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Human Pathology
The investigation of disease in humans has, understandably, been one of the primary focal points in medicine for thousands of years. The image gallery presented in this section attempts to illustrate, through use of the brightfield microscope, many of the pathological conditions that are readily observed in stained human specimens. Each image was chosen for artistic merit, photographic quality, and content. Note that several of the images in this gallery might not depict every aspect of the pathological condition under which they are catalogued.
Adenomyosis generally affects scattered areas of the uterine wall, typically making the condition unsuitable for localized surgery. A complete hysterectomy is usually the treatment of choice, estimates indicating that the procedure is 80 percent effective in eliminating common symptoms of adenomyosis. Depending on the severity of the specific symptoms and the reproductive intentions of the patient, other treatments may be recommended.
Alveolar Cell Carcinoma
In the United States, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among both men and women. The popularity of smoking is usually considered accountable for the prevalence of the disease, since cigarettes have been linked to about 90 percent of lung cancer cases in men and 80 percent in women. A few specific types of lung cancer, however, such as alveolar cell carcinoma, appear to have no relationship to smoking.
Anthracosis is the term utilized to describe black lung disease before it has progressed to such an extent that symptoms of the disease are palpable. The condition most often develops gradually over the course of many years and is characterized by black spotting or marbling of the lungs. The dark pigmentation associated with anthracosis primarily is caused by excessive exposure to carbonaceous material, which may stem from soot, diesel exhaust, coal, or other sources of carbon-containing dusts.
Aortic Atherosclerosis (Older Lesion)
When severely affected by atherosclerosis, the flow of blood through the aorta can be hindered and oxygen deficiency (ischemia) or gangrene can develop. Atherosclerosis is also the primary underlying cause of heart attacks, strokes, and aortic aneurysms, which are blood-filled dilations of the vessel wall. The rupture of an aneurysm can be deadly due to the hemorrhaging it causes.
An astrocytoma is a primary tumor of the central nervous system that develops from the large, star-shaped glial cells known as astrocytes. Most frequently astrocytomas occur in the brain, especially in the frontal and temporal lobes of the cerebrum, but occasionally they appear along the spinal cord. No one knows what causes the tumors, which may affect anyone of any age but occur most often in middle-aged men.
Basal Cell Carcinoma
Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of cancer that occurs in humans. In the United States alone, an estimated 900,000 people develop basal cell carcinoma each year, and by most accounts, that number will continue to grow as the Earth's protective ozone layer becomes increasingly compromised. Individuals with fair skin that tends to burn rather than tan, blue or green eyes, and blonde hair are among those that are most likely to acquire the disease.
Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia
Many men with benign prostatic hyperplasia experience urinary problems related to the condition. As the prostate enlarges, the gland places increasing pressure on the urethra, often resulting in difficulty beginning or ending urination, an inability to completely empty the bladder, decreased urine flow, and frequent urination. In the most severe cases, complete blockage of the urethra occurs, which may lead to kidney damage.
Breast Adenocarcinoma
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, excluding nonmelanoma skin cancers. The vast majority of breast cancers originate in the glandular tissues of the breast and are, consequently, classified as adenocarcinomas. Both the lobular tissues, which produce milk, and ductal tissues, which are involved in the transfer of the milk to the nipple, are considered glandular tissues and, therefore, may give rise to adenocarcinomas.
Bronchiectasis is an abnormal, permanent dilation of the bronchial tubes in the lungs. The condition can result from a number of different causes. For example, obstructions, such as those posed by foreign objects (often accidentally ingested during childhood) or tumors, can prevent the elimination of fluid emissions from the bronchi, resulting in their expansion.
Bronchogenic Carcinoma
When bronchogenic carcinoma, or primary lung cancer, was first described in the mid-1850s, it was thought to be a relatively rare occurrence. Over the course of the twentieth century, however, the proportion of the population affected by bronchogenic carcinoma rose tremendously, and today the disease is the leading cause of cancer-related death among both men and women in the United States.
Young children and the elderly are particularly susceptible to bronchopneumonia, but anyone may contract the disease. Pneumococcal vaccinations are recommended for individuals in high-risk groups and provide up to 80 percent effectiveness in staving off pneumococcal pneumonia. Influenza vaccinations are also frequently of use in decreasing one's susceptibility to pneumonia, since the flu precedes pneumonia development in many cases.
Burr Cell Uremia
Uremia is a condition in which urea and other nitrogenous substances accumulate to an abnormally high level in the blood. Symptoms of uremia often initially include fatigue, loss of appetite, edema, excessive thirst, and decreased concentration, and progression of the condition may lead to a rapid pulse, anemia, diarrhea, convulsions, discoloration of the skin, coma, and even death.
Cavernous Hemangioma
Hemangiomas are benign vascular tumor-like growths that usually present themselves at birth or soon thereafter. The abnormal dense collections of blood vessels may occur in the muscles, internal organs, and mucous membranes, but are most familiar along the surface of the skin. Hemangiomas of the skin are usually classified into three basic groups: capillary hemangiomas, immature hemangiomas, and cavernous hemangiomas.
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
In the initial stages of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, patients are usually asymptomatic. Consequently, the disease is typically only discovered early if an individual undergoes a blood count as part of a regular medical examination or while under observation for another medical problem. An abnormally high number of white blood cells is the best early indicator that a patient may have a form of leukemia.
Chronic Pneumonia
The likelihood that an individual will contract pneumonia depends upon many different factors, as does the severity of the disease when it does occur. Risk of the disease is particularly elevated for the elderly and for very young children whose immune systems are still in an immature state. Similarly, anyone who has a compromised immune system due to other diseases, such as HIV or AIDS, or to certain medications are also more likely to develop pneumonia.
Colon Adenocarcinoma
Frequently colon adenocarcinoma is asymptomatic in its earliest stages. When symptoms do develop, they generally are manifested as disorders of digestion and waste eradication. Among the most common symptoms of the disease are diarrhea, constipation, pain in the abdomen, appearance of blood in the stool, and appetite loss.
Colon Carcinoma
Each year in the United States about 50,000 people die from colon cancer, making it one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in the country. In some other parts of the world, such as Asia and Africa, colon cancer is much less common, a fact often attributed to the Western diet, which tends too be high in fat and low in fiber. Statistics indicate that in countries whose inhabitants are increasingly eating like Americans colon cancer rates are rising.
Colon Villous Adenoma
Several subtypes of adenomas have been described, which chiefly are differentiated from one another by microscopic observation of the manner in which the cells of the growths are organized. Villous adenomas are usually sessile polyps that have an architecture predominantly characterized by the presence of finger- or frond-like projections. These growths are more likely than any other type of adenoma to become cancerous.
Coronary Atherosclerosis
Many individuals who have been diagnosed with coronary atherosclerosis take medications to help hinder further progression of the disease. The class of drugs known as statins, which effectively reduce elevated cholesterol levels, have been especially useful in the battle against the condition and other forms of heart disease.
Diabetes in Kidney Tissue
Today diabetes is counted among the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. In 2002, 6.3 percent of all Americans were reportedly diabetic, with more than a million new cases being diagnosed each year. Even more disturbing is the fact that a large percentage of the people believed to be diabetics are not aware they have the disease.
Diabetes Mellitus in Pancreatic Tissue
Diabetes mellitus is usually not considered a single disease, but rather a group of three different disorders that appear to have different causes though they result in similar symptoms. Type I insulin-dependent diabetes, formerly known as juvenile-onset diabetes, accounts for only 5 to 10 percent of all diabetics. The condition typically develops suddenly and often initially appears in people under the age of 30, though it may occur at any age.
Emphysema is characterized by a deterioration of the elasticity of the lungs, which results in collapse of the alveolar walls and degeneration of the pulmonary capillaries. Consequently, large pockets of air may fill the lungs, but cannot be readily exhaled because the damage present in the organs hinders them from effectively pushing the air out. Early signs of the disease are breathlessness during physical exertion and a mild, chronic cough.
Endometrial Adenocarcinoma
The endometrium is the lining of the uterus that periodically thickens and sheds during a woman's reproductive years. When menopause occurs, this cycle is ended and hormone changes ensue. Consequently, postmenopausal women are at greater risk for certain adverse health conditions, including endometrial neoplasms, which are the most common and most readily cured kind of uterine cancers.
Eosinophils are members of the granulocytic class of white blood cells that function primarily in fighting infections of parasites and in allergic reactions. The cells, which are so-named for the eosin-staining granules they contain, generally comprise one to three percent of the total white blood cell count in a healthy individual. Persons who exhibit an abnormally large number of eosinophils are said to have eosinophilia.
Esophageal Carcinoma
The esophagus is the portion of the digestive tract that links the throat to the stomach and is located between the trachea and the spine. The primary function of the muscular tube is to move food along its tract so that the digestive process may be completed in other portions of the body. Cancer of the esophagus can greatly hinder this task, often making swallowing difficult and painful.
A fibroadenoma is a common benign tumor of the breast found in an estimated 10 percent of all women. Approximately 10 to 15 percent of affected individuals have multiple fibroadenomas. The solid masses are most prevalent in young women between the ages of 15 and 30 and tend to grow larger in women that are pregnant.
Gastric Adenocarcinoma
Stomach cancer is unusual in that its incidence in the United States has declined considerably over the last hundred years, whereas many other malignancies have become more prevalent. The downward trend is primarily attributable to the significant reduction in the use of certain food preservation techniques, including salting, smoking, and pickling, since the invention of the refrigerator and its widespread dissemination in America.
