uality of Life After Cancer May Depend on Tumor Type

Cancer survivors' quality of life can vary widely depending on the type of cancer, and millions of U.S. cancer survivors have a lower-than-normal quality of life, a new study finds.

Researchers looked at more than 1,800 adult cancer survivors and more than 24,000 adults with no history of cancer and found that survivors of melanoma, breast and prostate cancers had a mental- and physical-health-related quality of life similar to those who never had cancer.

Survivors of cervical, blood and colorectal cancers, as well as survivors of cancers with a five-year survival rate of less than 25 percent (such as liver, lung and pancreatic cancers), however, had worse physical-health-related quality of life.

And survivors of cervical cancer and cancers with a low five-year survival rate also had worse mental-health-related quality of life, according to the study, which was published in the Oct. 30 issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

The investigators found that 25 percent of cancer survivors had lower than normal physical-health-related quality of life, and 10 percent had lower than normal mental-health-related quality of life. In all, about 3.3 million U.S. cancer survivors have a below-average physical quality of life, and nearly 1.4 million have a below-average mental quality of life, the researchers estimated.

"It is very concerning that there are a substantial number of cancer survivors who experience poor mental or physical health years after cancer," study author Kathryn Weaver, assistant professor at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said in a journal news release.

"Our results will serve as a baseline so that in five to 10 years, we can assess whether current approaches to improving the health and well-being of cancer survivors are having a positive effect," she said. "I also hope our data will draw attention to the ongoing needs of cancer survivors -- particularly those with cervical, blood and less common cancers -- and to the importance of monitoring these individuals, even long after their cancer diagnosis."

Student Life Network Introduces Canada's Luckiest Student Contest

Student Life Network and CIBC are looking for Canada''s Luckiest Student. The Canada''s Luckiest Student contest is a combination prize draw and social marketing campaign, specially designed to deliver value and build excitement for students through a series of prizes revealed monthly and a web platform that makes sharing easy - and heavily rewarding.

Since the soft launch of Canada''s Luckiest Student in September, more than 40,000 students have enrolled; its Facebook fans now exceed 20,000 and Twitter account has jumped to 42,000 followers.

With Canada''s Luckiest Student, participants will receive multiple entries based on simple actions: enrolling, opting-in for new prizing, or sharing information on the contest with friends. A significant feature and unique aspect of the contest is that it rewards networks of people, rather than only a single person. Throughout the contest, which ends June 15, 2013, each participant is invited to choose classmates, friends, family and even their school or favourite charity as partners with whom they would share collaborative prizing. For example, participants can win a $5,000 shopping spree for themselves and their friends at Mexx, five Dell XPS Ultrabooks for sharing with up to four friends and a 14-day trip for two to Europe from itravel2000.com.

Student Life Network is expecting more than 300,000 students to participate in the contest.
"Companies want our business," said David Duarte, a student from McMaster University and one of the first students to enroll in the contest. "It''s pretty much all around us, but this is one of the few campaigns that is simple, interactive and easy to share. It has certainly grabbed the attention of our student body."

The contest, which has already gone viral, is just getting started. Student Life Network has only revealed a few of the exciting prizes to be unveiled over the contest period, including a $20,000 GIC to help with school, five Dell ultrabooks for sharing with friends, a $5,000 shopping spree at Mexx for the winner and five friends and a 14-day trip for two to Europe from itravel2000.com. The company has barely scratched the surface of its planned marketing campaign to support the contest, which includes extensive social media, on-campus activity and has attracted a top-notch roster of corporate sponsors led by CIBC, one of Canada''s leading financial institutions.

"CIBC is proud to present Canada''s Luckiest Student contest," said Veni Iozzo, CIBC''s Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Strategy. "We have a longstanding commitment to investing in young Canadians and supporting initiatives that foster community. We''re thrilled to get involved with this innovative program that will delight and engage students, and includes a strong educational component along with benefits that can be shared among a group of people."

