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Soap Is Better Than Hand Sanitizer

The science of disinfecting stuff is subtle. And a lot of what we thought we knew about killing off norovirus has turned out to be misguided. It’s very hard to grow a norovirus in the lab, so for a while, scientists used another virus from the same family—feline calicivirus, which can give a cat a […]

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Soap Is Better Than Hand Sanitizer

The science of disinfecting stuff is subtle. And a lot of what we thought we knew about killing off norovirus has turned out to be misguided. It’s very hard to grow a norovirus in the lab, so for a while, scientists used another virus from the same family—feline calicivirus, which can give a cat a cold—as a stand-in for their experiments. This was not a good idea. “Feline calicivirus is a wimp compared to human norovirus,” Lee-Ann Jaykus, an expert on food virology at North Carolina State University, told me. Her work has shown, for example, that bleach works pretty well at disinfecting feline virus in the lab, and that the same is true for a mouse norovirus that is often used in these experiments. But when she and colleagues tested human-norovirus samples drawn from patients’ fecal specimens, the particles seemed far more resistant.Maybe we should add that to our list of tips and tricks for getting by in January: soap, for sure, but also, when your time has come, cheerful acquiescence.Research finds that soap is good at cleaning things. At least 4,000 years of history suggest the same. Soap works because its structure mixes well with water on one end and with oils on the other. The latter, hydrophobic side can hook into, and then destroy, the membranes that surround some microbes (though norovirus isn’t one of them). Molecules of soap also cluster up in little balls that can surround and trap some germy grime before it’s flushed away beneath the tap. And soap, being sudsy, makes washing hands more fun.But only to a point. I asked Jaykus how she might proceed if she had a case of norovirus in her household. Would she wash her hands and wipe down surfaces with soap, or would she opt for something stronger?Ozempic Killed Diet and ExerciseThermometers Are Hot GarbageInfluenza cases have been surging. RSV activity is “very high.” Signs of COVID have been mounting in sewer water, and norovirus, too, is spawning outbreaks like we haven’t seen for at least a dozen years. You might even say that America is in the midst of a “quad-demic,” although I really hope you don’t, because “quad-demic” is not a word that anyone should say.This is faint praise for soap, but it’s hardly damning. If washing at the sink disinfects your hands, and soap facilitates that process, then great. And soap may even work in cases where the soap itself is grimy—a bathroom situation known (to me) as “the dirty-bar conundrum.” Some research finds that washing up with soap and contaminated water is beneficial too. Soap: It really works!She said that if her household were affected, she’d be sure to wash her hands, and she might try to do some cleaning with chlorine. But even so, she’d expect the worst to happen. Norovirus is so contagious, its chance of marching through a given house—especially one with kids—is very high. “I would pretty much call my boss and say I’m going to be out for four days,” Jaykus told me. “I’m sorry to say that I would give up.”For all his love of soap, Trump also seems attached to hand sanitizer: His first administration kept Purell supplied just outside the Oval Office, per Politico. This would have helped keep him free of certain pathogens, but not all of them. When scientists compare different means of removing norovirus from fingertips, they find that none is all that good, and some are extra bad. Commercial hand sanitizers hardly work. The same is true for quaternary ammonium cations, also known as QACs or “quats,” which are found in many standard disinfecting products for the home. My local gym dispenses antiseptic wipes for cleaning the equipment; these are tissues soaked in benzalkonium chloride, a QAC. Quats may work for killing off the germs that lead to COVID or the flu, but studies hint they might be flat-out useless against norovirus.They had soap.Not everyone endorses washing hands. Pete Hegseth, whose good judgment will be judged today in his confirmation hearing for secretary of defense, once said that he hadn’t washed his hands in 10 years. He later said this was a joke. After that, he started hawking bars of soap shaped like grenades. The man who picked him is, of course, more than avid in his washing-up; Donald Trump is known to use his Irish Spring down to the sliver.You know what works better than hand sanitizers or QACs at getting rid of actual human norovirus? I’ll bet you do! It’s soap.Douse them in a squirt of alcohol, and, chances are, they’ll come through just fine. One study looked at a spate of norovirus outbreaks at nursing homes in New England during the winter of 2006–07, and found that locations where staff made regular use of hand sanitizers were at much greater risk of experiencing an outbreak than others in the study. Why? Because those other nursing homes were equipped with something better.Or maybe one should say, it’s washing up with soap. A letter published in The Journal of Hospital Infection in 2015 by a team of German hygienists followed up on earlier work comparing hand sanitizers with soap and water, and argued that the benefits of the latter were mechanical in nature, by which the hygienists meant that simply rubbing one’s hands together under running water could produce an analogous effect. (They also argued that some kinds of hand sanitizer can inactivate a norovirus in a way that soap and water can’t.) Jaykus’s team has also found that the hand-rubbing part of hand-washing contributes the lion’s share of disinfecting. “It’s not an inactivation step; it’s a removal step,” she told me. As for soap, its role may be secondary to that of all the rubbing and the water: “We use the soap to make your hands slippery,” Jaykus said. “It makes it easier to wash your hands, and it also loosens up any debris.”

