Joan L. Cannon writes: The ubiquitous cameras of our daily lives may is some ways replace some of the older functions of the looking glass, but they don't give rise to the emotional resonances stirred by passing a household fixture or treasure that has seen most of one's years of consciousness. The missing image of a loved one who saw the same reflected surroundings we can still see becomes a nearly visible ghost. There's a forbidding precision in a photograph, precious as it may be. A shared home, visible in reflection behind the viewer is like an echoing chord of familiar music or the faint scent that memory never erases.

There are approximately 2,300 rural hospitals in the US, most of them concentrated in the Midwest and the South. For a variety of reasons, many of them are struggling to survive. In the last five years, Congress has sharply reduced spending on Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, and the patients at rural hospitals tend to be older than those at urban or suburban ones.

A United Kingdom Study: "Music is a non-invasive, safe, and inexpensive intervention that can be delivered easily and successfully in a hospital setting. We believe that sufficient research has been done to show that music should be available to all patients undergoing operative procedures." They add: "Timing of music does not make much difference to outcomes so can be adapted to the individual clinical setting and medical team."

"As we pushed to find smaller and smaller cancers, and targeted calcifications instead of just masses, we began to identify DCIS more frequently. Now DCIS accounts for approximately 20% to 25% of screen-detected breast cancers. The cells that make up DCIS look like invasive cancer both pathologically and molecularly, and therefore the presumption was made that these lesions were the precursors of cancer and that early removal and treatment would reduce cancer incidence and mortality. However, long-term epidemiology studies have demonstrated that the removal of 50 000 to 60 000 DCIS lesions annually has not been accompanied by a reduction in the incidence of invasive breast cancers."

Gaillard writes about the slights and frustrations that gradually raised her consciousness as she rose to the top among theoretical physicists trying to understand the complexities of the universe's fundamental particles. The wife of a physicist, she mothered three young children while simultaneously laying the theoretical groundwork for key experiments that proved the validity of the Standard Model, now accepted as the best description of three of the four forces of nature.

Julia Sneden wrote: But after all, summer is summer, no matter where you live, and it needs nothing else to recommend it. In any guise, it's a time for living lightly and slowing down to enjoy whatever nature brings you. If you do it right, when Labor Day rolls around you'll have begun to be bored with summer, and you'll be ready for Fall's up-gearing once again. In the meantime, let insouciance reign.

Facial recognition technology — which can verify or identify an individual from a facial image — has rapidly improved in performance and now can surpass human performance in some cases. The Department of Commerce has convened stakeholders to review privacy issues related to commercial use of this technology, which GAO was also asked to examine. This report examines (1) uses of facial recognition technology, (2) privacy issues that have been raised, (3) proposed best practices and industry privacy policies, and (4) potentially applicable privacy protections under federal law.

There is a time for everything to flourish, I guess, and then to draw away. It’s hard to accept that sometimes that withdrawal is hastened; the oaks should last longer than this. Nature is a continuum of growth and loss. We can delay the process now and then but there is a time for it all. Perhaps our appreciation of what we have is the best way to understand the cycle – and to live life fully.

Elaborate jewels accompanied the burials of Nubian queens, including pendants made of precious metal and hard stone. Gold amulets, gold finger and toe caps and funerary masks adorned the tombs' royal mummies. Throughout antiquity, jewelry was imbued with magical meanings — wearing it was literally a matter of life or death.

While political considerations do not trump other concerns in the search for a place to reside, they do matter when all factors are considered. Research shows that Democrats cluster in urban areas and Republicans in rural areas based on attitudes and viewpoints as well as "pre-existing political balance that attracts an influx of co-partisans, while driving away others."

In historical terms, the entries span from ancient Rome to the late 20th century. Some entries are true thought experiments, or as Douglas Kahn has called them, "conceptual instruments" which — at least according to our current estimations of technological possibility — could not exist outside of the imagination. Others bear close relationship to historical instruments, of which they can be seen as derivatives, variations, or mutant offspring.

Serena Nanda Reviews: The mysteries take place in the diverse and complex societies of Jedda, Saudi Arabia; Capetown, South Africa; and the Happy Valley in Kenya. Race, class, ethnicity, tribal and gender identities all play important roles in both the crimes and the investigations. The deep cultural contexts of the crimes are not dull academic explanations but subtle, authentic and fascinating descriptions. Central to each of these novels are women investigators, some official and some not, whose individual personalities and interactions with the local 'police cultures' add an extra dimension of interest and suspense to the stories. 

