indiohistorian:

“EYE ON: The Philippines” is showing now on CNN and will run through within the week. Don’t miss it!

Eye.On 

Notice the National Hero segment. Ugh. It’s Jose Rizal. Not puh-ke-yeow. 

homedesigning:

(via La Boyita House, in Uruguay)

(via modernlifestyle)

sermoveritas:

Saint of the Day (St. Pius V)

This is the pope whose job was to implement the historic Council of Trent. If we think popes had difficulties in implementing Vatican Council II, Pius V had even greater problems after Trent than four centuries earlier.

During his papacy (1566-1572), Pius V was faced with the almost overwhelming responsibility of getting a shattered and scattered Church back on its feet. The family of God had been shaken by corruption, by the Reformation, by the constant threat of Turkish invasion and by the bloody bickering of the young nation-states. In 1545 a previous pope convened the Council of Trent in an attempt to deal with all these pressing problems. Off and on over 18 years, the Church Fathers discussed, condemned, affirmed and decided upon a course of action. The Council closed in 1563.

Pius V was elected in 1566 and was charged with the task of implementing the sweeping reforms called for by the Council. He ordered the founding of seminaries for the proper training of priests. He published a new missal, a new breviary, a new catechism and established the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes for the young. Pius zealously enforced legislation against abuses in the Church. He patiently served the sick and the poor by building hospitals, providing food for the hungry and giving money customarily used for the papal banquets to poor Roman converts. His decision to keep wearing his Dominican habit led to the custom of the pope wearing a white cassock.

In striving to reform both Church and state, Pius encountered vehement opposition from England’s Queen Elizabeth and the Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Problems in France and in the Netherlands also hindered Pius’s hopes for a Europe united against the Turks. Only at the last minute was he able to organize a fleet which won a decisive victory in the Gulf of Lepanto, off Greece, on October 7, 1571.

Pius’s ceaseless papal quest for a renewal of the Church was grounded in his personal life as a Dominican friar. He spent long hours with his God in prayer, fasted rigorously, deprived himself of many customary papal luxuries and faithfully observed the spirit of the Dominican Rule that he had professed.

Comment:

In their personal lives and in their actions as popes, Pius V and Paul VI (d. 1978) both led the family of God in the process of interiorizing and implementing the new birth called for by the Spirit in major Councils. With zeal and patience, Pius and Paul pursued the changes urged by the Council Fathers. Like Pius and Paul, we too are called to constant change of heart and life.

Quote:

“In this universal assembly, in this privileged point of time and space, there converge together the past, the present, and the future. The past: for here, gathered in this spot, we have the Church of Christ with her tradition, her history, her councils, her doctors, her saints; the present: we are taking leave of one another to go out toward the world of today with its miseries, its sufferings, its sins, but also with its prodigious accomplishments, values, and virtues; and the future is here in the urgent appeal of the peoples of the world for more justice, in their will for peace, in their conscious or unconscious thirst for a higher life, that life precisely which the Church of Christ can give and wishes to give to them” (from Pope Paul’s closing message at Vatican II).

Quote:

“In this universal assembly, in this privileged point of time and space, there converge together the past, the present, and the future. The past: for here, gathered in this spot, we have the Church of Christ with her tradition, her history, her councils, her doctors, her saints; the present: we are taking leave of one another to go out toward the world of today with its miseries, its sufferings, its sins, but also with its prodigious accomplishments, values, and virtues; and the future is here in the urgent appeal of the peoples of the world for more justice, in their will for peace, in their conscious or unconscious thirst for a higher life, that life precisely which the Church of Christ can give and wishes to give to them” (from Pope Paul’s closing message at Vatican II).

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

The winds of Mars create sand dunes that seem to flow like a liquid across the planet’s surface. Here the wind blows from right to left around the flat top mesas on the right side of the image. The dark, arc-shaped dunes formed in the wake of the mesas are called barchans and can move downstream remarkably intact, even able to cross paths with other dunes. (Photo credit: MRO, NASA; via APOD)

(via modernlifestyle)

ucsdhealthsciences:

Detecting brain cancer without surgery

Currently, there is no way to accurately diagnose the presence of a brain tumor without actually cutting into the skull. Nor is there a reliable method for monitoring the progression of brain cancer. But in a paper, published online this week in the journal Neuro-Oncology, Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, director of Neuro-Oncology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, with colleagues at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and elsewhere describe a non-surgical method that may do both with remarkable accuracy.
           
In a study of 118 patients with different types of brain cancer, researchers focused on the presence and abundance of different microRNAs in patients’ cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).  MicroRNAs are short, single-stranded RNA molecules that help regulate gene expression. They have proven to be effective biomarkers for other conditions and can be accurately measured simply and inexpensively.
           
That utility appears to hold true for brain cancer as well. The scientists report that they found significantly increased levels of two specific types of miRNA in the CSF of patients with glioblastoma and brain metastasis of breast and lung cancer, compared to tumors in remission and a variety of non-neoplastic conditions.
           
Patients with brain metastases but no other pathologic conditions showed highly elevated levels of other types of miRNA, allowing researchers to discriminate between glioblastoma and metastatic brain tumors.
           
The scientists were able to achieve these diagnoses by measuring as few as seven miRNAs. Their accuracy rate was 91 to 99 percent.
           
In addition, they reported that disease activity and treatment response can be monitored by regularly profiling microRNA levels in the CSF of glioblastoma and non-small cell lung carcinoma patients.
           
“We are excited about the potential that this test has to ease the process of detecting and monitoring brain tumors,” said senior author Anna M. Krichevsky, PhD, of the Center of Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “The test needs to be further developed before it is used in a clinical setting, but I expect it could be particularly valuable for patients who are not surgical candidates due to the tumor’s size or location, or due to an underlying medical condition.”      

(via fuckyeahmedicalstuff)

innerart:

Lungs Collage by ~Melon105

(via myanatomicallife)

articulomortis:

Hitler as Seen by His Doctors, 1945 – 46

Military Intelligence Service Center, United States Army, European Theater

This is one of five known X-rays of Hitler’s head, part of his medical records compiled by American military intelligence after the German’s surrendered and declassified in 1958. The records also include doctor’s reports, diagrams of his teeth and nose and electrocardiograms.

(via zygoma)