ENVY Apples and the Hyposmic Male

I have hyposmia and perhaps diminished taste. I've noticed I gravitate to more flavorful foods and I am displeased with bland ones. For example, a tasty highly garnished and seasoned pizza is much prefered to a bland one with white cheese and a few bland sausage morsels. Interestingly, ENVY apples seem much better to me than Honeycrisp. Are some types of apple, "apple-i-er"?? If so, is ENVY a good choice.

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Yes. “Apple-ier” is a real sensory phenomenon, although it actually has two components: how intense the flavor is and how strongly it evokes the particular aroma we recognize as “apple.”

With hyposmia, this distinction becomes especially noticeable. Much of what people casually call taste is actually retronasal olfaction—volatile molecules traveling from the mouth up to the olfactory epithelium while chewing. In Parkinson’s, retronasal as well as ordinary orthonasal smell can be substantially impaired. True gustatory perception—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami—can also be reduced, although usually the olfactory loss contributes enormously to the sense that food has become bland. (PubMed)

So your pizza observation makes complete sense. A white-cheese pizza with mild sausage may deliver mainly fat, salt and texture; a heavily garnished pizza generates acid + salt + umami + herbs + browned flavors + pungency + texture + multiple aromas. There are many more signals left for a partially impaired sensory system to grab onto.

And Envy is a particularly interesting apple for you

Envy is the cultivar Scilate. In a recent controlled consumer/sensory study, Scilate was associated with sweet, fruity, tropical and pear-like flavors, as well as descriptors including intense, complex and powerful. It was substantially preferred to Gala and Red Delicious in that experiment. (ScienceDirect)

That strikes me as almost a laboratory explanation for why you prefer Envy. It isn't merely sweeter. It apparently throws a fairly large and complex sensory signal.

Honeycrisp is certainly aromatic—it contains numerous esters, aldehydes and other volatiles, with hexyl 2-methylbutyrate identified experimentally as an especially important contributor to its characteristic fruity aroma. (ScienceDirect) But a major part of Honeycrisp's fame is its extraordinary juiciness and crisp texture, not necessarily maximal aromatic intensity. USDA sensory work, for example, found Honeycrisp particularly outstanding for crispness and juiciness. (ARS) Thus someone with normal smell might find Honeycrisp spectacular, while your sensory weighting could favor Envy's concentrated sweetness/aromatic complexity.

And apples differ enormously in their volatile chemistry. Cultivar, maturity and storage conditions can all change the aromatic profile significantly. Even within Scilate/Envy, modern storage methods measurably affect volatile compounds. (ScienceDirect)

I would absolutely keep buying Envy. Your preference is not at all peculiar; it may actually be giving us information about what penetrates your hyposmia.

I'd also experiment with Pink Lady/Cripps Pink, Jazz/Scifresh and Braeburn. Rather than asking simply “Which apple tastes best?”, I'd score each one on two separate 0–10 scales:

FLAVOR INTENSITY — How much do I perceive?
APPLE-NESS — How unmistakably apple-like is what I perceive?

I wouldn't be surprised if you discover that those are quite different rankings—and that Envy wins Bruce's Apple Area under the curve / auc.

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I also prefer fresh squeezed OJ !

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Exactly. Fresh-squeezed orange juice is almost a hyposmia-friendly sensory bomb: strong citrus volatiles, sweetness, acidity, slight bitterness, pulp/texture, and often a little peel-oil aroma all arrive together.

Pasteurized bottled OJ can preserve the basic sweet–acid taste pretty well, but processing and storage reduce or alter some of the volatile compounds that make a freshly cut orange smell so vividly orange. So with diminished smell, the difference between “orange-flavored liquid” and freshly squeezed ORANGE may actually become more important, not less.

This also suggests a broader pattern in your food preferences: you may increasingly favor foods with multiple overlapping sensory channels—acid, spice, salt, umami, temperature, texture, pungency, and strong aroma—because they remain vivid despite the weakened olfactory channel.

