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Quincy Jones, Giant of American Music, Dies at 91

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Over time, excess consumption of these added sugars can increase the risk of health problems. Here’s how that may play out in various parts of your body.

The Mouth

The potential issues from added sugars start in your mouth. Here, certain bacteria break sugars down and produce acids, which can eventually erode your tooth enamel.

Your saliva is able to neutralize these acids, but if you keep consuming sugary foods and drinks throughout the day, it won’t be able to keep up. Acid levels will remain high, increasing your risk for cavities.

A diet high in sugary drinks like soda and juice can also change your mouth’s microbiome — increasing the number of acid-producing bacteria and decreasing the beneficial ones. That may make you even more susceptible to cavities.

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Hmmmmm…

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

New Living Translation

⁹ This man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles. ¹⁰ He will use every kind of evil deception to fool those on their way to destruction, because they refuse to love and accept the truth that would save them. ¹¹ So God will cause them to be greatly deceived, and they will believe these lies. ¹² Then they will be condemned for enjoying evil.

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Hmmmmm… Someone, please fact-check these statements from a post on X (formerly known as Twitter)!

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Great Idea… His advisor seems to be Joseph Goebbels! The Republican constituency is in political thralldom.  Below, is a compilation from several sources.

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Matthew 12:37

New Living Translation

37 The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you.

 

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REPENTANCE PRAYER

Lord Jesus, for too long I’ve kept you out of my life. I know that I am a sinner and that I cannot save myself. No longer will I close the door when I hear you knocking. By faith, I gratefully receive your gift of salvation. I am ready to trust you as my Lord and Savior. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming to earth. I believe you are the Son of God who died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead on the third day. Thank you for bearing my sins and giving me the gift of eternal life. I believe your words are true. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, and be my Savior. Amen

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The reformation of manners, the restoration of purity, the due administration of public justice, and the prevailing of honesty and fair dealing among men, are the strength and stability of any church or state. The confederate force of hell and earth will be renewing their assaults. As long as there is a devil in hell, and a persecutor out of it, God’s people must expect frequent alarms. (Matthew Henry)

 

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Mr. Mancinelli’s father, Alfred, was completely smitten with the star — or at least with the con artist impersonating her. He was convinced he was in a romantic relationship with Ms. Bliss, leading him to give up about $1 million in retirement savings (and his granddaughter’s college fund) to the impostor and a varied cast of online fraudsters he interacted with over several years.

When Mr. Mancinelli tried to intervene, moving his father’s last $100,000 to a safe account, Alfred sued him — his loyalty was to “Lexi.”

“There was nothing we could do to convince him,” said Mr. Mancinelli, 47, a chemical engineer in Collegeville, Pa. An elder care specialist deemed Alfred “really sharp,” he said, but lacking purpose.

Mr. Mancinelli and others who have tried to awaken their loved ones from this trance often feel powerless, even after they’ve done everything to shatter the fiction and protect their assets. They say it’s as if their parent had been brainwashed into a cult.

In some ways, they were: These victims were slowly groomed by con artists posing as love interests, investment advisers or government officials, among others. Once ensconced inside this bubble, they are unable or unwilling to acknowledge that they have become victims. Even when their own children are warning them of the con.

“Romance scams are the most pernicious,” said Darius Kingsley, head of consumer banking practices at JPMorgan Chase. Some victims have become confrontational after being told that their wires were not going to lovers but were being used for nefarious purposes.

“They don’t believe it,” Mr. Kingsley added, which means banks may need to shut down their accounts if the behavior continues.

Americans lost an estimated $12.5 billion to online criminals in 2023, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, including $652 million in losses tied to romance and confidence scams. Many more go unreported.

Technology has put just about everyone in scammers’ cross hairs, but older Americans are disproportionately targeted for some of the costliest cons, often because they are perceived to have more money, to have less familiarity with technology, and to be potentially experiencing cognitive decline. Still, fully competent people fall for scams, too.

“For many people, what is going on is they are looking to fulfill an unmet need for companionship, an unmet need for financial security, an unmet need for a purpose,” said Marti DeLiema, an interdisciplinary gerontologist and assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Social Work, who researches financial fraud and exploitation.