"Corporations are looking for some quality face time with students and are ready to devote product and resources to make this happen in a meaningful and memorable way," said T.J. Donnelly, president and CEO of Toronto-based Student Life Network. "In our experience, students are comfortable with this, but on their terms. They''re prepared to court companies that campaign in a fun, open and collaborative manner. Led by CIBC, the sponsors we have gathered are more than happy to give prizing in a way that encourages education and community."

In addition to CIBC, Mexx, itravel2000.com and Dell have also supported Canada''s Luckiest Student, with more additions expected to be announced soon. Additional partners are being added regularly throughout the contest period with new sponsorship opportunities still available. The contest is open to a total pool of 4 million students in Canada.

"Growth like this is amazing to watch," said Donnelly. "It''s proof that there''s a win-win all around and that students are pleased with our program and partners. I now know they''ll take us seriously and they''ll be rewarded in the process. Trust like this is hard to come by these days and worth its weight in gold, especially in the student market."

Sun Life Financial presents new health index findings at the Summit on Sustainable Health and Health Care

Kevin Press , Assistant Vice-President, Market Insights, Sun Life Financial, will present the latest findings from Sun Life's Canadian Health Index™, sharing surprising statistics on how the economy is affecting the health of Canadians at the Summit on Sustainable Health and Health Care, hosted by The Conference Board of Canada .

The Sun Life Canadian Health Index™ measures the health attitudes and behaviours of Canadians.

The third Ipsos Reid/Sun Life Financial Canadian Health Index™ is based on findings of an Ipsos Reid poll conducted between June 29 and July 16, 2012 . A sample of 3,113 Canadians from 18 to 80 years of age from the Ipsos Canadian online panel was interviewed.

About Sun Life Financial

Sun Life Financial is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of protection and wealth accumulation products and services to individuals and corporate customers. Chartered in 1865, Sun Life Financial and its partners today have operations in key markets worldwide, including Canada , the United States , the United Kingdom , Ireland , Hong Kong , the Philippines , Japan , Indonesia , India , China and Bermuda . As of June 30, 2012 , the Sun Life Financial group of companies had total assets under management of $496 billion . For more information please visit www.sunlife.com.

Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.

The Life-Savers Aquatic: Waterproof iPhone Cases

Next time you go spelunking, make sure your iPhone’s prepared for a dunking. All of these waterproof cases are available for iPhone 4 and 4S, and two of the three are available for iPhone 5. All three companies also make sealed cases for iPads and iPods. And although the iPhone 5 cases probably won’t be ready for a few more weeks, you can pre-order them today.

Also, we wanted to test Otter’s new iPhone cases, but they weren’t ready yet. We’ll give those a full review soon. But for now, let’s start with the best of the bunch.

LifeProof iPhone Case
LifeProof’s case ($80, iPhone 4/4S, iPhone 5, iPad and iPod) has the lowest profile of the three iPhone cases we tested, and it’s the only one of the three that works as an everyday case. The Lifeproof case also has the highest waterproof rating. It has an IP-68 rating, which means it’s been tested in a lab where it proved to be dust-proof and provide full protection against long-term submersion under water. I confirmed this claim by submerging my iPhone 4 inside it for an hour without any leakage.

When the case is on, you can use the iPhone with almost no restrictions. The touchscreen is very responsive, and you can still access all the ports and buttons. You can take it just about anywhere with you, too — LifeProof makes a slew of accessories, including a floating lifejacket, and an armband with a quick-release function for when you want to pop off a quick picture. On a sunrise trail run in Whiskeytown National Park, I was able to stop, disengage the case from the armband, then take a picture all in a matter of seconds. There’s also a case add-on that integrates with any and all GoPro mounts, meaning you can lock it onto your bike or helmet and use it as an action cam.

Do Entrepreneurs Need Work-Life Balance?

Entrepreneurs always talk about the work-life balance, and how to achieve it. As a woman, I have so much respect for those women out there who are successful mothers and entrepreneurs. I mean, being in a happy and healthy marriage is difficult enough. Couple that with raising children and running business? That seems nearly impossible to me. Perhaps that’s why so many women I know choose one over the other.