Gastric Carcinoma
The staging of stomach cancer is complicated, but is generally based on how far the tumor has advanced through the gastric wall and how many lymph nodes have been affected. Treatment for the disease is largely based upon its progression as indicated by the staging process. If the cancer is localized, a partial gastrectomy, which involves the surgical removal of portions of the stomach, is generally the treatment of choice and may result in a permanent cure.
Granulocytic Leukemia (Acute)
Acute granulocytic leukemia is a common form of adult-onset leukemia, with more than an estimated 10,000 American men and women being diagnosed with the disease each year. The risk of developing acute granulocytic leukemia increases with age, and men are more susceptible to it than women. In most cases, the cause of the disease is never identified, but in some individuals acute granulocytic leukemia has been associated with exposure to radiation or certain chemicals, such as benzene.
Hashimoto's Disease
Hashimoto's disease is an autoimmune disorder first described in 1912 by the Japanese physician Hashimoto Hakaru. The disorder is centered in the thyroid gland, an endocrine gland located beneath the larynx in the throat that secretes a number of different hormones that are chiefly involved in metabolism and growth. Many individuals who have Hashimoto'zs disease do not display symptoms, though testing of their blood may indicate that the thyroid hormones in their system are imbalanced.
Hematogenous Pyelonephritis
Pyelonephritis is a common kidney disorder that occurs in both chronic and acute forms. The condition typically is the result of a bacterial infection and is characterized by inflammation of the kidney tissue. Most commonly, the infection is caused by fecal bacteria ascending upward through the urinary tract, but bacteria may also be introduced to the kidneys via the bloodstream, in which case it is referred to as hematogenous pyelonephritis.
Hemolytic Anemia
Red blood cells develop in the bone marrow and, in a typical healthy human, survive in the circulatory system for 100 to 120 days. The premature breakdown of red blood cells, an event that can occur due to a wide range of disorders and conditions, is known as hemolysis. When the bone marrow of an individual is unable to produce enough red blood cells to offset those that are precipitately lost, hemolytic anemia ensues.
Approximately half of all Americans experience hemorrhoids by the time they are 50 years old. A special variety of varicose vein, a hemorrhoid is an abnormally distended vein located either in the rectum or in the outer area surrounding the anal opening. When hemorrhoids occur internally, they often go unnoticed for long periods of time, although they may produce some bleeding.
The means of hepatitis transmission varies depending upon the virus responsible for the inflammation. The hepatitis viruses A, E, and F are predominantly spread via the fecal-oral route through food or water that has been contaminated. These viruses are primarily responsible for epidemics of hepatitis in many less-developed regions of the world where crowded conditions and inadequate sanitation are often problems.
Hepatocellular Carcinoma
In addition to certain hepatitis viruses, hepatocellular carcinoma is commonly linked to cirrhosis of the liver. Approximately 3 to 5 percent of the population with cirrhosis is diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma each year, and about 80 percent of all people with hepatocellular carcinoma are cirrhotic. The malignant tumors of the liver are also, in some cases, attributable to exposure to aflatoxins, a group of toxic compounds produced by various molds.
Hodgkin's Granuloma
Hodgkin's is a malignant disease of the lymphatic system that was characterized in 1832 by the English physician Thomas Hodgkin. The disease is differentiated from other forms of lymphoma by the presence of Reed-Sternberg cells in the areas affected by the cancer. Since the late 1990s, many members of the medical community have come to the conclusion that Reed-Sternberg cells are a malignant form of B lymphocyte, the type of cell that is normally involved in the production of antibodies.
Hyperplastic Arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis, often described as a thickening and hardening of the arteries, appears in various forms and can be related to a number of different causes. Hyperplastic arteriosclerosis is characterized by a pattern of thickening commonly likened to an onion skin, concentric laminations of smooth muscle cells and basement membranes being deposited one on top of the other in layers.
Iron Deficiency Anemia
Anemia is a condition characterized by a bodily insufficiency of red blood cells, hemoglobin, or a combination of the two. Many different types of anemia with a wide array of underlying causes have been identified, but the most common form of the disease worldwide is known as iron deficiency anemia. As suggested by its name, iron deficiency anemia is related to a paucity of the mineral iron, which the body requires to produce hemoglobin.
Keloid Scars
Scars are formed by the collagen produced by fibroblasts in the area of the injury. Initially scars may have a raised or bumpy appearance, but over time tend to diminish in size and flatten. Sometimes, however, fibroblasts do not cease to produce collagen at the proper time, and the resultant scar swells with the fibrous protein to unusual proportions. If this growth remains restricted to the original location of the wound then it is referred to as a hypertrophic scar, but if it extends past the boundaries of the injured area, then the overgrown scar is called a keloid.
Kidney Adenocarcinoma
Kidney adenocarcinoma, also known as renal cell carcinoma, is the most common form of kidney cancer in adults. Similar to most types of cancer, scientists do not yet know exactly what causes adenocarcinoma of the kidneys, though a number of risk factors have been identified. Smoking is one of the most notable of these factors, smokers being twice as likely as non-smokers to develop the disease.
Laryngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma
The vast majority of cancers that affect the larynx arise in the squamous cells of the epithelial lining. Only about 5 percent of laryngeal tumors develop in the glands beneath the epithelium or other areas of the larynx. Generally, squamous cell carcinomas of the larynx initiate from one of several different precancerous conditions, such as squamous intraepithelial neoplasia or dysplasia.
By the time that leiomyosarcoma is diagnosed, often the cancer has metastasized. Unlike other soft tissue sarcomas, this metastasis usually affects the liver and the peritoneum first, instead of the lungs. The treatment for leiomyosarcoma most commonly involves surgery, but radiation therapy and chemotherapy are also sometimes utilized though they are ineffective against certain types of the disease.
Lipomas are benign fatty tumors usually located in subcutaneous tissues, though they may also occur in other locations, such as the internal organs and the internal auditory canal. The masses are comprised primarily of mature adipocytes, which are generally surrounded by a fibrous capsule that makes them easily distinguishable from surrounding tissues. In such cases, the tumors have a doughy feel and can easily be moved around under the surface of the skin.
Liver Cirrhosis
Liver cirrhosis is an irreversible condition, but its progression can be slowed or even halted with proper treatment. Treatment of cirrhosis is generally targeted at the primary cause underlying the disease. When related to alcohol consumption, simply abstaining from alcoholic beverages and other drugs can alleviate many symptoms and hinder the advancement of the disease.
Lobar Pneumonia
When pneumonia is restricted to a single lobe of the lung or to a portion of a lobe, it is referred to as lobar pneumonia. Pneumonia that has more extensively spread through the lungs is known as bronchopneumonia. The Gram-positive bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (also called pneumococcus) is responsible for most cases of lobar pneumonia. Other leading causes of the disease include infection with Mycoplasma, Legionella, or other Gram-negative organisms.
Lung Abscess
An abscess of the lung is a cavity filled with pus encircled by inflamed tissue that is typically caused by infection. Lung abscesses can be caused by a variety of bacteria and other microorganisms, many of which inhabit the mouth and throat and can be inhaled into the lungs. In most individuals, such bacteria are inhibited in their migration toward the lungs by the body's natural defenses, such as coughing and the gag reflex.
Lung Adenocarcinoma
Adenocarcinoma is usually a slow-growing cancer, but can be difficult to detect because the disease typically involves the periphery of the lung, resulting in fewer early symptoms than cancers that develop centrally, near the airways. When signs of the disease do occur, they may include painful breathing, shortness of breath, wheezing, and a persistent cough.
Lung Epidermoid Carcinoma
Epidermoid lung tumors characteristically are comprised of cells that are flat and scale-like. Often they do not metastasize as quickly as other lung cancers, which frequently make them easier to treat if caught early. When metastases do occur, they typically invade the tissues of the liver, brain, small intestines, adrenal glands, and bones.
Lymph Node Metastatic Carcinoma
When cancer has spread to regional lymph nodes, it is often referred to as nodal involvement or regional disease. If cancer cells become lodged in distant lymph nodes or other remote areas of the body, however, the condition is usually termed metastasis or metastatic disease. Frequently metastasis occurs downstream from the site of the primary tumor, as liberated cancer cells move along the path normally taken by lymph in the lymphatic system or blood in the circulatory system.
Lymphocytic Leukemia (Acute)
As suggested by its name, a lymphocytic leukemia is one that affects lymphocytes, which in a healthy individual comprise about 20 to 30 percent of the total white blood cell count. Normally, lymphocytes and other mature white blood cells form from stem cells in the bone marrow. The source cells of lymphocytes, however, which are known as lymphoblasts, multiply uncontrollably in the bone marrow of patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia, interfering with the production of normal blood cells.
Malignant Melanoma
Melanoma is a form of skin cancer that stems from melanocytes, the pigment-producing cells found in the basal layer of the epidermis. The most virulent of the skin cancers, more than 7,000 Americans die each year from melanoma, accounting for the vast majority of all skin cancer deaths. Nearly 90,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the United States, and according to many reports that number is rising steadily.
Malignant Schwannoma
Malignant schwannomas are rare and are classified among the soft tissue sarcomas, accounting for about ten percent of all such tumors diagnosed. They are frequently alternatively referred to as neurofibrosarcomas or malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. Individuals between 20 and 50 years of age are more likely to develop malignant schwannomas than children or the elderly, but the tumors can appear at any age.
The meninges are the three membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. A meningioma is a type of frequently benign tumor that develops in the outermost of these membranes, the dura mater. The cells of origin of meningiomas are the arachnoid cap cells that line the inner dura mater, and therefore, the tumors can develop anywhere these cells are found.