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Playing With Purpose

Last weekend, in the shadow of the Star-Spangled Banner, thousands of visitors—families with fanny packs, retired teachers from Ohio, Gen Z road-trippers from Nevada, newlyweds, veterans, toddlers, tourists from India—arrived at the museum’s pop-up Civic Pavilion, part of the national effort known as Civic Season. Every summer since 2021, museums across the country host events […]

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Playing With Purpose

Last weekend, in the shadow of the Star-Spangled Banner, thousands of visitors—families with fanny packs, retired teachers from Ohio, Gen Z road-trippers from Nevada, newlyweds, veterans, toddlers, tourists from India—arrived at the museum’s pop-up Civic Pavilion, part of the national effort known as Civic Season. Every summer since 2021, museums across the country host events and gatherings between Juneteenth and the Fourth of July, inviting younger generations to learn about and connect with the nation’s past.

In the Civic Pavilion, a colorful mural, created by Gen Z artist Katie Costa, shows portals to 10, 50, and 100 years in the future, with a simple prompt: “What’s your wish for U.S.?”

In three weeks, nearly 10,000 people picked up a marker and made a wish for their country to be archived in a time capsule opened in 50 years. And online, at OnOur250th.org, The New York Historical invited even wider digital participation with the same prompt, should you wish to explore on your own—or add your voice to the collection.

These wishes tell us a lot about the current state of the American people—and our future.

A 12-year-old from Illinois wanted to “stop animal abuse.” A 22-year-old from New York wrote, “Say no to AI.”

Some had specific visions: “Every city should have a nonviolent emergency response team.” “Better support for veterans.” “Term limits for Congress.”

Others made personal, existential wishes: “That my grandchildren will be safe at school.” “That cancer takes no more lives.” “Protect life.”

Dozens called for unity, kindness, respect, and getting along. Others offered a single, aching word: “Peace.”

And funny wishes, especially from children: “Dear 58-year-old me, you should be eating cookies.” “Never be rude.”

The wishes brought to life our national motto: e pluribus unum, out of many, one. The wild diversity of ideas—from people who want stronger borders or more open ones, bigger government or smaller—that’s the “many” part. The “one” showed up in our shared desires, repeated on thousands of colorful cards: safety, fairness, dignity, a better life.

There’s something sacred and grounding about the moment when there’s no camera rolling, no one to judge or grade you, it’s just you, a long timeline, and a blank piece of paper.

  Photo by Caroline Klibanoff

For many, the next thought is a math calculation.

A 23-year-old student paused for a full minute after a volunteer asked him how old he will be when the time capsule is opened. “Seventy-three,” he said slowly, unbelievingly. Visitors stared at the portal to 2075, their minds temporarily transported to an imagined future. Older folks wrote wishes for future generations, realizing they won’t be here to see the outcome. A young dad from Texas guided his daughter, trailing off at the end of the sentence: “You’ll be fifty…six…wow. Huh.”