What We Sacrifice

To build a company from the ground up requires tremendous focus, drive and commitment. For me, it took precedence over the mundane things in life – like coming home early enough to make dinner for my husband, or being “present” while my blackberry was buzzing away with important emails (that of course I had to check immediately!). For the last few years, my business came before my personal life. When we went on vacation, I spent half the time on my laptop and phone, and the other half wondering what I could be accomplishing if I was working. When I made plans with family or friends,  I often bailed last minute because I was either working or too exhausted. When I spent time with my husband, it was usually because I connived him into coming with me to some networking or social event. And starting a family? Unquestionable until I accomplished X, Y and Z.

The irony is, before we got married, my husband and I constantly argued about having kids. I wanted kids right away, while he wanted to wait a few years. Boy, did we argue about it. But as soon as we got married and started our company, the tables suddenly turned. In fact, if my husband ever brought it up, I’d remind him of all the things we need to still accomplish beforehand. Eventually we stopped talking about it. My husband knew that growing the business and building my real estate portfolio were more important to me than anything else.

The Rude Awakening

But then a catastrophe happened last month while I was away overseas, and I almost lost my husband forever. I’ll never forget that brutal 10-hour plane ride back to NY. I kept asking myself: What IS the purpose of life? Is it to work all the time and push away all the things that money can’t buy? What would be the point of having all the money in the world if I didn’t have loved ones to share it with?

The fear of losing my husband woke me up. I realized that I had no work-life balance. Of course, I can’t (and don’t want to) change who I am, or my incessant need to build and grow. But I could change how I channel that growth. I absolutely love being an entrepreneur and building my company. But I also love being a good wife, friend, and one day, a mother. We all know that there is more to life than just business and making money, but for some reason, I couldn’t see it.

I recently heard inspirational speaker and entrepreneur Warren Rustand speak at an EO event, on how he mastered the work-life balance with 7 kids. He quoted George Carlin to make a point about how we currently live our lives:

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.”

What IS Work-Life Balance

The work-life balance is not simply about working less or starting a family. It’s also about learning how to truly live and enjoy our lives. I’m determined to achieve that balance. Now, I don’t obsess about work when I come home from work, like I used to. When I’m out to dinner, my phone stays in my bag. When I make plans with friends, well…I still sometimes cancel them :)

I used to believe that taking “time off” from work meant that my business wouldn’t grow as fast as it should. Now I am confident that achieving the work-life balance will actually help my business grow, and life would be a whole lot more fun and enjoyable. In fact, I just found out yesterday that my company was awarded our first 5-year hospital contract, thanks to being a woman-owned business (click here to learn more about MWBE). It was the coolest reminder that we can have balance and still accomplish our goals.

Are you an entrepreneur who figured out the secret to balancing your business and personal life? I’d love to hear how you do (or plan to do) it!

Lance Armstrong Banned for Life

The global governing body of cycling today said it will officially strip Lance Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and ban him from the sport for life, marking an epic downfall for the cyclist once lauded as the greatest of all time but now at the center of a doping scandal.

"Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling," Pat McQuaid, the president of the International Cycling Union, known as UCI, said today at a news conference in Switzerland. "This is a landmark day for cycling."

The UCI's decision comes days after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency banned Armstrong from the sport for life for alleged use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The USADA issued a 200-page report Oct. 10 after a wide-scale investigation into Armstrong's alleged use of performance-enhancing substances.

The agency said its investigators interviewed 26 people with direct knowledge of Armstrong's alleged doping, including 11 teammates, and collected 1,000 pages of evidence accusing him of cheating.

McQuaid accepted the USADA's sanctions and said he was "sickened" by the evidence in the report, pointing to testimony from one of Armstrong's former teammates David Zabriskie, in which he details how he was allegedly coercing into doping.

Armstrong tried to fight the USADA ban in court, but told the USADA in August that he wouldn't fight the doping charges against him. He has maintained he never cheated.

