Word: nun
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...example, he stopped by the rambling brick convent in Mankato, Minnesota, which serves as the headquarters for one of the order's seven U.S. provinces. "You've got to be good friends before you ask somebody for their brain," he jokes as he arrives, giving an elderly nun a big grin and a hug. At certain times, Snowdon says, he feels as if he never left parochial school. One such moment occurred when a nun recently suggested that he ought to think about trimming his shoulder-length hair...
Snowdon launched the Nun Study in 1986 as a way to take a broad look at the physical and psychological aspects of aging. But in 1990 he decided to narrow the focus to Alzheimer's. That's when he approached the order's U.S. leaders with a sensitive question. Would the nuns be willing to do more than take psychological tests and give blood samples? he wondered. Would they be willing to donate their brains? Like a politician campaigning for votes, Snowdon traveled from one convent to the next, making his pitch. In Baltimore, Maryland, he remembers, Sister Mary...
...calling attention to the unhealthy synergy between Alzheimer's and stroke, the School Sisters of Notre Dame have performed an enormous service. But they're not yet finished with their work. Long-term epidemiological studies, like fine wines, improve with age, and thus new findings from the Nun Study can be expected to enrich medical knowledge for many years to come. Indeed, long after he and his colleagues retire, Snowdon imagines, nuns like Sister Mary will continue to enlighten Alzheimer's researchers. This, of course, is the point. "These women were teachers all their lives," says Snowdon, "and now they...
NIRMALA'S A NUN-PAREIL...
Raised a devout Roman Catholic in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, she left home at 22 to study in England, eventually becoming an interpreter for the Red Cross. At 30, she met and married a German doctor but left him, amicably she says, to become a Buddhist nun and pursue enlightenment in India. Her recognition as a spiritual leader came rather suddenly in 1982 when she tried to buy a copy of the Hindu sacred work the Bhagavad-Gita that she says she saw in a shop along the Ganges. The shopkeepers said there were none in stock; she insisted...