Meningitis (Acute)
The most dangerous varieties of meningitis are of bacterial origin, some being capable of causing death within only a few hours of the onset of symptoms. The first sign of the disease is often vomiting, which is usually followed by an excruciatingly intense headache that develops from escalated cerebrospinal fluid pressure. Other symptoms may include confusion, drowsiness, fever, sensitivity to light, and a skin rash.
Metastatic Carcinoma in Liver Tissue
Typically metastases in the liver are not discovered due to their symptoms, but rather from routine testing associated with a patient's primary tumor. Occasionally, however, metastasis-related symptoms are observed before there is any other indication of cancer. Nevertheless, simple analysis of tumor cells can establish that liver growths are secondary rather than primary since such tumors are composed of abnormal cells from a non-hepatic tissue.
Metastatic Carcinoma in Lung Tissue
Approximately 30 percent of all metastatic cancers involve one or more secondary tumors in the lungs. In fact, cancer in the lungs is more often metastatic disease rather than a primary neoplasm. Some of the most common cancers that lead to secondary pulmonary tumors are breast, stomach, prostate, thyroid, colorectal, and kidney cancers, testicular teratomas, bone sarcomas, choriocarcinomas, and melanomas.
Metastatic Melanoma in Lung Tissue
Once melanoma has metastasized the cancer is associated with a very poor prognosis. The outlook is worst for those who have several different organs with metastases, while it is somewhat better for patients with metastatic cancer restricted to a single site, even when this site is affected by multiple tumors.
Often known simply as mono or the kissing disease, mononucleosis is a common viral disease that usually occurs in individuals between the ages of 15 and 35. The infection generally spreads via saliva exchange and is thought to be caused by the Epstein-Barr virus, a member of the herpesvirus family. Symptoms of mononucleosis are varied, but frequently include fever, fatigue, and sore throat.
Myelomonocytic Leukemia (Acute)
Many of the early symptoms of acute myelomonocytic leukemia and other types of acute myelogenous leukemia are nonspecific, often consisting of fever, weakness, unexplained weight loss, fatigue, and aching bones and joints. Other indications of disease may include repeated infections, slow wound healing, frequent and easily produced bruising and bleeding, and spotting of the skin.
Myocardial Infarction (Acute)
Acute myocardial infarction is the medical term for the event commonly referred to as a heart attack. One of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in America and most other industrialized nations, myocardial infarction involves death to tissues of the heart due to a blockage-related inability of sufficient oxygen to reach the organ. Though symptoms of a heart attack vary, they frequently include chest pain or pressure that may radiate into the jaw, shoulders, arms, or back, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, lightheadedness, sweating, and anxiety.
Myocardial Infarction (Old)
Myocardial infarction was initially described in the early 1900s by American physician James Brian Herrick. The condition was initially called coronary thrombosis due to its primary cause, but eventually myocardial infarction became the preferential term due to the fact that death to the heart muscle is directly responsible for the pain and other signs of a heart attack, rather than the arterial blockage that usually precedes it.
Neurilemmomas are benign tumors that originate in the Schwann cells that comprise nerve sheaths. Accordingly, the neoplasms are sometimes alternatively referred to as benign schwannomas. The cause of neurilemmoma growth is unknown, but the tumors are occasionally associated with von Recklinghausen disease. Neurilemmomas are typically encapsulated and well defined.
Though bacterial infection is the most common cause of true cases of neutrophilia and exercise and intense emotions are the most familiar origins of the transient form of the condition, neutrophilia can also be traced to a number of other causes. For instance, inflammations unrelated to infectious agents, such as gout, rheumatic fever, and glomerulonephritis, can often lead to neutrophilia, as can burns, injuries, and surgical operations.
Oat Cell Carcinoma
Oat cell carcinoma accounts for approximately 15 to 20 percent of all lung cancer diagnoses. Most oat cell tumors initially form in a central location in the lungs, often in the major bronchial tubes. This origin of formation is consistent with the fact that smoking is well established as the primary contributing factor in the onset of oat cell carcinoma.
Occlusive Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is the thickening and hardening of the arteries associated with deposits, or plaques, building up along the inner lining of the vessels. Plaques may contain a variety of materials, including cholesterol, fatty substances, calcium, and fibrin. As plaques increase in thickness, they progressively occlude the flow of blood through the affected artery. Blood clots that form over top of the plaques can cause further obstruction.
Osteogenic Sarcoma
Similar to many types of cancer, the symptoms of osteogenic sarcoma vary and are often dependent on tumor location and the extent of the disease. The malignant growths most commonly occur in the large bones of the arms and legs, thus, pain and swelling in these areas may be observed. The knee is another frequent place osteogenic sarcomas are found, and tumors in this area are often accompanied by joint pain and limited movement.
The red blood cells of certain animals, such as reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds, camels, llamas, and alpacas, are naturally oval in shape, but in other species ovalocytosis is an abnormal condition related to hereditary or acquired disease. In the latter cases, ovalocytosis often causes mild hemolytic anemia, which may or may not requite treatment. The condition can also develop into a more serious problem, and severe cases of anemia may necessitate the removal of the spleen or blood transfusions.
Ovarian Adenocarcinoma
Ovarian cancer is a relatively rare disease, but is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death among American women. A number of factors contribute to the unusually large number of fatalities associated with the disease. Most notably, the symptoms of ovarian cancer are generally vague and are frequently attributed to other conditions, delaying the diagnosis of the disease.
Ovarian Endometriosis
When endometrial tissue is found in areas of the body outside of the uterus the condition is known as endometriosis. The locations in which endometriosis most commonly occurs include various components of the pelvic cavity, such as the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and the urinary bladder. In very rare instances, endometriosis may develop in the lungs, brain, or other organs significantly removed from the uterus.
Peptic Ulcer
The most characteristic symptom of a peptic ulcer is pain, typically in the mid-upper region of the abdomen. This pain often takes the form of an aching, burning, or gnawing feeling and tends to vary in its intensity depending on the digestive state. Gastric ulcers generally cause the greatest pain soon after a meal is consumed, whereas duodenal ulcers are generally considered to be most painful between meals, when the stomach is empty.
Pernicious Anemia
Anemia is a condition of the blood characterized by a deficiency of erythrocytes (also known as red blood cells), hemoglobin, or total volume. Nearly 100 different types of anemia with a wide array of underlying causes and symptoms have been described. Pernicious anemia is a form of the disease that is associated with an inability of the body to absorb vitamin B12.
Plasmodium vivax Infection
Individuals with malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax rarely die, unlike individuals infected with P. falciparum, but are much more likely to endure repeated bouts of the disease. The prolonged problems associated with P. vivax are generally believed to involve a persistent form of the parasite (hypnozoite) that inhabits the liver and can lead to repeated relapses.
Polycythemia is a condition characterized by an abnormal proliferation of erythrocytes in the blood. This increased presence of erythrocytes thickens the blood and slows its flow through the body, as well as elevates the risk of blood clot formation. Consequently, polycythemia can sometimes culminate in pulmonary embolism, stroke, heart attack, or other thrombosis-related events.
Prostate Carcinoma
Prostate carcinoma is second only to skin cancer as the most prevalent cancer among men in the United States. This type of tumor is most commonly discovered in men over the age of 55 and has a higher incidence among African Americans than Caucasians. In other parts of the world, prostate cancer rates vary greatly. Asian countries, such as China and Japan, report some of the lowest incidences of the disease.
Pulmonary Edema
Since cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of pulmonary edema, following steps that reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems also decreases one's risk of fluid accumulation in the lungs. One of the most important of these steps is controlling blood pressure. In the United States, around 50 million people are affected by high blood pressure, which is currently defined as having a resting blood pressure consistently 140/90 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) or higher.
Ruptured Ectopic Pregnancy
In a normal pregnancy, fertilization takes place in the uterine tube and then the fertilized egg travels along the tube to the main cavity of the uterus, where it is implanted in the uterine lining. In an ectopic pregnancy, the ovum never completes the journey to the uterine cavity. Instead, implantation occurs in the uterine tubes, abdomen, or even, in rare instances, in the ovarian follicle if fertilization takes place before the egg is released.
Sarcoidosis is a disease that most commonly affects the lungs and is characterized by the inflammation of tissues resulting in the formation of the small aggregations of cells known as granulomas. In addition to its most customary pulmonary form, sarcoidosis may affect the skin, eyes, lymph nodes, muscles, liver, and most any other tissue in the body.
Scar Tissue
Scars can never be completely eradicated, but a number of techniques have been developed that can greatly improve their appearance. For many scars, dermabrasion, which involves the use of an electrical machine to remove the outer layers of the skin to provide a more even contour, and laser resurfacing, in which high-energy laser light is used to eliminate damaged tissue, can be very beneficial.
Sickle Cell Anemia
Normally, mature erythrocytes have a rounded, biconcave shape that is flexible enough for the small cells to squeeze through even the smallest of blood vessels. In individuals with sickle cell anemia, however, many red blood cells assume a rigid sickle-like shape that can hinder their passage through diminutive capillaries, resulting in oxygen deficiency to certain tissues as blockages form.
Silicosis is a disease of the lungs caused by excessive or chronic exposure to silica dust. Silica is the chief mineral component of sand and is found in many varieties of rock and in mineral ores. Thus, individuals employed in certain occupations, such as sandblasting, mining, grinding, and drilling, are at increased risk for developing the disease.
Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Squamous cell carcinoma is a type of cancer that develops in epithelial tissues. It may occur along the surfaces of a number of different organs, but is most familiar as a disease of the skin. In fact, squamous cell carcinoma accounts for about 20 percent of all non-melanoma skin cancers and is most often attributed to chronic exposure to the ultraviolet radiation of the sun.
Squamous Cell Papilloma
Papillomas are typically benign growths of the epithelium caused by a human papilloma virus (HPV). When found on the skin, papillomas are more commonly referred to as warts or corns. The growths arise from a single infected cell and characteristically exhibit small fingerlike projections. Papillomas are usually not painful and those located on mucus membranes, especially along the genital tract, may go unnoticed for long periods of time.
Suppurative Appendicitis (Acute)
Appendicitis is an inflammation of the appendix, a widely familiar condition that afflicts approximately 7 percent of the American population at some point in their lives. In parts of the world where dietary fiber is consumed in significantly greater amounts, incidence of appendicitis is lower. The condition is most common in individuals that are between 10 and 30 years of age, but can occur in all age groups.
Most modern tattoos are produced with an electrically powered machine that rapidly moves a needle up and down so that the insoluble micrometer-sized particles of ink it contains are injected into the skin quickly and at an even depth, generally one-eighth inch past the skin's surface. The original electric tattooing machine was developed in the late nineteenth century and was largely based on an engraving apparatus invented by Thomas Edison.
Testicular Seminoma
Testicular cancer is one of the most prevalent types of cancer that occurs in men from ages 15 to 34. Approximately 95 percent of testicular tumors stem from germ cells. Seminomas, which are widely considered to develop from the germinal epithelium of the seminiferous tubules, account for approximately half of all germ cell tumors.
Thalassemia Minor
Thalassemia minor is the least serious of the forms of beta thalassemia. In fact, the condition is often asymptomatic, though patients with the disease produce red blood cells that are smaller than normal and are, therefore, capable of carrying less oxygen than typical red blood cells. Thalassemia minor is sometimes accompanied by mild anemia and on rare occasions can lead to minor swelling of the spleen.
Third-Degree Burns
Third-degree burns are typically considered those that involve the destruction of the entire thickness of the skin, penetrating the epidermis and dermis as well as the structures located within these layers, including the blood vessels, hair follicles, sweat glands, and sebaceous glands. Since pain receptors are also destroyed by third-degree burns, this type of injury is often initially less painful than a first- or second-degree burn, and may simply seem numb to the burn victim.
Ocular injury and other serious effects of toxoplasmosis are much more likely to occur in individuals with weakened immune systems. In AIDS patients, for instance, a form of encephalitis may develop following infection with Toxoplasma gondii. Symptoms of toxoplasmic encephalitis include headache, fever, psychosis, and impaired vision, speech, movement, and thought capacity.
Tuberculosis was the primary cause of death among Westerners of all ages during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when industrialization and urbanization surged, and continues to be a primary contributor to mortality in some parts of the world in modern times. In fact, approximately 3 million people die each year from the disease, and in 1993, the World Health Organization declared tuberculosis a global health emergency.
Uterine Leiomyoma
Uterine leiomyomas are very common, causing symptoms in nearly a quarter of all women of reproductive age. It is widely believed that a much larger proportion of the female population has uterine leiomyomas, but many of them are unaware of the benign tumors because they are asymptomatic.
Ulcerative Colitis
The cause of ulcerative colitis has not yet been identified, though many researchers consider it an autoimmune disorder. According to this view, the immune system is in a chronically active state although no bacteria, viruses, or other invaders are present in the body, resulting in the continuous inflammation characteristic of ulcerative colitis.
Uterine Sarcoma
Approximately 40,000 new cases of uterine cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year. The overwhelming majority of these cases are endometrial cancers, malignancies that originate in the endometrial lining of the uterus. As few as 2 to 4 percent of cancers of the uterus develop in the connective tissues of the organ, in which case they are termed sarcomas.
Viral Pneumonia
Viral pneumonias are believed to account for nearly half of all pneumonia cases and are usually considered less severe than bacterial varieties. They are most widespread during the winter months and sometimes begin as a common cold that progressively weakens and inflames the lungs. The viruses that can lead to pneumonia include respiratory syncytial, influenza, herpes simplex, and parainfluenza viruses, among others.


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Valentine's Day is one of the busiest days of the year for those who work in restaurants. It's also a day that many in the industry love to hate.
Second only to Mother's Day, Valentine's Day is the most popular day of the year to dine out, according to the National Restaurant Association. For couples, it can be a long-awaited night out on the town. But for servers and others in the industry who wait on them, it can be a night of dread, where expectations are high, the volume of customers relentless, and the tips often underwhelming.
"We kind of refer to it jokingly as 'rookie night.' It's a night where everyone wants to come out and dine," says Kip Mullin, general manager of Circa 1918 in Newport News, Va. Many of those customers, however, don't normally dine out at other times of the year.
"It's a somewhat different vibe on Valentine's Day than other nights," Mullin says. "Because we do about two-and-a-half to three times the business of a regular night. It's a much more expensive menu than other nights."
"It's a lot like herding cats" trying to confirm everybody's reservation, he says.
While Valentine's business can be solid for restaurants, it can be a different type of busy. Dining rooms are packed full of couples, leaving little room for larger parties that can garner servers bigger tips.
"I call it deuce factory, because it's two by two by two by two and it's very, very boring," says Jackie Roberts, owner of The Pink Door in Seattle.
She says the hype of Valentine's Day turns up the pressure on servers to make a guest's evening perfect. "Everyone's taking the holiday way too seriously. They want to perform way too well and there's not as much spontaneity as we usually have on a regular night."
There are surprises for the servers, sometimes.
"I've definitely seen tables that are clearly on a date," says executive chef Brian Riggenbach of The Mockingbird in Nashville. "And one of the people will leave their [phone] number for the server, which might tell you how that date's going."
Less pleasant surprises can be common, too.
"We had once where one of the guests drank too much and went and threw up all over the bathroom and then left with their date to hopefully not, you know, get too intimate," says Lara Valente, general manager of Tilia in Minneapolis.
Riggenbach has a philosophy for dealing with difficult customers. "I think my biggest takeaway ... if I have a very difficult guest was, I only have to spend the next hour and a half with you, and you have to spend the rest of your life with you."
If it's any consolation for restaurant staff, there can also be unpleasant surprises in store for customers.
"This guy came in early and he was really excited and he was all dressed up in a suit and he had flowers and he was going to propose to his fiancée. And when she showed up, she had a notebook and it was a list of everything that was wrong with him. And she sat there for an hour and read it to him."
This Friday evening, Valente's approach to get through the craziness is going to be all business: "It's a hustling night, put on your running shoes. Try to look nice and let's go go go!"
But even for the most harried server, the overarching rule comes from Mullin: "I just say to myself, 'Hey we're not curing cancer here. All we're doing is slinging food.' "
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

subset: commoncrawl


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The left-out and left-behind economy
The plague of unemployment that took hold during the Great Recession isn't going away, causing a jobs crisis that the U.S. hasn't experienced since the 1930s depression era. But Corporate America doesn't mind at all. In the first article of a two-part series,
looks at the facts about the crisis and the stories behind the statistics--with additional reporting by Gary Lapon, Leela Yellesetty and Christine Darosa.IS THERE any way out? That's the question that starts to haunt people like Carol.
Carol (not her real name) has been out of work for more than a year now, and it's a struggle for her and her husband to make ends meet--where they live in the Pacific Northwest, the cost of living is nearly 25 percent higher than the national average.
She had a good job before: office manager of the local branch of a multinational business. But the business went bust when the crisis hit. Working for a subcontractor, Carol helped oversee the dissolution of her office--and eventually, she was out of a job herself.
That was over a year ago, and it's been one long trek through the jobs desert ever since. Carol has applied for countless positions. She took the advice of the "experts" and attended some retraining classes at the local community college. But as a woman in her late 40s with a lot of work experience, Carol isn't the kind of prospective employee most companies are looking for--when they're hiring at all. Her age and experience would mean higher pay. Why hire Carol when they can get a broke 20- or 30-something to do the job for less?
The stress of long-term joblessness is overwhelming, and it's taken its toll on Carol. She suffered a nervous breakdown, and has been in and out of the hospital for the past month, on and off different medications. She's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which the doctors claim she's had all along--but her friends say they didn't see signs of that until unemployment struck.
Is there any relief on the horizon? Carol's husband is still working, but the bills are piling up. The couple declared bankruptcy and fear they will lose their house. They were paying $600 a month for health insurance, but had to downgrade to a $300-a-month plan--which will likely mean huge deductibles for Carol's recent hospitalizations.
And Carol says her unemployment benefits run out next month.
Carol isn't alone, of course. She's one of the 6.2 million people who the federal government classifies as long-term unemployed--out of a job for six months or longer. They account for 44.4 percent of the people officially counted as unemployed by the government. That's barely any change at all from the record level last year: 45.2 percent in May 2010.
The Great Recession is alive and well for anyone with the misfortune of being unemployed. SocialistWorker.org looks at the facts about the jobs crisis and the stories behind the statistics.Is capitalism working?
Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, follows these statistics every day, and her description of the situation people like Carol face is concise: "An absolute disaster. It's just a nightmare as far as job-seeking goes."
You might hear political leaders express their concern about this "absolute disaster." But as far as doing something about it, Washington is marching in the opposite direction. The mantra among Republicans and Democrats alike is cutting the deficit, not cutting the unemployment rate.
