New Study on Gun Violence

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was asked after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to review existing studies on guns and violence carried out with guns.

They have now published the results and made them available to the public.  The report brief is available as a pdf or html document.

The brief is worth a read for anyone interested in looking past the politically charged exchanges to see what the facts actually show.  Interestingly, the findings have just as much in them to appeal to gun control advocates as they do to the NRA.  Slate magazine does a pretty good job of summing up the high points.

Biggest news of the Summer!

Annals of Internal Medicine published an Australian medical study involving 900 middle-aged adults up to 55 years old (average age was 39) over a 4.5 year period of time to test the effects of sunscreen on slowing aging of the skin due to sun exposure.

People who applied SPF 15 sunscreen every day had significantly less wrinkling and aging of the skin.

This is important, since sun related wrinkling of the skin is related to risk for skin cancer.

It's also great news because the bottom line is:

PUT SOME SPF 15 SUNSCREEN ON EVERY DAY (WHETHER SUMMER OR NOT, GOING OUT OR NOT) AND YOUR SKIN WILL LOOK YOUNGER!

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning (as seen on TV)

Slate has an excellent article to check out as we are fully in to Summer and school is out.

Many of us picture a drowning person as seen on TV or movies: arms thrashing, gurgling and yelling for help.  In reality, drowning is typically a very quiet affair.  It is sobering that over half of drownings happen within 25 yards of parents or other responsible adults.

Please read this article for how you can effectively recognize a drowning person so that you can help effectively.

One way to be sure? Ask them, “Are you all right?” If they can answer at all—they probably are. If they return a blank stare, you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them. And parents—children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.