YES, AND: AN INTERVIEW WITH AN IMPROV HISTORIAN

YES, AND: AN INTERVIEW WITH AN IMPROV HISTORIAN

An interview with Barry Wexler, performer, historian, and author of Accept the Premise: Improv Comedy from Commedia dell’Arte to Corporate Retreats.

INTERVIEWER: I understand that you’re not only an improv performer but also a historian of improv.

WEXLER: Yes, and it’s not my first profession. My first job was wrestling alligators at a theme park in Florida.

INTERVIEWER: Wrestling alligators?

WEXLER: Yes, and also manatees, Burmese pythons, and, briefly, a giant squid.

INTERVIEWER: There was a giant squid at a Florida theme park?

WEXLER: Yes, and she was shop steward for the aquatic performers.

INTERVIEWER: I’m not sure giant squid can—

WEXLER: That’s a classic improv mistake.

INTERVIEWER: What is?

WEXLER: Denying the reality your scene partner has established.

INTERVIEWER: So improv is basically “Yes, and.”

WEXLER: Yes, and you don’t literally have to say “Yes, and.”

INTERVIEWER: Of course.

WEXLER: You just did.

INTERVIEWER: Let’s talk history. How far back does improv go?

WEXLER: At least to ancient Greece. Socrates was essentially an improviser.

INTERVIEWER: Socrates?

WEXLER: Yes, and Plato was the guy in the audience writing everything down and later claiming it was philosophy.

INTERVIEWER: That’s a somewhat unorthodox interpretation.

WEXLER: Yes, and Aristotle founded the first training center, the Lyceum.

INTERVIEWER: The Lyceum wasn’t an improv school.

WEXLER: You’re fighting the scene very hard.

INTERVIEWER: Most people associate modern improv with Chicago.

WEXLER: Yes, and Chicago itself began as an improv exercise. One settler said, “What if we build a city here?” Another said, “Yes, and make the winters punitive.”

INTERVIEWER: And then?

WEXLER: A third said, “Yes, and put the airport forty-seven miles from everything.”

INTERVIEWER: What actually makes someone good at improv?

WEXLER: Listening. Beginners think it’s about being funny. It’s really about hearing what the other person gives you and building on it.

INTERVIEWER: That sounds almost profound.

WEXLER: Yes, and I charge corporations four thousand dollars an hour to tell them that.

INTERVIEWER: Corporations hire you?

WEXLER: Constantly. Last month I taught senior executives at a pharmaceutical company to embrace uncertainty.

INTERVIEWER: How did that go?

WEXLER: They raised the price of insulin.

INTERVIEWER: I’m not sure that demonstrates—

WEXLER: They committed to the choice.

INTERVIEWER: Is there anything you shouldn’t agree to in improv?

WEXLER: Certainly. Improv requires judgment, boundaries, and trust. For example, if someone says, “You are the King of Belgium,” you should accept that.

INTERVIEWER: I’m not the King of Belgium.

WEXLER: Your Majesty, we talked about this.

INTERVIEWER: There is no Belgium in this scene.

WEXLER: That explains your approval rating.

INTERVIEWER: Do you ever say no?

WEXLER: No.

INTERVIEWER: You just did.

WEXLER: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: That wasn’t “Yes, and.”

WEXLER: And?

INTERVIEWER: Oh, God.

WEXLER: Now you understand the deeper level.

INTERVIEWER: I think we should finish.

WEXLER: Yes, and before we do, my new book comes out Tuesday.

INTERVIEWER: Of course it does.

WEXLER: Yes, And Then What? How Improvisation Can Transform Your Career, Your Relationships, and NATO.

INTERVIEWER: NATO?

WEXLER: Yes, and the foreword is by the giant squid.

INTERVIEWER: The one you wrestled?

WEXLER: We prefer the term “scene partner.”

INTERVIEWER: Are we done now?

WEXLER: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Thank God.