Shierholz says she's "stunned" by that. "There's just a massive disconnect," she says, "between where Washington is and what we need to do to get back to economic health in this country."
ACCORDING TO official measures, the Great Recession ended more than two years ago. But the total number of payroll jobs in the U.S. today is 6.8 million lower than the pre-crisis peak, according to the federal government's statistics. Not only that, but keeping up with the growth in the working-age population since that peak would have required an additional 4.3 million jobs.
That means the U.S. is short 11.1 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007.
So how many jobs did the "recovering" U.S. economy create in July? The Labor Department says 117,000--barely enough to keep up with one month's growth in population, much less make a dent in the 11 million. Analysts predict the August jobs statistics will be no better--and probably a little worse--when they're announced on September 2.
The official unemployment rate is still stuck above 9 percent. That's down from a high point of 10.2 percent a little less than two years ago. But with job creation barely outpacing population growth, the reason for the fall isn't mainly that the unemployed are finding work. The other factor: A lot of people are giving up on employment altogether.
In addition to the 13.9 million counted as unemployed, the Labor Department classifies 2.8 million people as "marginally attached" to the labor force--meaning they wanted to work and tried to find a job sometime in the past year, but didn't look in the four weeks before the most recent survey.
There are even more "discouraged workers" out there than meets that definition--millions more, according to various estimates--but even so, by the EPI's calculation, if just the "marginally attached" were included, the official unemployment rate would be 10.7 percent, not 9.1 percent.
Then there are the "underemployed"--people who would like to be working full-time, but have been forced to take part-time jobs. That applied to 8.4 million people in July, according to the government.
The U.S. government's broadest indicator of unemployment or underemployment was over 16 percent through the summer--about one in every six people considered to be part of the labor force, or more than 25 million people.
And even that indicator can be deceptive, according to Shierholz. The Labor Department's statistics capture a snapshot of joblessness for each four-week period, but miss "a lot of people who might not be unemployed now, but were unemployed last month, and could become unemployed next month," she says. "If you count the people who are unemployed at some point over the year, it's much higher than that. And if you include people who have had a family member affected by unemployment, it really starts to balloon."
What does it add up to? Shierholz says that survey data from the liberal Democracy Corps political strategy firm shows that over 40 percent of people in the U.S. have been out of work themselves, or had a family member who has been.
There's a whole industry devoted to helping people without work find jobs, dispensing advice on everything from what to wear to who to schmooze. But what guidance can it offer about the most basic problem facing the unemployed today--that there's just nothing out there?
Kate graduated in 2009 from a liberal arts college in upstate New York. "I applied to around 25 or 30 jobs in a four-week period and didn't even get one interview," she says. "The general response I received was that they weren't asking me for an interview because they found candidates who had more years of work experience--essentially saying that they weren't going to take someone right out of school."
Millions of the jobless have the same experience of searching endlessly. And no wonder--according to the Labor Department, there are 4.5 unemployed for every job opening in the U.S. economy overall. The ratio has been above 4-to-1 for more than two-and-a-half years. By comparison, the highest ratio of job seekers to jobs in the early 2000s recession was 2.8-to-1.
That's why people like Carol keep looking and looking for work--and finding nothing. In fact, the government's statistics show that layoff announcements have slowed to the pre-recession pace. So if you do have a job now, you're no more likely to lose it than you were before the recession--although all bets are off if the economy slows down any further.
But that's "small solace to unemployed folks," Shierholz points out. "What those folks need is for hiring and job openings to really pick up."
NOT EVERYONE thinks folks like Carol have it so bad, though.
Tom Corbett, the Republican governor of Pennsylvania, will tell you that the unemployed "don't want to come back to work while they still have unemployment," as he put it last year. Arizona's Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, declared that "continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work."
Too bad Kyl hasn't had to look for a job lately--or he'd learn the hard way that the biggest "disincentive" for the unemployed is that there are four or five more of them than jobs.
And there's certainly not much "incentive" to the meager benefits the jobless receive through the unemployment insurance program. As anyone who ever had to file for unemployment knows, the weekly check is a fraction of the wages from a full-time job. The maximum benefit varies from state to state, but according to federal statistics from a year ago, the average person on unemployment collected $295 a week--while the average weekly salary for the same time period was $865.
For Shane, that wage gap was the least of it. When he lived in Cincinnati, he was a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 212, working as an electrician until he was laid off in September 2009--as the jobs crisis was peaking. "While I was able to receive unemployment benefits, the income was 60 percent of what my take-home pay was previously," he says.
But replacing the benefits from a union job was a much bigger challenge. "I have a special needs child whose medical bills, with union health insurance, averaged $1,500 per month," Shane says. "The most difficult part of being laid off was self-paying for insurance coverage. Not only was this $600 per month, but after 10 months, the insurance company dropped us. A family COBRA plan was $810 per month, and that was minimal coverage at best."
Nancy faced the same dilemma. She's from South Carolina and has been without a job for over two years. She describes getting letters offering insurance under the federal government's COBRA guidelines that allow laid-off workers to keep health care coverage--but at an extremely high cost. "You're either forced into more debt to pay for it, or you avoid it altogether," she says. "Both times I lost my clinical counseling jobs, I couldn't afford COBRA, and therefore was left without any coverage."
On top of this, there's the bureaucracy that the jobless have to negotiate--whether it's keeping health insurance under COBRA, or just qualifying for unemployment--which is a job all by itself.
Shane says the red tape adds insult to injury. "After each tier of state and federal extensions of benefits, you have to reopen your claim," he says. "But there's a waiting period, typically two weeks long. During this period, you have no income, and when your claim finally kicks back in, you only receive payment for one week. After getting only 60 percent of your pay, then missing four or five weeks of pay per year, it's a struggle to pay anything."
Want to bet whether Tom Corbett or Jon Kyl misses any paychecks?
The real "disincentive" is against the jobless applying for unemployment at all--or, for those who do qualify, staying in the program. Rather than a form of "insurance," as the name suggests, unemployment benefits are one more cause for anxiety in a life filled with worries about what will come next.
Nancy says it's hard to even think about doing something nice with friends or for herself since she's been out of a job. "For most folks, the income is already spent when it comes in," she says. "So even if you do get a little extra, you feel guilty about spending it."
Of course, as Nancy points out, the same could be said about millions and millions of other people--the ones who have jobs in today's left-out and left-behind economy.


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The Wall Street Journal isn't publishing a print version today, but my Friday drama column appears as usual online. Today I report on the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival's production of Othello. Here's an excerpt.
* * *
"Othello" is about many things, but one of them is (very obviously) race. You'd think, then, that Shakespeare's harrowing tale of the jealous Moor and his innocent white wife would bring out the worst in postmodern stage directors, many of whom are reflexively predisposed to hammer any such hot button deep into the ground. And you'd be wrong, at least in my experience: None of the five "Othellos" that I've reviewed in this space since 2005 was explicitly political in its approach. Neither is Christopher V. Edwards' new Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production, a hard-nosed, hard-hitting modern-dress version that goes straight to the point—jealousy—and stays there….
The acting is naturalistic, the violence blunt and believable, and it isn't hard to conjure up convincing backstories for the main characters. Mr. Lowe's Othello could easily be a physically slight ghetto kid who joined the Army to escape the street and made himself over into a straight-arrow soldier. As for Mr. Rhoads' regular-guy Iago, he's an equally familiar type, a gray-at-the-temples wheelhorse who got passed over for promotion and now finds himself taking orders from a hotshot with a pretty young wife (Susannah Millonzi). He's not oily, not sinister, not oozing with snarly malevolence: All he wants is what he thinks he's got coming to him, and he'll do whatever he has to do to get it. Such everyday conflicts are the stuff of which everyday murders are made.
Mr. Rhoads dominates the scenes that he shares with Mr. Lowe, and that's as it should be. This is, after all, a staging in which Othello really is the "credulous fool" that Iago takes him to be, a basically good guy who never knew what hit him until it was too late. But it's Ms. Millonzi who brings home the prize. She appeared three summers ago in a Shakespeare & Company production of "Romeo and Juliet" in which she played Juliet as a sullen woman-child ablaze with the fires of love. She hews to a similar line here, turning Desdemona into a fully sexual being who is hopelessly smitten with her handsome husband—which makes his dizzying descent into madness all the more horrifying…
* * *
Read the whole thing here.


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Maverik Showtime Lacrosse Announces "Inaugural Girls National Recruiting Spotlight" in 2013
NEW YORK – September 27, 2012 – Maverik Showtime Lacrosse is proud to announce the launch of the inaugural invitation-only "Girls National Recruiting Spotlight" on June 24-27th, 2013 at Western Connecticut State University, in Danbury (Fairfield County), CT. Following the same format as the nationally recognized boys Showtime event, rising sophomore (Class of 2016) and junior (Class of 2015) girls lacrosse players will have the opportunity to showcase their individual skills in front of some of the top Divison I, II and III coaches in the country. To access more information on the Maverik Showtime Lacrosse – Inaugural Girls National Recruiting Spotlight, please visit www.showtimelax.com
"Our goal is to provide girls with a unique platform to showcase their skill alongside and in front of some of the top players and college coaches in the country," said Aly Josephs, a three-time National Champion at Northwestern University and women's product line manager at Maverik Lacrosse. "We are confident that the Girls Showtime event will quickly become the top girls recruiting showcases, as it has for the men's."
