Latest news with #Furie
Straits Times
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
The Old Guard 2 Review: Immortal warriors return in predictable sequel. 2 stars
(From left) Henry Golding as Tuah, Luca Marinelli as Nicky, Marwan Kenzari as Joe, Charlize Theron as Andy and Kiki Layne as Nile in The Old Guard 2. The Old Guard 2 (R21) 196 minutes, available on Netflix ★★☆☆☆ The story: Following the events of The Old Guard (2020), mercenary team leader Andy (Charlize Theron) is no longer immortal, unlike her comrades, who have retained their infinite healing powers. The team must confront powerful beings looking to settle scores: Discord (Uma Thurman), an ancient one with a grudge against humanity, and Quynh (Ngo Thanh Van), newly freed from the undersea cage that Andy failed to save her from hundreds of years ago. The Old Guard 2 is one of those movies in which viewers are supposed to sit back and watch cool things happen: car chases, gun battles, martial arts showdowns. It involves good guys gifted with regenerative healing, a neat way of avoiding the plot armour problems associated with protagonists who walk through a hailstorm of bullets unscathed. The story, based on a graphic novel series of the same name, blends the supernatural with reality by simply not addressing the woo-woo parts – the origins of the healing powers, and why only certain people have them, are mostly left unexplained. Are the regenerative powers genetic? Are the chosen ones demi-gods or touched by divine grace? The franchise so far has revealed little. With one caveat – in this sequel, new characters are introduced, for the sake of dramatic conflict but also to deepen the world in which immortality superpowers exist. The wrinkles do not try to explain the source of the powers – a wise creative decision that avoids the problem of one premise requiring another, ad nauseam – but to allow for immortal-on-immortal combat and all the gore that these entail. Quynh, the immortal whose body was caged in iron then dropped into the sea where she has relived the pain of drowning over and over for centuries, has returned. Vietnamese actress Van , known for her martial arts roles in Furie (2019) and the prequel Furies (2022), is tragically underused. Director Victoria Mahoney, taking over from Gina Prince-Bythewood, elicits good performances from her cast, in particular Theron and Van , but chooses to leave Quynh's mental trauma largely unexplored. Mahoney also fails to relieve the story's predictability, where it seems every meeting between Andy and a former acquaintance starts with tense dialogue followed by a martial arts showdown. New to the franchise is Malaysia-born British actor Henry Golding, who plays Tuah, an immortal who has chosen to be the group's secret archivist. Unfortunately, he is there mainly for exposition, to shed light on the fickleness of the healing powers and why they appear to come and go. As original Netflix action movies go, this work ranks below the tense thriller Rebel Ridge (2024). It falls in the more by-the-numbers category of blow-'em-ups like the two Extraction movies (2020 and 2023), mainly due to its failure to breathe life into a story that still feels trapped in the pages of its graphic novel sources. Hot take: The Old Guard 2 is a workmanlike action sequel that delivers gore and gunfights, but wastes its compelling characters and premise on predictable storytelling.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Microscopic plastic levels far higher in those who suffer strokes, study finds
ST. PAUL, Minn., April 22 (UPI) -- Patients who suffered strokes, mini-strokes or temporary blindness had levels of "nanoplastic" particles in their necks far higher than in healthy people, an abstract of a small-scale study released Tuesday shows. The abstract, released by the American Heart Association at the start of a scientific conference this week in Baltimore, is adding to a growing list of "troubling" evidence linking vascular disease to nanoplastics, the medical group says. Nanoplastic fragments are even smaller than "microplastics" and can be absorbed into the body, penetrating biological barriers as they accumulate. While microplastics are loosely defined as particles smaller than 5 millimeters in diameter, nanoplastics are far smaller -- typically thought of as less than 1 micrometer, or 1,000 nanometers. These tiny fragments of plastic come from products like water bottles, food packaging and synthetic fabrics, and have been found concentrated in major organs, including the lungs, heart, liver and even the placenta, prompting scientists to warn that evidence is mounting they pose a risk to cardiovascular health. In March 2024, an Italian study determined that patients with carotid artery plaque in which "microplastics and nanoplastics," or MNPs, were detected had a higher risk of a myocardial infarction, stroke or death from any cause at 34 months of follow-up than those in whom the fragments were not detected. Meanwhile, University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers in February revealed they had detected microplastics in human brains at much higher concentrations than in other organs. Even more alarmingly, the plastic accumulation appears to be growing over time, increasing 50% over just eight years. In the current study of fewer than 50 participants, University of New Mexico researchers examined carotid artery samples taken from three groups of patients: those who had artery-clogging plaque in the neck and experienced stroke, mini-stroke or temporary loss of vision; those who had plaque but did not suffer such symptoms; and those who had healthy carotids with no plaque. They found that the group that suffered strokes had MNP concentration levels 51 times higher than those who had no plaque build-ups, while those who had plaque but didn't suffer strokes had levels 16 times higher than those with no plaque. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal, but the results nonetheless provide a "very interesting and troubling" look into the possible relationship between MNPs and vascular disease, said Dr. Karen Furie, volunteer vice chair of the hear association's Stroke Brain Health Science Subcommittee. Furie also is a professor of neurology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Rhode Island. "To date, we have not considered exposure to plastic micronanoparticles a modifiable risk factor for stroke," Furie said in an AHA-issued statement, adding that although research efforts are still a very early stage, the findings point to nanoparticles as "a novel potential target for stroke prevention." The study's lead author told UPI that while it remains unknown if nanoplastics can actually cause stroke or other illness and that the small study has limitations, the results showing such a sharp, sizable swing in plastics levels between those who suffered strokes and those who didn't raises eyebrows. Dr. Ross Clark, a vascular surgeon and researcher at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in Albuquerque, said his findings largely mirror the results of last year's Italian study, but "with some additional layers of nuance." "It's pretty compelling to see a 16-fold greater presence of nanoplastics in asymptomatic carotid plaques compared to a normal, healthy artery, and a 51-fold increase in those who are having symptoms," he said. "So what is it about those symptoms and the plastics? Do they have anything to do with them directly? "The answer is it's too early to tell. But it's interesting that those two groups are really different." Clark said he suspects the interaction between microplastics and the cardiovascular system is complex and will not be easily definable by obvious measures such as looking at inflammation. "We actually didn't find any correlation between the amount of plastics in the plaque and biomarkers of inflammation," he said. "So it's not just as easy as saying, 'Having microplastics in these plaques causes inflammation.' It's not that simple. There's definitely something more nuanced going on here, which is going to take quite some time to unravel." Dr. Isaac George, surgical director of the Heart Valve Center at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, noted last year it's important to remember that no direct, causal relationship has yet been found between microplastics and heart disease. "This doesn't show that having particles in your body forms atheromas [artery plaque], but it is a very strong association, and I think it's just more evidence that plastic has invaded our whole lifestyle," he said in a video posted after the Italian study was released. "I think the moral of the story is we really need to be careful and be aware of the exposure we have to plastics and try to reduce it as much as possible." Dr. Gregory Katz, a clinical cardiologist at NYU Langone Health and an assistant professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, agreed the study results are "concerning, just like basically all of the research on micro and nanoplastics and human health outcomes has been." But, he added, it remains difficult to answer the biggest questions about the potential dangers of nanoplastics exposure. "It's impossible with a study like this to know whether it's plastics driving bad health outcomes or whether people who are sicker tend to accumulate more plastic and that their underlying condition drives those outcomes," he told UPI. "Second, this doesn't tell us anything about exposure -- where is the plastic coming from? Is it related to our volitional choices or is related to ambient exposure as a consequence of being alive in the year 2025? "This type of limitation on exposure is a really big deal when you think about how we should or should not change our behaviors." The next steps in quantifying the effects of nanoplastics on the heart depend on how quickly new methods can be developed to study them -- the field so new that there are currently very few protocols. For example, it's challenging to measure the particles, especially those made of polyethylene, which produces a confusingly similar signature to certain kinds of body fat in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. "Even to this day, we're still refining those techniques," Clark said. Katz said the next step in establishing the science "isn't so much proving causation that micro and nanoplastics cause human disease -- although we certainly haven't proven it. It's helping to understand the exposures that drive accumulation of these substance in our bodies because that's where we can take action."
