More here.

for Willie Louis 1937-2013, who testified
against two men who killed Emmett Till,
1955, Money, Mississippi

When Your Word is a Match

When you walk past Klans-
men, smiling at you

on your way into the court
house, wondering how

you will ever live here
after this airless day.

When you tell the story
of a pick-up truck,

a barn, a boy, a threat.
When you point at two

men in the courtroom
and everyone gasps at

what they have never seen
before, but know is true.

When your word is a match-
head, hissing into flame,

testifying aloud but blown
out as soon as you speak.

When all the air
in the courtroom shakes

its white head.
When the smiling men brag

about killing the boy
in the barn. When they

joke about a river, about
what cannot float. When

you flee to the mother’s
city, to breathe air that isn’t

a gasp. When you hide
the name your parents gave

you for fear the men from
that barn will come

smiling for you too.
When you speak to your wife

years later, after a lifetime
of breathing beside her.

When this air thick as lead
presses your chest to breaking.

When the match’s flame
consumes all the air, revealing

a coffin, a boy, a mother,
and you, burning still.

by Joseph Ross
from Ache
Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017

Emily Sohn in Nature:

Alzheimer’s disease has long been considered an inevitable consequence of ageing that is exacerbated by a genetic predisposition. Increasingly, however, it is thought to be influenced by modifiable lifestyle behaviours that might enable a person’s risk of developing the condition to be controlled. But even as evidence to support this idea has accumulated over the past decade, the research community has been slow to adopt the idea. This reluctance was obvious as recently as 2010, when the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) brought together a panel of 15 researchers to consider the state of research on preventing Alzheimer’s disease, at a conference in Bethesda, Maryland. Tantalizing findings had begun to emerge that suggested that behavioural choices such as engaging in physical exercise, intellectual stimulation and healthy eating could reduce the risk of brain degeneration. In a 2006 study¹ that followed more than 2,200 people in New York for four years, researchers found that people who adhered to a Mediterranean diet — full of whole grains, fruit and vegetables, fish and olive oil — had an up to 40% lower risk of dementia than people who ate more dairy products and meat.

…In 2016, Isaacson’s team observed that after just six months on a personalized preventive plan, participants showed improvements in executive function and mental-processing speed¹⁷. The researchers will soon reveal results gathered from a group of more than 150 people at the New York clinic, and the early signs are encouraging. On the basis of this work, Isaacson suspects that 60% of lifestyle recommendations will be the same for everyone; eating a Mediterranean diet, for instance, seems to be a universally positive strategy. The rest should vary from person to person and could include interventions such as aggressive treatment for cardiovascular conditions, medication for sleep apnoea or participation in specific types of physical activity. “We can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach.

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