Over the last five years the boys Maverik Showtime Lacrosse – "National Recruiting Spotlight" event at Western Connecticut State University has quickly become the nation's premier college recruiting showcase events with 95 percent of the top college programs in attendance (49 of the top 50 programs with represented in 2012).
Unlike other camps and events, Maverik Showtime Lacrosse – "Girls National Recruiting Spotlight" is a game-only format. Players will have the opportunity to be instructed and individually assessed by coaches from top Division I, II and III programs. Showtime Lacrosse is also committed to helping participants become the best student-athletes they can be. In 2012, the Boys Showtime Lacrosse event added a new component to the experience by bringing in guest speakers to talk about strength and conditioning, mental preparation, and lacrosse specific training to help players elevate their game to the highest level.
The Maverik Showtime Lacrosse -- "National Recruiting Spotlight" is the brain child of ESPN color commentator Paul Carcaterra, Joe Ceglia and Mike Springer who all achieved All-American and National Championship careers at Syracuse University. Paul, Joe, and Michael have teamed up with Aly Josephs, an All-American and three-time National Champion at Northwestern University, to create this premier recruiting event. All four of Showtime's directors have stayed immersed in the game of lacrosse as coaches at the high school and collegiate rants, nationally recognized camp directors, broadcasters, and professionallacrosse players.


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Former American Ambassador in Putin's Russia
From Cold War to Hot Peace
Michael McFaul's major interests are American Foreign policy, great power relations, and the relationship between democracy and development.
McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He was also the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University from June to August of 2015. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller, "From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia." Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations between China, Russia, and the United States, and the relationship between democracy and development.
Professor McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.


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Disclaimer added 2014-10-03: I have not updated Tweet This since 2011-07-05 and lost interest in maintaining it. It has outstanding bugs and probably doesn't even work work properly anymore due to changes to the Twitter API.
Download Tweet This 1.8.3 [0.8MB .zip]
Popular Twitter plugin inserts "Tweet This" links so your readers can share posts with one click. Can automatically tweet new posts via OAuth. Allows you to publish and schedule tweets from a new "Write Tweet" page. Supports 10 URL shorteners including Bit.ly, Su.pr, and TinyURL. Includes options for 20 social networks including Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace. Includes the Wickett Twitter Widget for your sidebar and many other options.
1.8.3: 2011-07-05: Small update to fix compatibility with WordPress 3.2.
Upgrading from 1.8.2 to 1.8.3
1. Upload the new /tweet-this/ folder over the old folder in your plugins folder.
2. Tweet This 1.8.3 is installed.
General Information
Tweeting a post on Twitter takes up a lot of space, because URLs quickly eat up your 140 characters. While your readers might copy the permalink, go to Bit.ly or TinyURL, shorten and copy the new URL, go to Twitter, and paste it into the status box, this plugin merges all that into one step.
This plugin makes short URLs like http:/example.com/?p=1234, then displays a link to Twitter for each post, with an optional icon (20 choices). This is done automatically for each post as needed. You can choose a URL shortener including Adjix.com, B2l.me, Bit.ly, Is.gd, Metamark.net, SnipURL.com, Su.pr, TinyURL.com, and Tweetburner.com. Each shortened URL is cached as a custom field in the postmeta table to keep load times fast. The cached records are updated or deleted as needed when you edit a post's permalink, delete a post, change your site's permalink structure, or change URL services. In WP 3.0 or later, Tweet This hooks the short URLs into the get_shortlink filter.
This plugin can also tweet new blog posts automatically, if you provide your Twitter credentials in the options. Then a "Send to Twitter" checkbox appears when writing a new post, along with a text box so you can change the tweet text for that specific blog post. As of 1.7, OAuth is used.
Unlike Tweetmeme, ShareThis, and other Twitter plugins, Tweet This inserts links without JavaScript, iFrames, or third-party dependencies. An example: http://twitter.com/home/?status=Example+Post+http://example.com/?p=1234
Copyright 2008 – 2011 Richard X. Thripp (email: firstname.lastname@example.com)
Released under Version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, or, at your option, any later version.
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Tweet This Installation
Before you begin, please make sure your server has PHP 5 and Curl enabled. While you can use Tweet This on PHP 4, all OAuth functions require PHP 5. Tweet This requires WordPress 1.5 minimum, with the following exceptions:
1. Importing exported options requires WP 2.0.
2. Automatic tweeting requires WP 2.7.
3. The Twitter Updates widget requires WP 2.8.
4. Adding short URLs to the get_shortlink filter requires WP 3.0.
5. Moving the Tweet This box around the Write Post page requires WP 3.0.
If you are installing Tweet This for the first time, follow these steps:
1. Upload the `tweet-this` folder to `/wp-content/plugins/`.
2. If you're using WordPress MU and want this plugin active for all blogs, move `tweet-this.php` to `/wp-content/mu-plugins/` at this point.
3. Else, activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.
4. Tweet This icons should automatically appear on every post and page! Go to Settings > Tweet This to change settings and set up auto-tweets.
5. Optionally, delete readme.txt and the screenshots folder to save space.
Tweet This Donations
If you like Tweet This, consider donating $5.00, $10.00, or a larger amount via PayPal. As of Feb. 22, 2010, I have received $94 in donations since the initial release of Tweet This in Sept. 2008.
2011-02-22: $25.00 from Canopus Research Inc.
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5. Publishing a tweet alongside a new post.
6. The Twitter Updates widget included with Tweet This.


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The aftershocks of what some have called the patient safety movement's first scandal continue to reverberate in the medical community, most recently in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety.
The journal's editorial team reviewed 10 articles by Dr. Chuck Denham, the publication's previous editor, and said nine had potential conflicts of interest, five of them undisclosed. Though it's unlikely the articles resulted in patient harm, the editorial said, they may have hurt the journal's credibility.
The review is the latest turn in a rapid fall from grace for Denham, whose business dealings and patient advocacy came under scrutiny this year after a Justice Department kickback settlement.
A year ago, Denham was a golden figure in the burgeoning patient safety movement, a smooth-talking advocate who brought Hollywood pizzazz to the cause with his connection to actor Dennis Quaid and commitment to filmmaking.
As ProPublica reported, Denham also served in other prominent patient safety posts — most notably as co-chairman of a committee that set guidelines for the National Quality Forum, a nonprofit group that endorses best practices that are widely adopted throughout the healthcare community.
He ran a nonprofit patient safety organization and a for-profit consulting business, but Denham wasn't a practicing physician and didn't have strong academic credentials.
The scandal started when the Justice Department accused Denham of taking $11.6 million in kickbacks from CareFusion, a pharmaceutical company that makes the surgical antiseptic ChloraPrep. Denham wasn't a defendant in the civil case, which the company settled for $40 million. But prosecutors claimed he was paid to influence recommendations of the Quality Forum in favor of the drug.
Denham has denied the allegations. He didn't return a call for comment about this story.
On Jan. 28, ProPublica reported that Denham hadn't disclosed that his for-profit company had been paid by CareFusion while he led the Quality Forum's Safe Practices committee and advocated for ChloraPrep's formulation. The Quality Forum ended up endorsing the formulation, excluding other antiseptics, in its guidelines. Other experts on the panel told ProPublica that hadn't been their intent.
The Quality Forum cut its ties with Denham, as did the Journal of Patient Safety.
A new editorial board was appointed in Denham's wake. The editors wrote in their review that they were surprised when Denham was named editor in February 2011. They hadn't been consulted, there was no formal search process and Denham had previously published only 17 academic articles.
A spokeswoman for Wolters Kluwer Health, the company that publishes the Journal of Patient Safety, told ProPublica that Denham was appointed because he was a prominent member of the editorial board who had been recommended by the previous editor.
The Denham articles that editors reviewed included no direct references to ChloraPrep. But the articles contained numerous references to the Quality Forum's Safe Practices guidelines. That was a potential conflict of interest given that the company that could have benefitted from Denham's control of the guidelines, the editors concluded.
"This is a clear violation of the standards of the Journal," the editors wrote.
Dr. Albert Wu, an associate editor with the journal and a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it was clear when Denham's ties to CareFusion became public that a review of his published work would be necessary.
Wu said the Denham controversy has helped the patient safety movement grow up by showing that the world of quality improvement presents opportunities for industry to corrupt medical practice.
People are becoming as wary and aware of the influence of money on patient safety as they have been in the world of medical devices and pharmaceuticals, he said.
"We're now much more aware that we need to be more vigilant," Wu said.
The Journal of Patient Safety launched in 2005 and hadn't adopted some of the conflict-of-interest standards of the International Council of Medical Journal Editors. Now conflict-of-interest forms will be published with articles, and editors will publish disclosure statements and recuse themselves from decisions where they have conflicts.
The new editors should be commended for airing their dirty laundry because the openness will build trust, said Eric Campbell, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
"The reputation of a journal is all it has," said Campbell, a sociologist who studies conflicts of interest.
Campbell said the controversy opened the eyes of many in the patient safety field to the notion that money could corrupt, "even something as awesome and great for society as patient safety."
Have you or a loved one been harmed while undergoing medical care? ProPublica wants to hear your story. Please complete the ProPublica Patient Harm Questionnaire.
Copyright 2021 ProPublica. To see more, visit .