Armstrong made two appearances this weekend at the Livestrong Foundation's 15th anniversary charity gala, but did not concede much in the way of an explanation or apology for the alleged doping that cost him his medals and lucrative sponsors.

"People ask me a lot, 'How are you doing?' And I tell them, 'I've been better but I've also been worse,'" the cancer survivor said. "This mission is bigger than me. It's bigger than any individual."

Armstrong stepped down as the chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the cancer charity commonly known as Livestrong that he founded in 1997, a year after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 25. He resigned last week to "spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy."

Nike, Anheuser-Busch and Trek Bicycles are among the companies that severed ties with the cycling star last week in the wake of the scandal. Oakley sunglasses cut ties with Armstrong today after the UCI decision.
As Armstrong's sponsorships and reputation have fallen off a cliff, the silence surrounding his alleged doping methods over the years has begun to crack. In the USADA report, teammates describe years of systematic doping, using banned substances and receiving illicit blood transfusions.

A former competitor, Stephen Swart, testified in a deposition that Armstrong bribed him to throw a race with a $1 million prize. Swart said he was offered approximately $50,000 to allow Armstrong to win.
The USADA also accuses Armstrong of trying to intimidate witnesses.

Former Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts said Armstrong and his inner circle tried to turn her into a villain with her bosses and smear her reputation personally when they heard she was investigation doping allegations.

"I don't really think there's any politician, celebrity or athlete who has really put together the machinery to suppress reporting about them like Lance Armstrong has," Roberts said.

Roberts said Armstrong's Livestrong Foundation was never far from the surface, something others have referred to as his "cancer shield."

"You're confronted with sort of the perception that if you're not pro-Lance, then, absurdly, you're pro-cancer," Roberts told ABC News.

Former Bicycling magazine editor and chief Steve Madden wrote about Armstrong's alleged influence in a blog post: "Armstrong exerted a Corleone-like influence in the cycling industry ... he could make an advertiser disappear from our pages."

McQuaid said the UCI will meet Friday to discuss the fate of Armstrong's 2000 Olympic bronze medal.
With the UCI decision, Armstrong might face multimillion-dollar lawsuits from ex-sponsors and might have to return about $4 million in cash prizes that he has won since 1998 as a seven-time Tour champion.

What Makes Earth So Perfect for Life?

The closest star system to our own made headlines yesterday with the announcement that it hosts a planet about the mass of Earth — a tantalizing discovery so close, astronomically speaking, to us.

While the newfound planet may be Earth-sized, researchers say it is almost certainly barren.

Astronomers detected the alien world around the sunlike star Alpha Centauri B, which is a member of a three-star system only 4.3 light-years away from our solar system. This planet, known as Alpha Centauri Bb,is about as massive as Earth, but its hot surface may be covered with molten rock — its orbit takes it about 25 times closer to its star than Earth is from the sun.

"We're pretty sure there's no chance of life on this planet," said MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager.
So what makes a world such as ours able to host life? Why is Earth so special?

There are a few key ingredients that scientists often agree are needed for life to exist — but much debate remains as to what limits there actually might be on life. Even Earth hosts some strange creatures that live in extreme environments. [Strangest Places Where Life Is Found on Earth]

Here's what makes life able to thrive on our home planet (and likely for alien life to arise on other worlds):

Water
"First, you'd need some kind of liquid, any place where molecules can go react," Seager told OurAmazingPlanet. In such a soup, the ingredients for life as we know it, such as DNA and proteins, can swim around and interact with each other to carry out the reactions needed for life to happen.

The most common contender brought up for this solvent is the one life uses on Earth: water. Water is an excellent solvent, capable of dissolving many substances. It also floats when it is frozen, unlike many liquids, meaning that ice can insulate the underlying fluid from freezing further. If water instead sunk when frozen, this would allow another layer of water to freeze and sink, and eventually all the water would get frozen, making the chemical reactions behind life impossible.