Victims are often caught up in fantasies created by perpetrators, isolating them from their real-life existence and families.

That’s what happened with Alfred Mancinelli, who had already endured tragic losses in his life. He and his wife lost their first child to leukemia when she was 3; then, he lost his wife when their boys were 9 and 14, raising them largely on his own. Later, he was forced into early retirement from his position as an electronic technician for Con Ed, the New York power company.

Chris Mancinelli said his father had “opened his heart” with some of his scammers, which may have played into how he was manipulated.

Before the Alexa Bliss impostor, Alfred sent money to someone called “Kate,” who said she had a sick 4-year-old daughter. He also sent money to “Anna,” who was helping a friend caring for unwell children.

“I believe they crafted stories that pulled on those heart strings,” Mr. Mancinelli said.

Alfred’s involvement in scams dated back to 2018, but worsened during the isolating days of the pandemic. By the spring of 2021, his once $900,000 nest egg had dropped to $128,000. Mr. Mancinelli estimates that most of his father’s money went to one or more Alexa Bliss impostors — her persona is frequently used in scams — and what seemed to be a satellite of associates.

His chat messages with the sham Alexa read like a soap opera. There were the battles with his son, whom he disowned, after Mr. Mancinelli tried to safeguard his money; other “evil” meddlers trying to spoil their relationship; and ongoing references to Vince McMahon, the former wrestling promoter, whom the fake Alexa accused of humiliating her after she refused his advances. But Alfred was always there, ready to extend emotional and financial support.

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“There was nothing we could do to convince him,” Chris Mancinelli said of his father, who lost nearly $1 million in savings to a cast of online fraudsters. Credit…Hannah Yoon for The New York Times

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Parents of tweens and teens like me are always in need of a brush up on current slang terms, such as lala bop, and rizz. Now, there’s another term making the rounds in middle and high schools, as well as on TikTok: “crashing out.” 

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, you’re not alone. Here’s your guide to what crashing out means and what to do about it.

What Does ‘Crashing Out’ Mean?

My 14-year-old explained “crashing out” to me as meaning “you’re going to flip out,” or “you can’t pull it together.” A popular TikTok also explains the term as essentially being an overreaction to a minor problem—like having your shoe stepped on. 

We may have called it something else, but kids (and adults!) have been “crashing out” since the beginning of human history. And there’s no denying that emotional regulation is a tough skill for people of all ages to master.

That’s especially true for tweens and teens, who are battling changing hormones, and pressures ranging from school to social media. Teens are also just learning how to navigate tough situations on their own, so “crashing out” happens. 

But sometimes “crashing out” becomes a habit, and a default response to problems big and small. In those cases, experts say it’s important for parents to step in.

Why ‘Crashing Out’ Happens

Many factors can lead to adolescents’ emotions becoming unmanageable—aka “crashing out,” says Kristie Tse, LMHC, a New York-based psychotherapist and founder of Uncover Mental Health Counseling.

“Hormones can amplify emotions, making small issues seem insurmountable,” she tells Parents. “External stressors like academic pressure, social media, and peer relationships exacerbate these challenges.”

Especially when left unaddressed, emotional dysregulation can result.1 But a lot of it also comes down to development.

“The brains and bodies of tweens and teens are in a dynamic state of growth and development, as are their abilities to regulate emotions, make well-thought-out decisions, and manage social, school, family, and personal pressures,” says Tom Milam, MD, MDiv, Chief Medical Officer of Iris Telehealth, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, and Attending Psychiatrist at Carilion Clinic.

Sanam Hafeez, PsyD, a New York City-based neuropsychologist and Director of Comprehend the Mind, adds, “Teens go through intense hormonal shifts in impulse control, and the prefrontal cortex—which regulates self-control—is still developing.”

How Parents Can Help Kids Avoid ‘Crashing Out’

Understanding the underlying emotions that cause kids to “crash out” can help prevent outbursts and encourage healthier emotional expression, according to Tse.

Meanwhile, modeling appropriate reactions to stressful situations is one of the most important things parents can do to help kids do the same.