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Russian Hunting Articles
"Caucasus Ascent" by John F. Cedarberg IV
The rough warm coat of the fallen tur feels like the most comfortable pillow I could ever imagine. It had been a torturous week of climbing and waiting for a break in the weather, but finally my perseverance had paid off.. Full Story
"Old Scarface: A Grand Russian Bear" by Mark Hoffman in Outdoor Edge
Seemingly out of nowhere, a bear with a head the size of my grannys old washtub, stepped out of the dark shadows that had already shrouded the edge of the timber. Full Story
"Mission: Impossible" by Jon R. Sundra in Safari
At least thats what it seemed at the time – impossible, I mean. Here I was, 67 years old, chasing Mid-Asian Ibex at 13,000 feet in the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Full Story
"Bird Hunting in Russia" by Adam Radolinsky
Hand in hand at 4:15 a.m., in the middle of the Russian forest, we make two more steps towards the sound and freeze again. Pop! but nothing follows. For some reason the bird froze as well. There is no sound for several minutes. But he is close. Full Story
Too Old For Ibex? by Jon R. Sundra in Cabelas Outfitters Journal
Is there a hunter alive who at one time or another on a physically exhausting or miserable-weather hunt hasnt asked himself: What the hell am I doing here? I never asked that question with more seriousness than on a hunt I made last October in Krygyzstan for mid-Asian ibex.
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The Russia Rifle by Jon R. Sundra
Deciding on a new rifle choosing the model, caliber, scope, mount, and so on is an exquisite agony and one of lifes great joys. Being able to specify certain aspects of a guns specs as one would with a barreled action and stock is better yet. And when its done with a specific hunt in mind, well, it just doesnt get any better than that.
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Grouse of Another Time by Chris Dorsey in Sporting Classics
A gruff Russian voice rouses me out of my slumber at 2 a.m. like some sort of knuckle dragger sent to interrogate Francis Gary Powers. I am beginning to understand what Ruark meant when he wrote that it takes time for a soul to catch up to its body after a trans-Atlantic flight, a displaced sensation that he felt upon landing in Africa on safari. When traveling half way around the planet, time, indeed, becomes a relative term.
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Kings of Blade Swings from Blade Magazine, August 2002 issue
John Fitch won the Sharp Man Contest at the 14th Annual Batson Bladesmithing Symposium with the "Hog Body." The 10-inch blade is two pieces of 1/4-inch-thick and 1 1/2-inch-wide 1084 welded together. This knife belongs to one of Fitchs customers and is the "test rig" model with the grip unfinished for enhanced handling. Johns list price to make a similar piece is $700. If you prefer the same model but with a finished handle of fiddleback maple, his list price is $800.
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Photo: Natalie Maynor, Flickr Creative CommonsWhen The New York Times invited me to participate in a "Room for Debate" forum on the infrastructure problem in agriculture, I wrote a 1400-word treatise (a Tolstoyan length in online-debate terms), before slashing it down to the required 400 words. To see the forum, with its variety of perspectives, go here. Below is the uncut version of my entry–the culmination of years of thinking about one major obstacle to the sustainable-food/food-justice movement.
To enter a farmers' market in a U.S. city in the summer is to experience firsthand the recent revival of small-scale farming. Stand after stand offers a dazzling variety of chemical-free produce, pasture-raised meat and eggs, farmstead cheeses, and more.
Yet in a sense, our teeming, bountiful farmers markets amount to a gloss on a food system that rewards scale and cheapness over all other factors–including quality, nutrition, ecological sustainability, social justice, and a sense of place. While farmers markets, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, and "locavore" restaurants have proliferated over the past decade, they still provide just a tiny portion of the calories consumed by Americans.
Indeed, for all the foment of recent years, local and regional food networks occupy a small niche within a highly industrialized, extractive, and globe-spanning agri-food system. Moving beyond niche status will require significant investments in infrastructure that can link the growing number of small and mid-sized farms to the growing number of consumers who want to eat within their foodsheds and support ecologically sound agriculture.
Already, the infrastructure gap is constraining the local-food movement. We see it glaringly in the market for meat, where a widespread shortage of USDA-inspected slaughterhouses is causing supply bottlenecks and forcing farmers to "scale back on plans to expand their farms because local processors cannot handle any more animals," as The New York Times recently reported.
Dairy offers an even starker case. With a few companies processing the great bulk of milk consumed in the United States, processing facilities are few and far between. Most dairy farmers have little choice but to accept the miserly prices the large firms offer. Just at the time when consumers are demanding local milk from grass-fed cows, small-scale dairy farming is mired in a state of perpetual crisis: surviving farms languish under severe pressure to either scale up dramatically or exit the business altogether.
How did we reach this pass? In short, a very few companies have managed to gain ever greater control over food processing in this country–and as they gobble market share, they shutter small facilities and consolidate operations into vast centralized factories.
One way to measure the level of corporate consolidation is to look at the amount of market share owned by the top four firms in a given market–a metric known as CR4. In antitrust theory, when CR4 surpasses 40 percent–that is, when four firms control more than 40 percent of a market–these giant players wield unfair power to dictate terms to their suppliers (in this case, farmers).
The University of Missouri rural sociologist Mary Hendrickson and William Heffernan track consolidation of food markets. According to their latest report , CR4 for the beef industry rose from 72 percent in 1990 to 83.5 percent in 2005. Since then, Brazilian beef giant JBS bought out that market's third- and fifth-largest players. This means that just three companies–Tyson, Cargill, and JBS–slaughter close to 90 percent of the cows raised in this country.
CR4 levels for pork, chicken, and turkey all exceed 50 percent–and all have risen dramatically in the past 25 years, Hendrickson and Heffernan show. Information on concentration in the dairy market is hard to come by, but we do know that a single company, Dean Foods, "bottles 33 percent of U.S. fluid milk," according to a 2008 report from the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS). In some regions, concentration is even more intense. Just two companies, Dean and Hood, bottle 90 percent of the milk produced in the northeast, the ERS report states.
These stunning levels of concentration have translated directly to a shuttering of the far-flung network of slaughterhouses and dairy-bottling plants that once served small diversified farms and tied them to nearby consumers. According to another ERS report, the number of nationwide dairy-processing facilities plunged from 2507 in 1972 to 524 in 2002–an 80 percent wipeout in just three decades. And between 1994 and 2004, the nation surrendered 20 percent of slaughterhouses for pigs and 22 percent of those for cattle.
As facilities close, farmers have to ship their livestock and milk longer and longer distances for processing–adding significantly to their costs and to the carbon footprint of their products (to speak nothing of the stress animals are subjected to by long trips in the back of a truck).
The question now is, what to do about this great withering away of the means of food production? The response from conventional economists is: Let the market fix itself. If people want local, pasture-raised meat and dairy, they'll flock to the farmers market to buy it, and farmers will take their extra profits and invest in their own facilities. But people are flocking to farmers markets; the problem is, profit margins on small-scale farming remain so tight that few farms have cash to spare on such investments.
We're moving towards a classic market failure: We see increasing demand for locally and sustainable grown farm products, increasing desire among farmers to meet that demand– and an infrastructural gulf separating them.
The proper response to a market failure is government action. Libertarians and food-industry advocates will scoff; but they have to reckon with the stark fact that federal action is largely responsible for the current state of affairs. The government looked the other way while the food industry consolidated beyond any reasonable level.
Moreover, the government has supported the meat industry through its notoriously lax enforcement of environmental code for concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs). Unlike industrial waste and other major ecosystem-destroying pollutants, manure accumulated from CAFOs has for decades avoided strict government oversight, a Washington Post story recently showed. The newspaper concluded: "The Obama administration has made moves to change that but already has found itself facing off with farm interests, entangled in the contentious politics of poop."
Labor abuse at factory-scale slaughter facilities has also gone largely unchecked. By 2005, labor conditions in the meat-processing industry had become so routinely abysmal that Human Rights Watch–which normally focuses on monitoring foreign dictatorships–saw fit to issue a damning report. "Meat-packing is the most dangerous factory job in America," HRW declared. "Dangerous conditions are cheaper for companies — and the government does next to nothing." The HRW report also documents meatpackers' tireless efforts to crush unions.
Then there's the food-safety issue. The federal government has refused to regulate the use of antibiotics in industrial livestock farming. Routine, unrestrained use of antibiotics allows operators to stuff ever more animals together under unsanitary conditions, and contributes massively to the explosion of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Federal regulators have also brushed off years of warnings by researchers that industrial hog farming provides an ideal environment for novel strains of swine flu–even after the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. Then there's the recent bombshell from the USDA's Inspector General, which revealed that federal inspectors knowingly allow the meat industry to release product tainted with industrial and pharmaceutical poisons.
Finally, the most direct way the government props up the meat industry is by encouraging maximum production of corn and soy–the key components of industrial livestock feed. Most critics of agricultural subsidies denounce them as welfare for farmers. In reality, their benefits accrue mainly to the entities that turn cheap feed into meat. For most of the 1997-2005 period, farmers overproduced corn and soy to such a level that market prices fell below the cost of production. The government made up the difference with subsidies–and the meat industry benefited from a bonanza of cheap feed. According to a 2007 study by Tufts researchers, federal subsidies saved meat, dairy, and egg processors a stunning $34.7 billion in feed costs over that period–which was, as we've seen, a time of rapid consolidation.
To sum: Without a cheap-corn policy and a regulatory environment that allows the meat industry to externalize billions of dollars in ecological, human-rights, and public-health messes each year, it's highly unlikely that our food system could ever have gotten as centralized as it is now. Thus federal action (and inaction) is largely to blame for our infrastructure mess–and it will take federal action to fix it. The Obama administration has indicated that it will consider taking antitrust action to remedy food-industry consolidation. Despite that new-found zeal, federal antitrust authorities did not object last year when JBS, now the globe's largest meat producer, bought Pilgrim's Pride, the second largest U.S. poultry packer. That move gave JBS massive positions in the U.S. beef, pork, and poultry markets.
