Sports and Fitness

Prosthetics for female veterans has been a national research priority for the Veterans Health Administration since 2017. VHA has funded 8 related studies, but officials said recruiting participants is a challenge. Although the female veteran population is growing, it remains small. Women make up just about 3% of the veteran amputee population. Female veterans received other "prosthetics" from VHA — like eyeglasses and wheelchairs — in addition to artificial limbs. Women made up 7.9% of those receiving prosthetic services in FY 2019, and accounted for about $889 million of the $15.4 billion cost of prosthetics VHA provided from FYs 2015-19. One study aims to develop a prosthetic ankle-foot system that allows female veterans to more easily change footwear with different heel heights. more »

One life-affirming pleasure awaiting visitors will be found in The Huntington Art Gallery’s Works on Paper Room. There, displayed against walls of saturated blue, is a resonant, even elegiac, visual narrative. The story that it tells of life and renewal is not on paper, but on 12 uniquely bordered, luminous, ceramic plates revealing in keenly observed detail “The Autobiography of a Garden,” a month-to-month evolution of a real-life garden in Providence, Rhode Island. The exhibition, on view through July 5, 2021, is the work of American painter and printmaker Andrew Raftery and is the product of his inventive, modern-day approach to the transfer of print images onto ceramic, a process dating back to the mid-18th century. Also on view at RISD is Beth Katelman's exhibit. And don't forget the Huntington's shop! more »

The more than thirty thousand baseball cards collected by Jefferson R. Burdick represent the most comprehensive collection outside of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The cards also illustrate the history of the game — from the dead-ball era at the turn of the nineteenth century to the golden age and modern era of the sport. Baseball cards were first used as advertising inserts by tobacco companies beginning in the late 1800s. Through Burdick's collection, one can chart the careers of many of the silver screen's most notorious stars as well as learn about the lesser-known personalities that populated early films.   more »

Nearly all search and rescue missions in the United States are handled by volunteer teams, who mostly pay for their own equipment and work under a patchwork of guidelines and government oversight that can vary widely by state. The pandemic has led some older and higher-risk members to stay home, while others who have lost work or changed jobs no longer have the money or flexibility to deploy. “We've been very taxed,” Cashin said. “When COVID came out, I really thought our rescues were going to drop through the floor. But we're actually having a record year at this point, with a diminished capacity to respond. It was like the floodgates opened. It's been rescue after rescue after rescue, and it's not stopped.” In response, lawmakers in several states are considering proposals ranging from providing state funding for programs and workers’ compensation insurance for volunteers to charging people for their rescues. more »