This is what happens when we ask people to imagine the long arc of time—not as spectators of history but as authors of it. Like it or not, you’re in the ring. The time will pass. What will we do with it?

We often talk about “America” as if it’s happening to us. Something beyond our control. But this project reminded me—and every visitor who stood in front of that wall—that America isn’t only leaders or policy or government. It’s a living story, and the ending is not yet written.

America is us. A nation of people with ideas and the will to act on them. We are the inheritors of one of the most radical experiments in self-government in human history—a wish made reality.

If we want a stronger democracy, a more compassionate country, a livable planet—those things don’t start in Washington. They start with us. In museums, classrooms, dinner tables, and church basements. On a 5-by-7 index card, where someone who didn’t think they had anything to say realizes they’re part of the story, too.

No one can say exactly what America will look like when that time capsule opens in 2075. But the wishes give us a clue. “This is the old heartening, energizing promise the past makes to us,” wrote Robert Penn Warren in 1974, two years before America’s Bicentennial. “We, too, in our own flicker of time, can earn a place in the story. How? By creating the future.”

Those of us here in our flicker of time, one year to go until the country’s 250th birthday, stand in the doorway of America’s next chapter, armed with a freedom to imagine and build that feels quintessentially American. My bet is on another 250 years. Not because we agree on everything, but because we believe tomorrow can be better than today—and we know it’s up to us to make it so.

Caroline Klibanoff is Executive Director of Made By Us, the organization behind Civic Season; an Eisenhower USA Fellow and a Senior Fellow at New America.

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The terrifying mental health issue that has haunted Mikaela Shiffrin since accident

Mikaela Shiffrin may have returned to winning ways in 2025, but the psychological aftermath of her frightening crash last November is still very real. The 30-year-old American ski icon has opened up about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms she has experienced following the horror fallthat saw her stretchered off the slopes in Killington, Vermont. […]

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The terrifying mental health issue that has haunted Mikaela Shiffrin since accident

Mikaela Shiffrin may have returned to winning ways in 2025, but the psychological aftermath of her frightening crash last November is still very real.

The 30-year-old American ski icon has opened up about the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms she has experienced following the horror fallthat saw her stretchered off the slopes in Killington, Vermont.

Unstoppable speed! Lindsey Vonn dominates the slopes with such rapid precision that even the best cameras struggle to capture herTikTok

The crash occurred on November 30, 2024, during the Killington Cup, where Shiffrin was pushing for her 100th World Cup victory.

Leading after the first run of the giant slalom, Shiffrinlost grip on her outside ski just five gates from the finish.

What followed was a violent sequence as Shiffrin collided with a gate, flipped over, slammed into another, and then came to a crashing halt in the safety fencing.

Spectators watched in stunned silence as the Olympic champion remained down for several minutes before being taken off the hill on a sled.

Physically, the injuries were alarming. Shiffrin suffered a five-centimeter puncture wound near her hip, which she later revealed missed her colon by just one millimeter. The near-miss could have resulted in serious internal damage.

In a hospital video she shared on social media, the bruising and trauma around her pelvis were clearly visible, and the wound required careful treatment.

Flashbacks and intrusive thoughts follow Shiffrin’s return

In the months that followed, Shiffrin learned the physical pain was only part of the recovery.

Speaking to People, she described how the mental toll of the crash crept in as she began preparing for her return to competition.

“It’s just been a process to recover from that physically, and mentally, more-so than I maybe expected,” Shiffrin said. “I was having a lot of actual PTSD symptoms.”

Among the hardest parts were the vivid memories and anxiety that accompanied her attempts to return to skiing.

“Flashbacks” and “intrusive thoughts” plagued her early training runs, especially in moments where the terrain resembled the pitch at Killington.

Although Shiffrin reviewed footage and sought answers, the exact cause of the crash remains somewhat of a mystery.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” she told People. “I crashed into a gate, and we think that maybe it was either impact or a portion of some part of the gate somehow managed to create the effect of a stab wound and it went right in here.”