Boston Globe
13-03-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Selma Miriam, founder of the feminist restaurant Bloodroot, dies at 89
Advertisement 'The people who need us, find us,' Ms. Miriam always said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Ms. Miriam died Feb. 6 at her home in Westport, Conn. She was 89. The cause was pneumonia, her longtime partner, Carolanne Curry, said. 'We don't just want a piece of the pie, we want a whole new recipe,' Ms. Miriam declared in 'A Culinary Uprising: The Story of Bloodroot,' a feature-length 2024 documentary about the restaurant. (Another documentary, 'Bloodroot,' came out in 2019.) She was determined to live her values, as she put it, and Bloodroot was the embodiment of those values: a place for good conversation, activism, and terrific food. It was also a nonhierarchical endeavor; customers served themselves and cleared their own tables. At first, Bloodroot was run as a collective, although the early members eventually moved on. In recent decades, it has been a collective of two: Ms. Miriam and Furie. (They dated very briefly many decades ago, and they remained fast friends.) An avid gardener, Ms. Miriam named the restaurant for the native plant that begins flowering in early spring and spreads through a root system that grows underground, forming new colonies of flowers. 'Separate but connected' was the metaphor she was after. She also liked the toughness of the name. With help from her parents, along with $19,000 she had squirreled away from her 75-cents-an-hour work as a landscaper and an onerous mortgage from the only bank among the many she approached that would loan to a woman in Connecticut in the 1970s, she bought a former machine shop in a working-class neighborhood in Bridgeport for $80,000. It was a funky space, but it had room for a garden in the back, and it overlooked Long Island Sound. Advertisement She and her colleagues filled the place with thrift-shop furniture, political posters, and vintage photos and paintings of women. Over the years, customers contributed photos of their own mothers and grandmothers. 'The wall of women,' Ms. Miriam and Furie called it. The space had cozy nooks for armchairs, and the bookstore was filled with the feminist canon, as well as handwritten notes from fans, including writers Andrea Dworkin, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde, among the many who gave readings there. The house cats were named for feminist heroes like Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem. To create her ever-changing menus, Ms. Miriam drew on vegetarian culinary traditions from around the world, using food she sourced locally and grew in the restaurant's garden. The women who joined her in the kitchen — immigrants from Brazil, Ethiopia, Mexico, Honduras, and Jamaica, among other countries — contributed dishes from their national cuisines. One of the women, Carol Graham, who is Jamaican, came up with the recipe for their jerk 'chicken,' made with tofu and seitan, which has long been one of Bloodroot's bestsellers. Soups like Cambodian kanji, with rice, potatoes, and cashews, were a mainstay. In recent years, Ms. Miriam had begun experimenting with vegan cheeses made from cultured nut milks. New York Times restaurant critic Tejal Rao, who visited in 2017, just before the restaurant's 40th birthday, wrote that she was partial to a 'deeply flavored Cheddar-like number with a ripe, softly alcoholic aroma, named after the writer Willa Cather.' Advertisement Bloodroot was conceived as a women-only community, but it drew men, too. Customers captivated by the homey atmosphere and the evolving menu stayed loyal for decades, which kept the place afloat in lean times. 'When we started,' Furie said in an interview, 'it felt like we were jumping off a cliff.' Paying homage to that spirit, a framed photograph from the 1991 movie 'Thelma and Louise,' about another pair of women who went rogue, hangs in Bloodroot's open kitchen. 'There are people who come in with their 3-year-old and say, 'I came here when I was 3, and now I'm back with my child,' and I think how amazing that we had that impact, without even planning it,' Ms. Miriam told The Washington Post in 2017. 'We followed our political and social beliefs, and had an appreciation for the earth and the animals — all the things that fall under the broad umbrella of feminism.' Selma Miriam Davidson was born Feb. 25, 1935, in New York City's Bronx borough, and grew up in Bridgeport. She was the only child of Faye and Elias Davidson, who opened a fabric store, Davidson's Fabrics, on Main Street in Bridgeport the year she was born. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Jackson College, then the women's school at Tufts University in Massachusetts, in 1956. (She majored in biology and psychology, but she said the best thing she learned in college was how to knit continental style.) She met her husband, Abe Bunks, who would become a lawyer, while she was in college. When they divorced in 1976, she began using her middle name as her surname. Advertisement Ms. Miriam was frank about her history. She spoke of the illegal abortion she had at 15, with help from her parents, who did not want their only child to drop out of school. She talked about becoming pregnant in college, the result of an ill-fitting diaphragm, which curtailed her hopes of pursuing a doctorate in biology. She was preternaturally tough. The week Bloodroot opened, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her doctor removed the lump in an outpatient procedure, but told her that if she didn't have a radical mastectomy, she would be dead within three years. She refused because she didn't want to miss work. 