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Yet another strain of the virus that causes mpox might be readily spreading from person to person, according to an analysis of the pathogen’s genome. This development could further complicate efforts to halt the spread of the disease in Central Africa, which has seen a surge in infections over the past year. And it has left researchers scratching their heads over what is currently driving this surge.

The findings hint that the strain, called clade Ia, is spreading in a sustained fashion between people — possibly through sexual contact — in an outbreak in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Previously, the viral variant was known to transmit predominantly from animals to humans in Central Africa.

“We know that viruses evolve — we have seen it with Ebola, we have seen it with COVID and we expected to see it with mpox as well,” says Placide Mbala, head of epidemiology and global health at the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, who co-led the analysis. “We don’t know how far these adaptations can go, and we are gathering data to understand how this evolution is occurring.”

The preliminary results, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, were posted on 22 October to the genomic-epidemiology discussion forum Virological.

Mpox diversifies

There are four known variants of the monkeypox virus: clades Ia, Ib, IIa, and IIb (see ‘Quick guide to the strains of monkeypox virus’). Historically, clade I viruses have appeared mostly in Central Africa, and clade II viruses have cropped up in West Africa.

This all changed in the mid-2010s, when a clade II strain sparked an outbreak in Nigeria. At the time, some researchers suggested that the variant might be capable of transmission through sexual contact. Their insights proved prescient: a similar clade II strain, called IIb, sparked a global outbreak of mpox in 2022 that has infected more than 90,000 people and continues today.

Meanwhile, clade I viruses have caused sporadic infections in people for more than 50 years — largely in rural regions of Central Africa. But in late 2023, researchers identified a rapidly growing outbreak in more densely populated, urban areas in eastern regions of the DRC that disproportionately affected sex workers, suggesting that this strain of the virus could, like IIb, spread readily between people.

Genomic sequencing confirmed that the variant causing this outbreak contained several key differences from other clade I viruses, leading researchers to name it Ib. This strain has been detected in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Thailand, India, Germany, and six African countries that had never reported mpox infections before. The DRC has been hit particularly hard: the country has reported nearly 36,000 suspected infections and more than 1,000 deaths from mpox in 2024.

But now — about one year after researchers detected an outbreak of clade Ib in eastern DRC — clade Ia is worrying health officials, too. The strain has also been on the rise in western regions of the DRC and in Kinshasa. In particular, having both Ia and Ib circulating in the capital city threatens the 17 million people living there and raises the possibility of clade I spreading internationally, given that Kinshasa is a travel hub.

Quick guide to the strains of monkeypox virus

• Clade Ia: a strain that has been spreading in Central Africa since the virus was first discovered to infect humans in 1970. Most infections have been in children, and it was known to mainly transmit from animal to human — until recently.

• Clade Ib: the strain that has caused a surge of cases in Central Africa since its discovery in late 2023. Known to spread from person to person, including through sexual contact.
• Clade IIa: the least-studied mpox strain. It has mainly spread in Guinea, Liberia, and Côte d’Ivoire. Modes of transmission are not fully understood; there is no documented evidence of sexual transmission, but it is likely that all forms of close contact contribute to its spread.
• Clade IIb: the strain responsible for the still-simmering 2022 global outbreak. Known to spread from person to person, including through sexual contact. Most affected population has been men who have sex with men.

Signs of evolution

Health officials have been using genomic-sequencing tools to track the outbreak. As part of the effort, Mbala and his colleagues sequenced virus samples from infections in Kinshasa. In samples of both the clade Ia and Ib virus, they found a specific pattern of single-letter genetic mutations indicative of the ongoing battle between the human immune system and the virus — a pattern that would be unlikely to appear unless there was sustained human-to-human spread.

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Thousands of computers across the world are currently scouring the number line in a scavenger hunt for rare mathematical gems. Prime number enthusiasts, looking for larger and larger numbers that are divisible only by 1 and themselves, muster vast amounts of computing power and algorithmic ingenuity in hopes of etching their name into the scrolls of math history.