Despite the trauma, Shiffrin made a stirring comeback just two months later, reaching her 100th World Cup win in February at Sestriere, Italy.

She followed that up with a 101st win at the Sun Valley Finals in March. The rapid recovery came as no surprise to those who know her resilience.

In a career spanning more than a decade, Shiffrin has generally avoided severe injuries, rehabbing two knee-related issues in 2015 and 2024 without surgery and returning to race within weeks.

Now, with five overall World Cup titles, two Olympic golds, a silver, and seven world championship titles under her belt, Shiffrin has her sights set on Milan-Cortina 2026.

But this time, the journey is just as much about healing internally as it is about breaking records.

“I’m coming back,” she said. “But I needed this. I needed this exchange of energy because I haven’t had the energy.”

For an athlete defined by grace under pressure, her latest challenge may be the most personal yet.

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The Anxiety Paradox

When we think of anxiety, we often think of the brain or the central nervous system. Mental stress and emotional pressure are seen as neurological or psychological challenges. But what if anxiety isn’t just in your head? What if it can be transferred, biologically, from one person to another through the gut? That is one […]

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The Anxiety Paradox

When we think of anxiety, we often think of the brain or the central nervous system. Mental stress and emotional pressure are seen as neurological or psychological challenges.

But what if anxiety isn’t just in your head?

What if it can be transferred, biologically, from one person to another through the gut?

That is one of the points Dr. Sabine Hazan, CEO of Progenabiome, is raising in her ongoing work with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). In our recent conversation on Power Athlete Radio, she shared a startling insight backed by emerging data: anxiety could be transferable via the microbiome.

“If the donors were anxious…the recipient was anxious. And we published a signature microbiome in anxiety. So, anxiety itself is transferable from the microbiome.”

Dr. Hazan’s research suggests it’s time to rethink how we measure and manage emotion. Emotional resilience, recovery, and on-field performance – especially in high-stress environments – may be significantly influenced by improving the microbiome.

For those new to this conversation, fecal matter transplants (FMT) involve the transfer of gut bacteria from a healthy donor into the gastrointestinal tract of a recipient. It’s been used successfully for severe infections like C. difficile, but Dr. Hazan’s work is pushing the boundaries far beyond that. Her research suggests the gut microbiome – home to trillions of bacteria – doesn’t just influence digestion or the immune system. Dr. Hazan’s research challenges us to redefine how we understand and support emotional performance. By improving the microbiome, we can enhance emotional resilience, accelerate recovery, and elevate athletic output, especially under high-pressure conditions.

The microbiome isn’t just a passive player in our lives. It’s an active, dynamic system central to our health, both physically and mentally.

For athletes, this unlocks new aspects of performance. Enhancing traits like composure and focus through the microbiome translates to greater strength and speed. If gut bacteria can influence anxiety levels, then optimizing the microbiome can be a powerful performance enhancer for physical performance and mental resilience.

Mental performance coaching will move past visualization and breathing and involve creating a healthy microbiome as a means to ramp up performance – maybe even carefully selected FMT treatments.

While the field is still emerging, Dr. Hazan emphasizes that more research and large-scale clinical trials are essential to fully validate the findings. However, the early data proves promising.

Identifying a biological signature for anxiety in the microbiome is significant. It suggests that we may eventually be able to test for, and even treat, certain mood disorders through gut-focused therapies. And as Dr. Hazan’s work shows, this isn’t just speculation, it’s happening in real-time.

For anyone serious about optimizing performance, whether on the field, in the gym, or in ryday life, this research represents a potential paradigm shift.

Mental toughness might not be just a matter of mindset and conditioning till you puke. It might be found in better microbes.

As our understanding of the microbiome deepens, one thing becomes increasingly clear: the gut is more than a digestive system. It’s a control center, shaping everything from our immunity to our emotions and potential athletic success.