Astronomers looking for extraterrestrial life most often focus on planets in the so-called habitable zones of their stars — orbits that are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to persist on the surfaces of those worlds. Earth happened to hit the Goldilocks mark, forming within the sun's habitable zone. Mars and Venus lie outside it; if Earth's orbit had been just a bit further inside or outside of where it is, life may likely never have arisen and the planet would be a cold desert like Mars or a cloudy furnace like Venus.

Of course, alien life may not play by the rules we're used to on Earth.

Astrobiologists increasingly suggest looking beyond conventional habitable zones. For instance, while liquid water might not currently persist on the surface of Mars or Venus, there may have been a time when it did. Life might have evolved on their surfaces in that time, and then either fled to safer locales on those planets, such as underground, or adapted to the environment when it became harsh, much as so-called extremophile organisms have on Earth, or both.

In addition, other solvents might host life. "Saturn's moon Titan has liquid methane and ethane." Seager said.

Energy
Second, life needs energy. Without energy, virtually nothing would happen.

The most obvious source of energy is a planet or moon's host star, as is the case on Earth, where sunlight drives photosynthesis in plants. The nutrients created by photosynthesis in turn are what the bulk of life on Earth directly or indirectly relies on for fuel. [50 Amazing Facts About Earth]

Still, countless organisms on Earth subsist on other sources of energy as well, such as the chemicals from deep water vents.  There may be no shortage of energy sources for life to live off.

Time
Scientists have argued that habitable worlds need stars that can live at least several billion years, long enough for life to evolve, as was the case on Earth.

Some stars only live a few million years before dying. Still, "life might originate very fast, so age is not that important," astrobiologist Jim Kasting at Pennsylvania State University told OurAmazingPlanet.
For instance, the Earth is about 4.6 billion years old. The oldest known organism first appeared on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, meaning that life might conceivably evolve in 1.1 billion years or less. However, more complex forms of life did take longer to evolve — the first multicellular animals did not appear on Earth until about 600 million years ago. Because our sun is so long-lived, comparatively, higher orders of life, including humans, had time to evolve.

Recycling
Other researchers have suggested that plate tectonics is vital for a world to host life — that is, a planet whose shell is broken up into plates that constantly move around.

"People talk about plate tectonics as essential in recycling molecules life needs," Seager said. For instance, carbon dioxide helps trap heat from the sun to keep Earth warm. This gas normally gets bound up in rocks over time, meaning the planet would eventually freeze. Plate tectonics helps ensure this rock gets dragged downward, where it melts, and this molten rock eventually releases this carbon dioxide gas back into the atmosphere through volcanoes.

"Plate tectonics is useful but probably not imperative," Kasting said. Seager agreed, saying that "volcanism might very well provide enough fresh supplies of whatever life might need."

Bonus features
Other factors researchers have trotted out for why life succeeded on Earth include how little variation there is in our sun's radiation compared with more volatile stars, or how our planet has a magnetic field that protects us from any storms of charged particles from the sun. Violent bursts of radiation could have scoured life from Earth in its early, fragile stages.

Still, "people are constantly rethinking each of these things and how important they are," Seager said. "We're trying to be less conservative and more open-minded. We want to learn about what gray areas might exist for possible life."

Earth remains the only known planet to host life, due to a unique combination of factors. However, continued monitoring of alien worlds might one day change that, by finding other planets that share these attributes or by discovering other ways that life has found to blossom in the universe.

Life as a shared cosmic narrative

British novelist Sebastian Faulks has always maintained that he doesn't choose the subjects he writes about; rather, they choose him. "You overhear things, things annoy you, things touch you, things make you laugh, and then you think about it for a long, long time. They can be gestating for years," says the 59-year-old author of such novels as Birdsong, Charlotte Gray - adapted into the 2001 film of the same name starring Cate Blanchett - and, most recently, A Week in December. Not to mention three non-fiction works, or his 2008 Bond continuation novel, Devil May Care. "There's a great deal of luck, I think, in the genesis of all novels."

