Links: Medical and other serious topics

Alzheimer's: The heretical and hopeful role of infection by David Robson. Ruth Itzhaki, an emeritus professor at the University of Manchester in the UK, has spent three decades investigating the role of infection in Alzheimer's. The apparent link between HSV1 infection and Alzheimer's disease has now been replicated in many different populations.

The Neuropsychiatric Assessment of Lyme Disease (pdf) by Robert Bransfield, M.D.

Facebook Banned Me for Life Because I Help People Use It Less by Louis Barclay.

I still remember the feeling of unfollowing everything for the first time. It was near-miraculous. I had lost nothing, since I could still see my favorite friends and groups by going to them directly. But I had gained a staggering amount of control. I was no longer tempted to scroll down an infinite feed of content. The time I spent on Facebook decreased dramatically. Overnight, my Facebook addiction became manageable.

Cold War, Hot Mess by Lois Parshley, photography by Sean McDermott. "The Hanford Site, which is managed by the Department of Energy, is an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island. Though cleanup efforts have been underway at Hanford since 1989, hazardous materials remain in the site’s soil and groundwater along the Columbia River." Making a note of this since Portland is a couple of hundred miles downriver from this place, even though I noped out of reading it after the first few paragraphs.