So far this year, states have enacted 51 new abortion restrictions; this brings the number of restrictions enacted since 2010 to 282. Although only about a dozen states remain in session as of July 1, these states may well enact additional restrictions before the end of the year. Following the recent pattern of increased restrictions in odd-numbered years (largely because not all legislatures are in session in even-numbered years), states have enacted more restrictions during the first half of this year than during all of last year.

Public employment, long seen as a secure job with good benefits, took a series of hits during the recession, with state and local governments implementing hiring freezes and layoffs. But job-seekers can take solace: Many states and localities are now hiring, buoyed by an improving economy and better-than-expected revenue. State and local governments are having trouble filling jobs involving accounting, information technology, finance, mental health, skilled trade work, social work, water treatment and some others, the report said.

Rose Madeline Mula writes: Did you ever stop to think about how certain words reveal a great deal about us? I'm not talking about designations that others may use to desctibe our physical appearance (attractive, stocky, tall, graceful...) or characteristics (sweet, generous, funny...) but, rather, words that tickle our fancy; phrases that turn us on — or off.

Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to seriously consider a federal health insurance program. As Congress churned out New Deal legislation, Roosevelt advocated inclusion of a federal health insurance component in his Social Security Act of 1935, before dropping it to avoid jeopardizing the bill's passage. Fourteen years later, Harry Truman sent the House a bill that would offer health insurance to those age sixty-five and older, but it was blocked by an intractable Ways and Means Committee. Kennedy tried, too, sending a comparable bill to Capitol Hill in 1962, where it missed passage in the Senate by a few votes.

Doris O'Brien writes: Picture yourself shaking hands with Hillary, Bernie, Martin, Jeb, Chris, Scott, Marco, Rand, Dr. Ben, The Donald, and all the other celebratory hopefuls. Can't you almost smell the slow-burning spare ribs and taste the tangy apple cider on a frosty Iowa evening? But more to the point: it's not my stomach but my political soul that makes me envy Hawkeyes. That's why I'm hankering to be in their number when the wannabes come marching in.

The idea of using outcomes — not enrollments — to guide public funding of higher education has so much bipartisan backing that both President Barack Obama and Florida's Republican Gov. Rick Scott support it. Just last week, the Florida Board of Education approved a performance-funding system for state colleges, adding to its existing system for state universities.

"Caillebotte grew up in the destruction/construction zone of the 8th arrondissement in Paris, one of the new neighborhoods built during Napoleon III's massive urban renewal project of the 1850s and 1860s. His response to the modern city was quite personal and there is something in his aesthetic that speaks directly to 21st-century urban dwellers."

The Obama administration is asking state insurance regulators to take a closer look at rate requests before granting them. Under the Affordable Care Act, state agencies largely retain the right to regulate premiums in their states. In a letter sent to insurance commissioners in every state and DC the CEO of healthcare.gov said recent data suggest that rates should not go up as much as some insurers are proposing for plans sold to individuals on the health exchanges.  

Julia Sneden writes and rhymes about bathing suit shopping: It's an annual chore for most people, this business of buying a bathing suit. For me, it comes around every six months or so. With older women and men doing water aerobics and swimming laps, wouldn't you think the bathing suit manufacturers would twig to the idea that there’s a huge market out here? We buy suits more often than teenagers do, because we're harder on them

From fiscal years 2009 through 2014, DHS apprehended more than 200,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children, and the number of UAC apprehended in fiscal year 2014 (about 74,000) was more than four times larger than that for fiscal year 2011 (about 17,000). On the journey to the United States, many UAC have traveled thousands of miles under dangerous conditions. Developing and implementing processes to help ensure agents and officers record UAC care actions would provide greater assurance that DHS is meeting its care and custody requirements.

Elaine Soloway writes: I won't change my appearance or wardrobe to hook a guy. In my earlier single stage, I wore 3-inch heels, clothing I deemed alluring, and shopped at Victoria's Secret for the 'just in case' dates. Now, I refuse to dye my grey hair, get Botox or plastic surgery, or don anything that doesn't stretch.