In the last several months a couple topics have piqued\u00a0my interest much more than I previously imagined they would.<\/p>\n
(1) Conflict in Ukraine<\/a><\/span><\/strong>:\u00a0 My initial attraction to Ukraine’s plight stems from my genealogical connection–my mom’s grandparents emigrated from there.\u00a0 But it’s grown beyond that as I’ve watched the Euromaidan and subsequent war unfold.<\/p>\n Along the way I’ve learned about the history, people, culture, economy, religion, and politics in the region.\u00a0 Eighteen months ago I knew very little about any of it.\u00a0 I’m hardly an expert now, but I do know something.<\/p>\n I follow a large Twitter list<\/a> to keep up on all the news, and am engage in discussion\/debate at a couple forums<\/a> (I’m Velo Vol).<\/p>\n Although the War in Eastern Ukraine receives only intermittent U.S. news media coverage, it’s one of the important foreign policy issues we face. This doesn’t have the ideological makeup of Cold War 2.0, as some have described it.\u00a0 But it does jeopardize Eastern European stability.<\/p>\n (2) Research on the human microbiome<\/a><\/span><\/strong>: This, too, has a personal angle.\u00a0 I have psoriatic arthritis<\/a>, an autoimmune disorder which is not well understood at all.\u00a0 We don’t know what causes it, what triggers the inflammation, why drugs to relieve symptoms work (or more often, don’t work) . . . it’s a big mystery.<\/p>\n But there’s a growing body of research linking these kinds of diseases to the microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract<\/a>, where most of the immune system resides.<\/p>\n For example, one small study<\/a> shows that people with psoriatic arthritis have below normal levels of multiple intestinal bacteria.<\/p>\n Of course correlation does not equal causation, and we’re years away from translating these discoveries into new therapies, much less a cure.\u00a0 But this kind of thing gives me hope that we’ll someday get there.\u00a0 So I like to keep up on research news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the last several months a couple topics have piqued\u00a0my interest much more than I previously imagined they would. (1) Conflict in Ukraine:\u00a0 My initial attraction to Ukraine’s plight stems from my genealogical connection–my mom’s grandparents emigrated from there.\u00a0 But it’s grown beyond that as I’ve watched the Euromaidan and subsequent war unfold. Along the […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2597"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2601,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2597\/revisions\/2601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}