And true, the USDA is now commendably giving grants to farmers to invest in appropriate-scale slaughter facilities. But that effort, part of the USDA's Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program, amounts to pennies on the dollar compared to crop subsidies or support for corn ethanol. And it seems wholly inadequate to the massive task at hand.
If we want to see local and regional food systems expand beyond niche status–and make the bounty of the farmers market available to more than just a relative few–then we need to demand that the federal government crack down on the meat and dairy industries' shady environmental and labor practices. And we need a serious program to reinvest in the infrastructure that has been so cavalierly dismantled–perhaps through a federal grant program funded by fines against offending corporate giants.


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The Black Magic Design URSA camera line has been one of our favorite high frame rate options for many years now as it is a blend of excellent quality at a relatively low price with the added bonus of RAW recording and ProRes options. Now the company has announced the latest iteration of the camera with a monstrous pixel size of 12k or 80 Megapixels per frame. All of this in an APS-C super 35mm crop from Full Frame sensor that is built to satisfy the requirements of their Black Magic RAW codec or BRAW for short which is in this camera the only recording format available.
What interests us as always are the high frame rates and this camera does not disappoint when it comes to this spec. The only real problem we see is that recording is made only from 4k resolution and up, completely avoiding 3k, 2k and HD resolutions which could yield even higher frame rates with probably a huge crop in the 80MP frame which will probably yield a noisy and artifact prone image hence why they probably avoided recording down on those modes.


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I have had so much trouble with a lack of sun in my gardens. My courtyard gets some afternoon sun, but not enough to plant full-sun vegetables. Still, the bananas seem to grow tall enough to reach the sun, and do very well, so I figure what I need is fruit trees that can grow taller than the garden wall.
The courtyard isn't that big -- 11 x 14 feet -- so I can't grow a lot of trees. Also, there is about 1/4 of it where nothing can be planted due to gravel in the ground or my new small seating area. Still, I think I can get at least 3 fruit trees in there, maybe four.
Which Fruits to Grow?
A friend gave me three varieties of mulberry, and one is a bush type that can be kept small. I have two fig trees I had decided to put into large containers, but putting one in the ground may be a possibility. I'd also like to get a satsuma mandarin orange plant. I'm not too crazy about the banana variety I have, so those will probably go.
Understory Edible Plants
There are quite a few edible plants that I can grow underneath the trees. I've never been able to get any potatoes off my my sweet potato vines, but they keep coming up, so I figure I can just grow them as ground cover and eat the leaves, like I've been doing. It will be awhile before the trees completely shade the area, so I can also grow beans and some root crops in raised beds for quite a while. Of course, lettuce and greens will grow in shade, so that's a possibility. I can also grow things like malabar spinach and runner beans up trellises on the walls.
Maintaining Some Afternoon Sun, While Creating Shade
The trees will have to be planted so that they don't block the afternoon sun that hits the south wall of the apartment. I have a few plants there that need to stay dry and need sun to bloom, so right there under the front windows under the overhang is a great place for them.
My seating area needs some afternoon shade, so planting at least one fast-growing plant where it can provide shade there is a consideration. I was thinking seriously of putting up a cattle panel trellis and growing beans or maybe luffa on it.
Lots of Plants Will Have to Go
If I undertake this plan, I'll have to get rid of everything that is in the courtyard now, or find another place for it. I think maybe a plant sale is in order.
This will be a big project and a lot of work, but I believe that I've enriched the soil enough over the past four years that I could make this work. There seem to be earthworms everywhere.
If you have any tips or ideas, please leave me a comment.
Happy Gardening!


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After all of the rumors and speculation, the Samsung Galaxy S III is finally here but you probably have a few questions about this new Android phone.
Samsung is the master of flash and flare at its press conferences, but we're here to help you get to the nitty gritty of why you should care about this phone. The Galaxy S III will go on sale in Europe on May 23. No official word yet on a U.S. launch, but it could come this summer.
Can the S III really follow your every move?
The Samsung S III really wants to be your new best friend–your new psychic best friend. According to Samsung's somewhat creepy commercial (shown below), the S III "follows your every move." Scared yet?
In reality, the Samsung S III can do things like predict when you want the screen awake by using the front-facing camera to monitor your eyes. If you're watching a movie on your phone and happen to fall asleep, the phone's display will turn off.
The S III also has a feature called S Voice, which is a customized voice-recognition system. Hmm, sound familiar? Like Apple's Siri, S Voice can recognize a variety of commands. For example, you can say "snooze" when your alarm goes off and buy yourself a little more sleeping time. You can also say "direct call" and ring somebody while you're in the middle of a text. You can also control the volume of your music, organize your calendar, and launch the camera via voice commands.
However, there's no word, so far, on whether S Voice works with third-party applications. S Voice works with eight different languages, including British English and American English. A few of my friends from across the pond have complained about Siri's difficulty in understanding them so I guess this is good news there.
Is it quad-core powered?
Samsung confirmed before today's announcement that the Galaxy S III phones will be powered by the company's own quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor. Oddly, however, the processor specs were not in the press materials we received today. I have a suspicion that the Samsung quad-core processor is not compatible with U.S. LTE networks. If true, we might see a different processor on the S III phones in the United States. Samsung would not comment on what sort of processor the U.S. versions will have when I asked.
HTC pulled a similar trick with the One X. The global version runs on an NVidia Tegra 3 processor, while the U.S. phone uses a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor. NVidia's quad-core processor was not yet compatible with AT&T's LTE network at the time of the One X's manufacture. In our benchmarks, however, the U.S. version of the One X did quite well despite having fewer cores.
What is the deal with the new sharing apps?
Samsung made a big deal about the ease of sharing from the S III, but from what I can tell, it looks like you can only share from your S III to another. Samsung has enhanced Android Beam, which allows large files to be transferred between phones quickly. Now called S Beam, you can share music, photos, and up to 1GB of video from your S III to your buddy's S III.
To help you understand, here's how Android Beam works on the Galaxy Nexus.
Samsung also enhanced its DLNA service for sharing content from your phone to your TV. AllShare Cast lets you wirelessly connect your Galaxy S III to your TV, tablet, or PC and share files over WiFi. However, you'll have to buy the separate All Cast Hub accessory in order to use this feature (see the Accessories question below)
What is an HD Super AMOLED display?
The 3.4-inch-thick S III has a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED display with a 1280-pixel by 720-pixel resolution. This is the same display technology we saw on the Galaxy Nexus. The Galaxy S II had Super AMOLED Plus, which is actually based on a PenTile pixel structure in which pixels share subpixels.
The Galaxy S II phones, on the other hand, have full RGB displays in which the pixels have their own subpixels. This means that HD Super AMOLED displays have lower overall subpixel density, which could translate to reduced sharpness and degraded colour accuracy.
When we compared the Galaxy Nexus to the Galaxy S II, however, we didn't notice a huge difference in display quality. The only quality different we detected was colour accuracy, especially with whites (they appeared to have a yellowish tint). I have yet to see the Galaxy SIII up close and personal, so I'm not sure if it suffers from this same issue
One cool thing is that despite the Galaxy S III having a larger display than its predecessor (4.8 inches versus 4.3/4.5 inches), it isn't much bigger. There's very little bezel around the phone as the display takes full advantage of the hardware real estate.
Will battery life really improve?
Battery life is the bane of every tech user. Samsung claims that it won't be an issue with the S III as it has a larger 2100mAh battery. For comparison, the Galaxy S II has a 1560mAh battery, while the Galaxy Nexus has a 1750mAh battery. The granddaddy of phones with long battery life, the Droid Razr Maxx, has a 3300mAH battery.
I fear that Samsung's all-seeing front-facing camera might put a strain on the battery life, however. Also, phone manufacturers still haven't worked out all the kinks with battery conservation on LTE networks. Battery life will depend on what sort of processor Samsung is packing into its S III phones for the United States and, as we've learned, this is still very much up in the air.
Is the camera any good?
The Samsung Galaxy phones have always performed quite well in our PCWorld Test Centre camera subjective tests. While I haven't personally gotten my hands on the Galaxy S III's 8-megapixel camera, I can tell you a little bit about its new features.
According to Samsung, the Galaxy S III will have zero shutter lag. The company also claims that the camera will start in "less than one second." The S III will also have a burst-shot mode, a feature we saw on HTC's One phones.
The S III camera also will have a feature called "Best Photo," which will automatically select your best photos out of a series of eight photos taken in succession. But do you really want your phone to be your photo assistant?
What about accessories?
Samsung announced a slew of accessories, including a C Pen stylus (which seems pretty similar to the S Pen on the Galaxy Note), an AllShare Cast Hub for wireless streaming, a docking station for your desk, a wireless charger, a car kit, and an HDMI adapter.
Samsung also announced the S Pebble "music companion" MP3 player. Why does this accessory look so familiar? Oh yes, in 2009, I reviewed the Samsung Pebble MP3 player which looks strikingly similar to the S Pebble.
Is the Galaxy Nexus outdated now?
No, relax. It might not have as many cores as the S III, and the display might be a little smaller, but don't feel bad if you just walked out of the store with a brand new Galaxy Nexus. Your Galaxy Nexus is still an excellent, current phone and offers something the Galaxy S III does not: A pure, untouched Android experience.
Have more questions? Sound off in the comments and I'll try my best to answer them for you.