As Dr. Hazan states on Power Athlete Radio, “Anxiety is in the microbiome. And if we can transfer it, we can study it. And maybe, just maybe, we can change it.”

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#diastasisrecti

Boissonnault JS, Blaschak MJ. Incidence of diastasis recti abdominis during the childbearing year. Phys Ther. 1988;68(7):1082–6. Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar  Mota P, Pascoal AG, Bo K. Diastasis recti abdominis in pregnancy and postpartum period. Risk factors, functional implications and resolution. Curr Womens Health Rev. 2015;11(1):59–67. Article  Google Scholar  Cardaillac C, Vieillefosse S, Oppenheimer A, […]

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#diastasisrecti

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    Naomi Osaka tired of way media portrays her

    Coming off her third-round defeat at Wimbledon, Naomi Osaka didn’t have a lot of good things to say about her performance. The four-time grand slam champion often bears her emotions for all to see and today was no different after going down July 4 to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova  3-6 6-4 6-4. “I’m just going to be […]

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    Naomi Osaka tired of way media portrays her

    Coming off her third-round defeat at Wimbledon, Naomi Osaka didn’t have a lot of good things to say about her performance.

    The four-time grand slam champion often bears her emotions for all to see and today was no different after going down July 4 to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova  3-6 6-4 6-4.

    “I’m just going to be a negative human being today. I’m so sorry. I have nothing positive to say about myself, which is something I’m working on,” she said according to the BBC.

    Naomi said she’s trying to work on her outlook but admits it’s a struggle. She hasn’t gotten past the third round of a major tournament since winning the Australian Open in 2021.

    However, Osaka cautioned against portraying her as always sad as she accused the media of doing.

    “Bro why is it every time I do a press conference after a loss the ESPNs and blogs gotta clip it and put it up. Wtf, why don’t they clip my press conferences after I win? Like why push the narrative that I’m always sad?

    “Sure I was disappointed a couple hours ago, now I’m motivated to do better. That’s human emotions. The way they clip me I feel like I should be fake happy all the time,” she said, reported Tennis Infinity.

    Sports Illustrated pointed out she isn’t the only tennis player to express negative thoughts after a loss. Coco Gauf, was hard on herself after being bounced from the first round at Wimbledon, Jack Draper nearly came to tears and Alexander Zverev said he felt alone and struggles mentally following his first-round loss.

    Osaka hopes to regroup as she heads into the North American leg of the hard court season.

    We did it! Thank you for all those who contributed to our June fundraising campaign. We doubled the amount of money raised during the previous year. This money will be used to fund our reporting efforts.

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    Integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Psychological Skills Training (PST)

    ORIGINAL RESEARCH article Front. Psychol. Sec. Sport Psychology Volume 16 – 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1617548 This article is part of the Research TopicMental Health in Recreational and Elite SportsView all 22 articles Provisionally accepted Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon. Notify me You have […]

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    Integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with Psychological Skills Training (PST)

    ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

    Front. Psychol.

    Sec. Sport Psychology

    Volume 16 – 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1617548

    This article is part of the Research TopicMental Health in Recreational and Elite SportsView all 22 articles

    Provisionally accepted

    • Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom

    The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This case study outlines the sport psychology service delivery provided to an 11-year-old competitive figure skater. The client reported performance anxiety, which hindered her training and performance at competition. The intervention delivered integrated core processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with psychological skills training (PST) with the aim of reducing the client’s performance anxiety. Little has been written about how ACT can be applied alongside PST. The case reports how ACT exercises aimed at defusing the client’s unhelpful cognitions, focusing on valued living, committed action, and staying in the present moment were integrated into goal setting, imagery, performance profiling, and self-talk. Demonstrating the alignment between ACT and PST is crucial for practitioners to seamlessly integrate ACT into their practice. Reflections from the client and practitioner capture the evaluation of the service delivery.

    Keywords: cbt, MST, performance, sport psychology, Psychotherapy, Youth

    Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Jul 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Wood and Turner. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Samuel Wood, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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