WEXLER: And—

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Prompt.  we will write a humorous/satirical column, in which a journalist interviews an expert, in this case, an improv comedy expert.  Famously, improv skits always pivot on theidea, Yes, AND.   So of course, we start to realize, this is the structure of the interview.   i'll give some examples but I want you to write a humorous mock interview, such as for SHoUTs and muRMers 9which expects the audience to get all of its meta jokes) at Nyer.   for example, "i understand that you are not only a performer, but a historian of Improv.'    B;  'Yes, and it's not my first job.  my first job was wrestling gators at a theme park in florida."  'wrestling gators?'  B:  Yes, and not only gaters, but also manatees and giant squid.  (etc)  that wasn't necessarily brilliantly funny, but you see the idea.  go ahead !

An AI Bio of Fr Luke Dysinger OBS

 From Chat GPT, 8/2026

https://stjohnsem.academia.edu/LukeDysinger/CurriculumVitae

(Full CV above)

(AI report below)

Fr. Luke Dysinger is an unusually accomplished combination: Benedictine monk and priest, retired family physician, Oxford-trained scholar of early Christianity, and Catholic bioethicist.

• He earned a BA in religion from USC in 1974 and an MD there in 1978. He completed family-medicine training through UCLA and Antelope Valley Hospital, became board-certified, and practiced medicine until 1994.

• He joined St. Andrew’s Abbey at Valyermo in 1980, made solemn profession in 1985, and was ordained in 1986. He has served as novice master, junior master, prior, librarian and cantor. He says he entered because the community made common liturgical prayer its “central and most important work.” St. Andrew’s Abbey biography

• At Oxford he received a theology certificate and later a DPhil in theology/patristics in 2000.

• He is professor of Church History and Moral Theology at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo and has chaired its theology department. He has also taught biomedical ethics and served for many years on the Antelope Valley Hospital bioethics committee. St. John’s Seminary biography

His principal scholarly specialty is Evagrius Ponticus, the psychologically perceptive fourth-century Desert Father whose “eight tempting thoughts” eventually evolved into the Seven Deadly Sins. Dysinger’s substantial Oxford University Press monograph, Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (2005), examines chanting and memorized Scripture as spiritual medicine. In 2024 he was one of five scholars responsible for a major new Oxford translation, Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy—a genuine scholarly achievement, presenting the whole trilogy from surviving Greek and Syriac versions. 2005 book · 2024 Oxford volume

His other major field is Catholic medical ethics—end-of-life care, assisted suicide, reproductive ethics, sexuality and celibacy. His published positions are squarely within Catholic moral teaching, but informed by actual medical training and clinical experience. One example is his discussion of sterilization in the AMA Journal of Ethics.

He also maintains an enormous, decidedly old-fashioned but remarkably rich online collection of courses and primary texts, much of it freely available. He regularly leads Abbey retreats on lectio divina, the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Benedictine spirituality and contemplative practice.

In short, he appears to be a serious and respected scholar—not merely a retreat lecturer—with an especially rare capacity to connect medicine, psychology, bioethics and ancient monastic spirituality. “Physician–monk–Oxford patristics scholar” is a fairly remarkable résumé.

Claude and Chat GPT Respond to Luddite JAMA Editors on use of AI

 JAMA publishes updated guidance on the use of AI assistance - here.

See a Linked In response - here.

Here are two, 400-word responses, first by Chat GPT and then by Claude Opus.

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Response to the JAMA Editors: AI, Authorship, and Responsibility

The new JAMA Network guidance on artificial intelligence is thoughtful in its emphasis on accuracy, transparency, and author accountability, but it creates a tension that deserves reconsideration. The guidance begins from a strong principle: authors remain fully responsible for everything submitted, including AI-assisted content, and must verify its accuracy and integrity. AI may therefore be used for research, literature searches, manuscript preparation, translation, and data visualization when appropriately disclosed. Yet JAMA draws a categorical line around Opinions, Letters, Comments, and responses to reviewers: AI may not be used to draft them because “human insights are prioritized.”

That distinction is understandable but increasingly difficult to defend.