His latest and eleventh novel, A Possible Life, was in fact seeded by his 2005 novel Human Traces, which in turn lodged in his consciousness in embryonic form more than 40 years ago. "The genesis of A Possible Life is really a reflection that one of the characters of Human Traces, Jacques, has about whether a self, one's self, is satisfactorily distinguished from another.

"Whether we can ever be really sure that we'll die. Or whether in fact we are all taking part in the same cosmic story, the same joined up life. That's his fear, and that's one of the ideas that lies behind this book."

Indeed, Faulks explores these concerns through the stories of five individuals whose lives are tethered in disparate eras and continents. From the story of a British prep-school teacher turned spy in World War II, to that of a workhouse boy in Victorian London, an illiterate housekeeper in Napoleonic France, and on to an account of two musicians in 70s America, it misses nary a beat. Yet even with its central and most thematically revealing story, concerning Elena Duranti, a neuroscientist in a future Italy who discovers the part of the brain responsible for human consciousness, A Possible Life has confounded critics with its structure. But not with its haunting concerns about the nature of human consciousness and identity.

"Neuroscientists currently believe there's no such thing, really, as a self, it's what they call a necessary fiction. In other words, it's a delusion - but one that's hopeful for human beings to have. It is a very disturbing idea to think that our so-called higher function is complete nonsense. But as Elena herself reflects at one point, '(Knowing) this doesn't take away the aching of the heart'."

Intriguingly, the book's opening chapter about a British prep-school teacher, who is captured as a spy in wartime France and sent to a concentration camp, was again triggered by a chance reading of a document in the Imperial War Museum about two British Army officers who'd been accidentally sent to Auschwitz instead of a POW camp. "Both of them survived and one of them wrote afterwards 'We felt it was our duty as British officers to set an example to the other inmates of this awful place'. There was something terribly touching, slightly grotesque, slightly comic really about that, so that was my sort of way into that."

He happily cites other chance encounters too, that seeded parts of this potent novel but says: "I was surprised to find myself again creating, as it were, a French house and village in A Possible Life. But there is something about rural France, which I discovered when I first started writing 25 years or more ago, that just suggests to me these stories, these characters, these dilemmas, in a way that (England) doesn't seem to."

Faulks, who was recently ranked one of Britain's most successful novelists, with sales of 4.5 million books since 1998, by trade magazine The Bookseller, credits France with freeing him as a novelist. "It was a liberation and an inspiration and its one that I'll always be grateful for.

"It's connected with trying to get outside your own immediate environment and your own immediate experiences. Some novelists write about their own lives in thinly disguised form but that wasn't something that I was interested in doing. I needed to find another life, another way of writing about other people."

It was the phenomenal success of his third novel, Birdsong, that enabled this former journalist to become a full-time novelist. Currently co-writing the screenplay for the film version of Birdsong, he recalls writing it in "huge anger". There's also "huge anger" behind Charlotte Gray, which opened up discussion of a chapter of French World War II history that few had visited.

Almost all his novels are powered "by a sense of injustice, a sense that things have not been properly understood".

Strangers to Reason: LIFE Inside a Psychiatric Hospital, 1938

For all of the lighthearted and often downright frivolous material that appeared in LIFE through the years — and there was, thank goodness, a lot of lighthearted, frivolous reporting and photography in most every issue — the magazine was always at its best when addressing, head-on, the thorniest, most resonant issues of the day. That coverage included features on the era-defining people and events for which LIFE, all these decades later, is most clearly remembered (World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, the Space Race, Vietnam and, of course, pop culture legends like Marilyn, JFK and Liz Taylor), as well as other topics that the magazine tackled because, quite simply, they mattered.

The magazine’s archives are filled with countless stories and photo essays that, at the time they were reported, helped drive (if only for a while) the national conversation around explosive — and frequently under-reported — issues. LIFE covered the post-war rise of the Klan; the struggles of returning WWII veterans; the quiet heroics of a midwife in the rural South; and other stories that other publications didn’t have the vision or, more frequently, the resources to fully investigate.

