Word: habitability
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Retired New York Times columnist Russell Baker recalls that in 1933, when at about the same age as I, he picked up the habit, cigarettes were referred to as "coffin nails." For as long as anyone can remember, smoking has been thought to be very harmful...
When I came out of the coma, a month after the accident, I looked at myself with amazement. I had lost 30 lbs. My smoking habit, a pack a day, had been broken. My skin bore graffiti--fine white scars from surgery--and the X rays showed an astonishing clutter of pins, screws, nails, spikes, plates and wires, as though the right side of my body were a reject costume design for RoboCop. My muscles had wasted away from inaction, and I could scarcely move without severe pain. I stank of sweat and urine. And I felt almost crazily happy...
...ways to get closer. David Stearman and his wife Bernice are lucky enough to have all six grandkids living within a 25-minute drive of their home in Chevy Chase, Md. Nonetheless, the Stearmans are always looking for ways to enhance their togetherness. So Bernice has made a habit of taking the kids to "M&Ms"--movies and malls. David does something a little more adventurous. For the past 10 summers, he has gone to camp with one--sometimes two--of his grandchildren. "The food is terrible, the beds are bad, there are no televisions or radios...
...million people a year will be dying of smoking-related illnesses in China 20 years from now. Based on projections developed from illness patterns in the West, the study's authors predict that 50 million of China's 320 million smokers will die prematurely as a result of their habit. Equally disturbing, the surveys found that most Chinese smokers were woefully uneducated about the health risks posed by smoking, with only a third aware of its links to cancer and less than 5 percent realizing that tobacco use can cause heart disease...
...many other more immediate threats to your health and well-being that smoking may seem like a relatively minor danger," says Dowell. It may be some time, though, before the Chinese follow the JAMA study's recommendations. After all, as any smoker or ex-smoker can attest, the habit is hardest to resist in times of stress ? and a China in the throes of an epic transition to capitalism looks set to be a very stressful place for a long time to come...