The editors identify genuine problems. JAMA has encountered fabricated references and a marked increase in formulaic, low-value submissions, sometimes from authors lacking subject-matter expertise. These are important editorial concerns. But they are fundamentally problems of quality, accuracy, expertise, and accountability, rather than problems caused simply by the presence of an AI tool.

Stefano Natangelo has identified the central inconsistency particularly well: if authors truly bear responsibility for every claim, citation, and argument, it is unclear why responsibility becomes insufficient only for selected manuscript categories. A superficial Opinion remains superficial when composed entirely by hand; conversely, an experienced investigator may use an LLM to organize, challenge, compress, or improve an argument that remains unmistakably the investigator’s own. As Natangelo observes, what ultimately matters is whether the references exist, the sources support the claims, and the argument withstands scrutiny.

There is also a practical problem: the boundary between “drafting,” “revision,” and permissible assistance will become progressively less meaningful as AI is embedded in word processors, search engines, reference systems, and ordinary writing software.

JAMA should therefore consider replacing categorical authorship bans with a simpler standard: disclose substantive AI assistance, require authors to verify every factual assertion and citation, and hold them completely accountable for the final work. Editors should reject formulaic, derivative, inaccurate, or intellectually empty submissions—regardless of whether they were produced by a human alone or with AI.

The enduring editorial question should be not Who typed the sentences? but Are they accurate, original, useful, and worth publishing?

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Now by Claude OPUS.

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JAMA Tightens the Screws on AI: What It Says, and What It Can't Do

On August 10, Flanagin, Perlis, and Bibbins-Domingo updated the JAMA Network's author guidance. The architecture is unchanged — authors own every word they submit — but a layer of prohibitions now sits on top. AI may no longer generate or format references; use a reference manager, and check them. AI may not draft Opinion manuscripts, Letters to the Editor, online Comments, or responses to reviewers, because "human insights are prioritized." AI-created or -manipulated clinical images, illustrations, video, and audio are barred unless they are the object of study. Research use, literature searching, manuscript preparation, translation, and data visualization remain permitted with disclosure: platform, version, manufacturer, dates of use, which portions, and an attestation of responsibility. Grammar and spell-checking require no disclosure at all.

The reference rule is the strongest part. The editors report receiving manuscripts with nonexistent citations, and cite an audit of 2.5 million papers. That is a documented failure mode with a clean remedy.

The rest is harder to defend. The editorial's opening principle — authors are accountable for all content, however produced — should make type-by-type bans unnecessary. If a signed attestation covers the references, the sources, and the argument, what does a ban catch that reading the manuscript does not? A vacuous Opinion typed by hand is still vacuous. The asymmetry gives the game away: AI is permitted where actual patient data are at stake, and forbidden where the stakes are rhetorical.

There is also the enforcement problem nobody says out loud. How would they know? A competently prompted draft is not detectable, and detectors are unreliable enough that acting on them is its own integrity risk. So the binding constraint is author candor — and here the editorial cites, at reference 18, the finding that authors already conceal AI use because they fear biased editorial assessment. The response is to add a category of use that is now punishable. That predictably drives disclosure down, not up, and it does so in exactly the categories where an honest note would have cost nothing.

The permitted/prohibited line is also dissolving under the editors' feet. Grammar checking is exempt and needs no disclosure; translation is permitted but must be disclosed. Both are now the same transformer, often in the same word processor.

The real problem is volume — a flood of formulaic, low-value submissions. That is a quality problem, caught by reading. Say so plainly, and reject on the merits.

Chat GPT for Patients: Finding Parkinson Podcasts

 

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Researched and written-up by Chat GPT 5.6.  August 2, 2026  

See also: 40 Parkinson Podcasts, at:

https://podcast.feedspot.com/parkinson_podcasts/

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Listening to Parkinson’s: A Guide to the Podcast Landscape

Publication status and platform availability checked August 2, 2026

The world of Parkinson’s podcasts is much richer than one might expect. It includes professionally produced programs from the major Parkinson’s foundations, neurologist-to-neurologist discussions of new research, practical instruction about exercise and speech, and wonderfully unfiltered conversations among people actually living with Parkinson’s.