'I was the only one who could cook,' she pointed out. The cancer never recurred, and she remained suspicious of the medical profession, preferring to treat herself with homeopathic remedies. For most of her life, she did not have health insurance. In addition to Curry, Ms. Miriam leaves her children, Sabrina and Carey Bunks. Curry said she met Ms. Miriam when she came for lunch one day in 1988 — and she stayed for dinner for 37 1/2 years. 'There's no reason we should have made this work, and in a lot of ways we didn't make it work,' Ms. Miriam said of the restaurant in 'A Culinary Uprising,' noting that Bloodroot was not always a moneymaker. 'But we've had a life.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Flossing may reduce risk for stroke and irregular heart rhythm
Feb. 21—Laura Williamson American Heart Association News Flossing regularly may lower the risk of some strokes as well as a type of irregular heart rhythm that can increase stroke risk, new research suggests. The findings, which will be presented Wednesday at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles, show people who flossed at least once a week had a lower risk for strokes caused by blood clots coming from the heart and for an irregular heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation, or AFib, that can lead to a stroke. The findings are considered preliminary until the full results are published in a peer-reviewed journal. "I wouldn't say dental flossing is the only thing you need to do to prevent a stroke, but our findings suggest it is one more thing to be added to a healthy lifestyle," said lead researcher Dr. Souvik Sen, a professor and chair of the neurology department at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Sen said prior studies have shown a link between oral health, oral infection and damage to white matter and small blood vessels in the brain, as well as to a buildup of plaque in the arteries that supply blood to the brain. The new study included 6,278 participants who had answered questions about home use of dental floss. About 65% of the participants reported flossing at least once a week. Participants were followed for 25 years to see if they developed AFib or had an ischemic stroke, which occurs when a blood vessel to the brain is blocked. The researchers also looked at the risk of specific types of ischemic stroke: thrombotic strokes, caused by a blood clot in large arteries in the brain; cardioembolic strokes, caused by a clot traveling to the brain from the heart; and lacunar strokes, clots that occur in small arteries deep in the brain. Compared to non-flossers, people who flossed experienced a 22% lower risk of an ischemic stroke, a 44% lower risk of a cardioembolic stroke, and a 12% lower risk of AFib, which developed in 20% of study participants. The analysis showed no link between flossing and thrombotic or lacunar strokes. "Dental flossing reduces oral infections and gum disease, which are linked to inflammation," Sen said. Because inflammation can contribute to the risk for stroke, "it would make sense that if people flossed regularly, it might also reduce the risk of stroke and AFib." Dr. Karen Furie, neurologist-in-chief at Brown University Health in Providence, Rhode Island, said she wasn't surprised that flossing might help reduce stroke risk. "Flossing does help get debris out from between teeth that brushing alone might miss," said Furie, who also is chair of neurology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. "Things that cause inflammation to the gums might be retained food or seeds, things that if not removed might inflame the gums and contribute to a systemic inflammatory state that might affect the health of the blood vessels." But Furie, who was not involved in the study, was surprised the investigation found no association between flossing and thrombotic strokes, because of their link to inflammation and atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the arteries. "I would have thought this type of stroke would have been the most reduced," she said. "It's possible that people who have thrombotic strokes, which you can anticipate because you can see evidence of atherosclerosis in the arteries, were being managed more vigorously than people who had cardioembolic strokes, which come out of the blue." The lower stroke risk could stem from "something fundamentally different about people who floss," Furie said. "The 65% who floss may be people who follow the recommendations of their dentists and doctors and are attentive to the small details of health maintenance. They might be different than the 35% who don't floss, who might not be as compliant or might have other lifestyle or medical factors that reduce their compliance." Managing blood pressure and cholesterol, maintaining a healthy weight, staying physically active, eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep are all important steps people can take to help prevent strokes, Furie said, but the new study "shows good dental health also matters. That is an important message and something people don't appreciate. Many neglect their oral hygiene, and hopefully this calls attention to it being an important aspect of total good health." American Heart Association News covers heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved.
