When I think of knitting, I think of my mom. She had a blue knitting basket where she would store her different-sized knitting needles and colorful balls of yarn. I never learned how to knit with needles, but my mother-in-law taught me how to knit using a loom. Although you wouldn’t call knitting a “trendy”…
Dr. Ada Anbar recently celebrated her first bat mitzvah at age 83. When her son Ran, a pediatrician living in La Jolla, CA, first suggested it last spring, the thought had never occurred to her, nor did she have any friends who had done so who could advise her. At the time she thought, “Why…
Pictured above: Dr. Stephen D. Van Hooser Private research at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, is about to achieve a turning point in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s. These diseases incrementally steal abilities most of us take for granted such as speech and motor skills. The university is poised…
Barbara Friedkin arrived at my home in a Subaru. As she stepped out of the car, her 5’3” frame was perched atop open-toed slides, and she wore a flowing tunic and pants set. Her blonde hair cascaded around her round cheeks that were raised by her smile. “This is The Mystic of Cave Creek,” I…
Pictured above: Joyce Tischler and her dog, Deja. When Joyce Tischler was a law student 40 years ago, animal law didn’t exist. Now the Animal Legal Defense Fund Joyce cofounded in 1979 has three offices on the West Coast and thousands of attorneys protecting animals’ rights. For Joyce, protecting animals is all about tikkun olam,…
Not only are Barbara Zemel and Jay Bycer fast friends – but they are also the formidable duo responsible in good part for the local success of Arizona Friends of Magen David Adom, (Israel’s Red Cross), the Jewish state’s emergency response, ambulance and blood center. The back story: Jay, along with his wife, Karen, volunteered…
Glaucoma is a condition that causes damage to your eye’s optic nerve and is one of the leading causes of blindness in the United States, affecting more than 3 million people. It can occur at any age but is more common in older adults. The most common form of glaucoma has few symptoms or warning…
Would-be pilots, ER doctors and combat soldiers possessing a personality trait called “dissociative absorption” are likely to suffer from sleep deprivation and will have a harder time returning to full alertness as opposed to those without it. A new study from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev also shows that even after an eight-hour night of…
Life is a series of collections. We collect experiences, memories, relationships – and stuff. Lots of stuff. As our shelves, drawers and closets fill with the tchotchkes and trinkets we so covet, we rarely stop to think about what they really mean and where they’ll end up when we’re gone. But our personal possessions represent…
By his own admission, Stu Turgel likes to talk – a lot. So what better place than his seat behind a mic in the downtown studios of Radio Phoenix, an internet-based music and talk radio station, inside Phoenix Center for the Arts? Stu’s weekly newsmagazine, “The Phoenix File,” allows him to do just that as…