The latest entry comes from Luke Durant, a researcher in San Jose, Calif. Durant’s discovery overturned the former record holder, which sat uncontested for nearly six years, an unprecedentedly long reign in the modern search for ever larger prime numbers. The gap makes sense: as primes grow, they spread further apart, making each new find harder than the last.

The new prime contains a mind-boggling 41,024,320 digits. To put that in perspective, the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe clocks in at around 80 digits. Every additional digit increases a number by 10 times, so the size of the new prime lives far beyond human intelligibility. Primes play a major role in pure math, where they’re main characters in a field called number theory, and in practice, where, for example, they underlie widely used encryption algorithms. A prime with 41 million digits won’t immediately join the ranks of useful numbers, but for now, it adds a feather in the cap of a community that longs to apprehend the colossal.

Durant’s success stems in part from new clever software from the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search and in part from heavy-duty hardware and computational muscle that he personally mobilized for the pursuit. By assembling a “cloud supercomputer” spanning 17 countries, he ended a long tradition of personal computers discovering primes.

Prime numbers are often called the “building blocks of math” because every whole number greater than 1 has a fingerprint as the product of a unique collection of primes. For example, 15 is the product of the primes 5 and 3, whereas 13 cannot be subdivided like this because 13 is prime. The study of these numbers dates back at least to the ancient Greeks. In 300 B.C.E. Euclid proved in his textbook Elements that infinitely many primes exist, and mathematicians, both professional and amateur, have relished the hunt for them ever since.

While the first string of primes—2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and so on—is easy to find, the task gets considerably more challenging as the numbers get larger. For millennia, people found primes by hand—until 1951, when computers took over the search. But even silicon bounty hunters struggle to spot primes in the far reaches of the number line because testing the primality of an enormous number is nontrivial. To cope, researchers deploy every little optimization trick they can to speed up their tests or narrow their hunting ground, thereby boosting their chances of finding a new prime.

Consider the number 99,400,891. How would you determine whether or not it’s prime? You could simply divide it by every smaller number and check if it has any divisors (in addition to 1 and itself). But that’s nearly 100 million cases to check for a relatively puny eight-digit number. You would save significant work by realizing that you don’t need to check every number up to the target, just the prime numbers. Why? You only need to find one divisor (one number that cleanly divides 99,400,891 with no remainder). We know that any nonprime divisor could be further broken down into its prime factors—if your target is divisible by 15, then it’s also divisible by the primes 5 and 3, so you only need to check the latter to determine primality. Further savings would come from the insight that you don’t need to check every smaller prime either, only those up to the square root of 99,400,891 (the number that when multiplied by itself gives you this eight-digit result). If none of those smaller primes divide it cleanly, then you can stop looking because the product of any two numbers larger than the square root of 99,400,891 will exceed it. These efficiency tricks slash our search drastically, from around 100 million numbers to only 1,228 (the number of primes less than the square root of 99,400,891). For those curious, 99,400,891 = 9,967 × 9,973, so it’s not prime.

Those shortcuts did wonders for an eight-digit number, but how did Durant reach 41,024,320 digits? To graduate the search from the merely massive to the truly gargantuan, he and many other seekers focus on particular types of prime numbers. Mersenne primes, named for Marin Mersenne, the French theologian who studied them in the 17th century, take a special form. You get them by multiplying 2 by itself some number of times and then subtracting 1, as described in the equation 2ⁿ – 1. Mersenne noticed that when you plug in different values for n, you sometimes get a prime number. Specifically, 2ⁿ – 1 can only yield a prime when n itself is prime, and even then it’s not guaranteed. What makes Mersenne primes special from a prime hunter’s perspective is that we know a fast method (called the Lucas-Lehmer primality test) for checking whether numbers of the form 2ⁿ – 1 are prime. That test is much faster than any known general methods for numbers without that special form.

The Lucas-Lehmer test fuels the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search project, which launched in 1996 and enables any volunteer to download a free code that searches for Mersenne primes to run on their computers. The crowdsourced approach and the focus on Mersenne primes have proved successful. The seven largest known primes are all Mersenne primes and were all found by participants of the project. Note that smaller unknown primes certainly exist, but because we don’t know efficient methods for checking them, they’ll remain in the shadows for now.

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