In this vein, less than two years after its premier issue, LIFE confronted its readers with a devastating photo essay on an issue that has bedeviled humanity for, quite literally, centuries: how to treat those among us who suffer from debilitating, and often frightening, mental disorders.

Even today, three-quarters of a century after they were shot, Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photographs from the grounds of Pilgrim State Hospital on Long Island are remarkable for the way they blend clear-eyed reporting with a genuine sense of compassion. But what is perhaps most unsettling about the images is how terribly familiar they look.

The treatment of mental illness — in all its confounding varieties and degrees — has come a long, long way since the 1930s, and in most countries is now immeasurably more humane, comprehensive and discerning than the brutal approaches of even a century ago. Advancements in psychiatric medications alone have helped countless people lead fuller lives than they might have without drugs. And yet … the grim, desolate tone of the pictures in this gallery will feel eerily contemporary to anyone familiar with psych wards in large hospitals today.

Let God recycle your life

More than 3,000 teens gathered Wednesday night at the Muncie Fieldhouse to do some recycling.

Sort of.

“Let God recycle your life,” said Jeff Mosier, area Fellowship of Christian Athletes representative at the start of Fields of Faith. “All of us, if we are being honest, if we look inside our hearts, we would find something that needs recycled. Our God is a master recycler.”

The annual event, which drew students from six counties, had a recycling theme this year, complete with the three R’s. But these three R’s were “recognize,” “repent” and “restore.”

Fields of Faith is student-driven, student-led opportunity to share their Christian faith with fellow students. It’s also quite the party, with a rock band, colorful lights and lots of singing.

The students gathered here in Muncie joined thousands of other youth on more than 400 athletic fields and in fieldhouses all across the nation for the seventh annual event.

A group from Daleville High School arrived at 6 p.m. to get a prime spot in the gym floor.

“We love Jesus!” they chanted.

“This is our biggest FCA group ever,” said Jaime Roberts, 18, one of the Daleville “huddle” leaders. “We used to have eight at the most come to our meetings. Now we have at least 40 every week.”

This was Ashley Kinnick’s first year in the Daleville FCA and her first time at FOF.

“Everyone told me how much fun it was, so here I am,” she said as the FCA Worship Band played “Born Again.”

Twenty-three students made the trip from Anderson Preparatory Academy. This was their first time participating in the event.

“It’s so great to be able to come here and be with our friends as we learn more about God and have a really good time,” said Miranda Newland, 18.

Students speakers told stories that tied into one of the R’s.

Jackie Hernandez, a senior at Shenandoah High School, spoke of “restoring your life through Jesus Christ.”

Samantha Santini, a freshman at Central High School, asked students to “recognize your sins,” then “repent and give your all to Christ.”

Wapahani High School senior Brandon Williams spoke of how Jesus “restored” his relationship with his brother.

Isaac Miller, a freshman at Burris Laboratory School, said God helped him “recognize” the anger in his life.

Rossi Wingler, a senior at Central, spoke about her troubled life (a mother who left when she was 9, a battle with anorexia and bulimia, underage drinking).

“My life was restored by Jesus Christ,” she said.

Most of the teens agreed that their favorite part of the event were the worship songs, a chance, as Roberts put it, “to sing and praise and get closer to everyone here as you get closer to the Lord.”

During one of the songs, “White Flag,” students held up white tissues and small flags as they “surrendered” their lives to the Lord.

Tom Jarvis, principal at Central, stood away from the crowd and smiled.

“So many times people get down on this generation,” he said. “It’s things like this that really lift this generation up.”

Fields of Faith began in 2004. The first local event in 2009 drew 15 schools. In 2010, there were 22. Last year, 33 FCA “huddle groups” from area schools gathered at the fieldhouse.

This year, there were 43 schools represented.

The main speaker was Mark Shaner, the youth pastor at East Side Church of God in Anderson.

