr. Gerry Clancy and guest experts Dr. Mary Charlton and Dr. Mark Burkard discuss the data, risk factors, and prevention strategies clinicians can use to make a difference. CME Credit Available: https://uiowa.cloud-cme.com/course/courseoverview?P=0&EID=81274 Host: Gerard Clancy, MD Senior Associate Dean for External Affairs Professor of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Guests: Mark E. Burkard, MD, PhD Professor of Internal Medicine-Hematology, Oncology, and Blood and Marrow Transplantation University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine Director, University of Iowa Health Care Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center Mary Charlton, PhD Professor of Epidemiology Director, Iowa Cancer Registry Iowa College of Public Health Financial Disclosures: Dr. Clancy, Dr. Burkard, Dr. Charlton, and Rounding@IOWA planning committee members have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Nurse: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine designates this activity for a maximum of 0.75 ANCC contact hour. Pharmacist and Pharmacy Tech: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine designates this knowledge-based activity for a maximum of 0.75 ACPE contact hours. Credit will be uploaded to the NABP CPE Monitor within 60 days after the activity completion. Pharmacists must provide their NABP ID and DOB (MMDD) to receive credit. UAN: JA0000310-0000-25-090-H99 Physician: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of 0.75 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Other Health Care Providers: A certificate of completion will be available after successful completion of the course. (It is the responsibility of licensees to determine if this continuing education activity meets the requirements of their professional licensure board.) References/Resources: Iowa Cancer Plan
The link icon adjacent to the title of the podcast takes you to the podcast website. The link to the article in Iowa Magazine about the psilocybin research at University of Iowa Health Care tells you more about Dr. Peggy Nopoulos and her role as principal investigator in the study.
There is also a link to the National Library of Medicine Clinical Trials web site where you can find out more details about the study design. You’ll notice a banner message which says: “The U.S. government does not review or approve the safety and science of all studies listed on the website” along with another link to a disclaimer with more details.
Here’s a suitable sort of dad joke Svengoolie style for the 1941 horror movie classic, The Wolf Man:
What do you call a dirty joke about the wolfman given at the strait-laced werewolf convention? A howler.
See what I did there? It puns on the word “howler” defined as an embarrassing mistake that evokes laughter, and also puns on the werewolf’s habit of howling. So, the mistake is the dirty joke being told to a convention audience of strait-laced (strictly moralistic) werewolves. OK, whatever.
I’m not great at telling dad jokes, although I like to hear them. I almost bought a book of dad jokes the other day, but when I read the copyright notice, I decided against it:
The notice of copyright for this book of dad jokes is to inform the purchaser that it is hereby forbidden to share these jokes in written, spoken, whispered, or telepathically delivered form to anyone else. Only the purchaser may whisper the jokes to himself as long as no other person is within earshot although it is preferable to read them silently. If this copyright notice is violated (and we will know because of the cleverly hidden monitoring device inserted in the text on each and every page), the publisher has the right to pursue every legal action necessary to extract money and suitable vengeance on the perpetrator, which means you.
I’ve been to the bookstore which sells several dad joke books and they all have this kind of copyright notice in them, regardless of who writes the books. I end up not buying any of them. Consequently, I never learn how to tell dad jokes. But that probably won’t stop me from trying.
Anyway, we saw The Wolf Man last Saturday and it’s a classic B horror movie. It was our first time seeing it and Lon Chaney, Jr. was a great werewolf. He didn’t like being called junior. We found out his father was a movie star too. I don’t think anybody called him Lon Chaney, Sr.
You can find attempts on the web to attach psychoanalytic interpretations of the Wolf Man, but I don’t buy them. On the other hand, there are some quotes from the film that sound like psychological observations:
Dr. Lloyd, the family physician: “I believe a man lost in the mazes of his own mind may imagine that he’s anything.”
Sir John Talbot (Larry the werewolf’s father): “Larry, to some people, life is very simple. They decide that this is good, that is bad. This is wrong, that’s right. There’s no right in wrong, no good in bad. No shadings and greys, all blacks and whites…Now others of us find that good, bad, right, wrong, are many-sided, complex things. We try to see every side but the more we see, the less sure we are. Now you asked me if I believe a man can become a wolf. If you mean “Can it take on physical traits of an animal?” No, it’s fantastic. However, I do believe that most anything can happen to a man in his own mind.”
You can see The Wolf Man on the internet archive. You can make up your own mind about it.
The story so far on the house finch family is that the eggs are intact. We still don’t know when they might hatch. The video from yesterday shows what the birds typically do and I think it would be redundant to make videos daily. The critter cam captured over 400 video and image files in the space of almost 5 hours yesterday. The short YouTube was produced from a tiny fraction of those.
Their behavior doesn’t change from day to day. I’ll be checking the nest once a day to check on the eggs, which will cut down on the number of intrusive visits that only startle the birds.
One thought I had was about bird flu which is in the news a lot lately. The CDC web site on Avian Influenza A makes it clear that water fowl are the main wild bird transmitters, not the typical back yard songbirds.
Another thing I found was a new edition of Iowa bird expert Stan Tekiela’s book, Birds of Iowa Field Guide (new edition 2023, last one was in 2000). I think it’s a great guide, partly because it helps readers to identify bird species starting with a very simple feature—their color. The image below shows the old edition on the left and the new one on the right.
One new item about the house finch is that, rarely, males who are not well-nourished might have a yellow rather than orange or red head, chest, and rump. Another is that both males and females can get a disease that causes the eyes to crust over, leading to blindness and death.
We managed to get some critter cam footage of the male and female house finch pair nesting in the fake Christmas tree in our front entry way yesterday. Crank up the volume on your audio to hear them singing.
The male sports a red face and chest. The female is plain brown except for brown streaks on a white belly. While she incubates the eggs, he feeds her periodically.
It’s definitely a tough job sitting there most of the time with temperatures getting well into the 80’s Fahrenheit on our porch even before noon. On the other hand it’s still getting pretty cold at night.
We don’t know when the eggs were laid, but they take about two weeks to hatch. After that the chicks will take a couple of weeks to fledge.
I’m a little nervous about going out there periodically to pick up the critter cam and peek at the eggs. It always startles the female. It can also alert large predatory birds to the prospect of a meal. This actually happened about 4 years ago when I heard what sounded like large bedsheets flapping in the wind. It turned out to be the biggest crow I ever saw taking off with its beak full of house finch nestlings from the real evergreen tree in our front yard (different house).
Go Retire Psychiatrist 