Weekend Reads 8/24/19

Have we found the true cause of diabetes, stroke and Alzheimer's?

Too much red meat, too little fruit and veg, smoking, drinking, obesity and not enough exercise appear to make all these diseases more likely – and having any of them makes getting the others more likely. But no one really knows why, and we still haven’t worked out what causes any of them. Alzheimer’s is now one of the UK’s biggest killers, yet the main hypothesis for how it originates imploded this year after drugs based on it repeatedly failed. High blood cholesterol is blamed for heart attacks, except most people who have heart attacks don’t have it.

The oldest continuously operating library in the world is in this Egyptian monastery.

From the day it was founded in the 6th century (between 548 and 565, according to chronicles), the library of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai has never closed its doors. Built during the reign of Justinian I, the monastery was originally sponsored by the mother of Constantine the Great, Empress Helena. Its walls are still home to ancient Roman scrolls dating back to the days when the monastery itself was founded, which makes St. Catherine’s the second largest collection of codices and manuscripts in the world, right after the Vatican Library in Rome. In fact, from this monastery comes the famous Codex Sinaiticus, the biblical text dated to the year 345.

Warren tells Native Americans: 'I have made mistakes'

Warren faced backlash late last year when she released results of a test that demonstrated she was between 1/64 and 1/1028 Native American. She has since apologized repeatedly for the confusion caused when she identified herself as a Native American.

Americans are wasting an incredible amount of vacation days

If Americans used just over half of their 768 million unused days to travel, according to the researchers’ estimates, it could add $151.5 billion in additional travel spending and two million American jobs.