“Your first job is to recognize you aren’t perfect, that you don’t have it all together,” he told the crowd as they sat on the floor or in the bleachers, completely silent. “Your second job is to repent. Fix your eyes on Jesus and follow him. The last job isn’t your job. It’s not my job. It’s Jesus’ job.”

He then asked for students to come forward, to be restored. And one by one, they made their way to the stage.

'Life of Pi' Author Calls India 'Horrible' but Where he Also Considered 'Faith'

Canadian author Yann Martel's views on the time he spent in India writing his award winning book Life of Pi have made news here.

Martel was quoted in the Hindustan Times newspaper stating: “You know you can't fall asleep in India both morally and existentially - for better or for worse. In some ways, India is a horrible place. It's corrupt, violent; there are inequities that are disturbing. At the same time, the place gave us Mahatma Gandhi. It's a place of idealism and corruption.”

Life of Pi was published in 2001 and revolves around an Indian boy  - Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel - from the picturesque South Indian coastal town of Pondicherry who survives a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger.

The Man Booker Prize winning novel has been adapted for the big screen by director Ang Lee featuring a star cast that includes leading Indian actor Irrfan Khan, actress Tabu and 17-year-old newcomer Suraj Sharma in the lead role.

Martel, 49, spent a year in India to write the novel which was first published by Knopf Canada.

“India is the best and the worst of humanity. There's a lot of extremism. Sometimes it gets a little exhausting,” he said, adding, “What India brought to me was that for first time I actually and seriously considered faith. What does it mean to believe in (the Hindu God) Vishnu and Allah and Buddha and Jesus? Religion in India, for better or for worse, is still a mainstream thing, right? It's worst in the extremism of (political parties) BJP and Shiv Sena and like that but then it's also positive. Because I was in India, it got me intrigued by religion and that also led me to write Life of Pi and also changed my life.”

A selection of comments quoted by the newspaper from Indian personalities give Martel his right to express his views on the country. “If he is pointing out something that’s wrong in our country, we should work on it,” said film-maker Rohan Sippy. Leading commercials director Prahlad Kakkaradded, “Martel is probably right. Everything is a pain in the a** here. You have to face corruption to get anything done. It's only when you have to work here that you realise that the government of India is largely responsible in making our lives difficult.”

Expectedly, the story has drawn a flurry of online comments on the Hindustan Times website. “I agree with him,” said a post by Tina. “Females are not given a chance to live by their own parents and murdered before and after birth... No woman is safe in India. They are treated worse than animals. I am ashamed to call India "Bharat Mata" (Mother India) where no sister, daughter, wife, mother feels safe.”

“India attracts some immensely and repulses others. It polarizes people. Yann Mantel's observations are unfortunately not so unique,” said a post by gul_ramani.

Soldier fighting for life is 21 yrs old

A soldier fighting for his life after being injured in a truck accident at a Sydney military reserve is just 21.

The young man was one of 18 army personnel who were injured when the troop carrier overturned during a defence exercise at Holsworthy Barracks on Monday morning.

The open-top truck careered off the side of the road and rolled several times, throwing the soldiers from the vehicle.

Two men were airlifted to hospital, including the 21-year-old who remains in a critical condition at Liverpool Hospital, a hospital spokesman told AAP.

Three men, aged 19 and one aged 29, were described as being stable.

The spokesman said five other soldiers had been released from the hospital overnight.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Defence was unable to confirm the condition of the remaining soldiers or the nature of their injuries.

More information will be released later on Tuesday, she said.

Metropolitan Crash Investigation Unit Commander Inspector Steve Blair has suggested speed may have caused the Mercedes-Benz Unimog multi-purpose truck to roll.

He said the truck was travelling in convoy with a support vehicle carrying equipment at the time of the crash.

Defence Force Association executive director Neil James said the model of truck involved was old and overdue for replacement.

'In their day they were an absolutely superb vehicle, but for a vehicle introduced in the mid-1980s they're getting near the end of their service life,' he told ABC radio on Tuesday.