It is important not to confuse publication status with value. A podcast that stopped producing episodes three years ago may contain fifty or a hundred hours of material that is entirely new to a person encountering it today. Episodes about diagnosis, relationships, exercise, sleep, medication fluctuations, caregiving and the emotional adjustment to Parkinson’s rarely become obsolete merely because the feed has stopped. Even scientific episodes can remain highly useful as historical background, provided one remembers that particular treatments and trials may have advanced.

For this survey:

• Current means that I found a new episode during 2026.
• Seasonal or intermittent means that the podcast may still exist, but does not appear to be publishing regularly.
• Completed means that the producers explicitly ended the series or produced it as a finite collection.
• YouTube: yes means that complete episodes or a substantial video edition can be found there.
• YouTube: partial means that the organization posts related webinars, selected episodes or clips, rather than maintaining an exact video duplicate of the audio feed.
• No clear YouTube edition found does not prove that no isolated videos exist; it means I did not find a dependable official mirror of the series.

 

 

The major institutional podcasts

The Michael J. Fox Foundation Parkinson’s Podcast

Status: Current. YouTube: substantial partial overlap.

This is one of the strongest general-purpose Parkinson’s podcasts, particularly for research, clinical trials and the point at which laboratory developments meet the lives of patients. Episodes combine scientists, clinicians, people with Parkinson’s and care partners without becoming excessively technical.

The feed was actively publishing in June 2026, with episodes on selecting clinical trials, constipation, receiving the diagnosis, daily-living strategies and possible causes of Parkinson’s. MJFF has a substantial YouTube presence, although its videos and webinars do not always correspond one-for-one with the audio podcast. (Michael J. Fox Foundation)

The Parkinson’s Podcast — Davis Phinney Foundation

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

This may be the broadest practical Parkinson’s library. It ranges from medications and deep-brain stimulation to exercise, cycling, walking soccer, relationships, sensory changes, mental health and the many small adaptations that make daily life easier.

The archive contains roughly 240 episodes and was still active in July 2026. The foundation also maintains a well-developed YouTube edition and playlist. One subseries, The Parkinson’s Podcast: Unfiltered, concluded in April 2026 because of the host’s changing symptoms, but the main podcast continued publishing—a useful reminder that individual series within a large feed can end while the larger library remains alive. (Apple Podcasts)

Substantial Matters: Life & Science of Parkinson’s — Parkinson’s Foundation

Status: Current. YouTube: selected episodes and related video content.

Substantial Matters is a polished monthly program built around interviews with Parkinson’s specialists. It is particularly good at presenting one defined subject—speech, swallowing, medication, research participation, advocacy or another practical concern—in an orderly and comprehensible form.

The series began in 2017 and has developed a large, searchable archive. It continued into 2026 with episodes addressing voice, swallowing and public-policy advocacy. (Parkinson's Foundation)

The Parkinson’s Life Podcast — Parkinson’s Europe

Status: Current. YouTube: no clear complete mirror found.

This series supplies a valuable European and international perspective. Its distinguishing strength is the mixture of research with ordinary life: nutrition, exercise, relationships, identity, work and the experience of living with Parkinson’s in different health systems and cultures.

A World Parkinson’s Day edition appeared in 2026, and the archive includes conversations recorded across the international Parkinson’s community. It feels less like a single-country patient-education program and more like a window into a global movement. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Hear, Here, Parkinson’s! — World Parkinson Coalition

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

Launched in 2025, this podcast reflects the World Parkinson Coalition’s unusual ability to place researchers, clinicians, advocates and people with Parkinson’s in the same conversation. It is especially useful for listeners interested in patient participation in research and in the international community surrounding the World Parkinson Congress.

The program continued around the 2026 congress, reaching at least 30 episodes by March and publishing again in April. An official YouTube presence is available. (PCLA)

Tulip Talk: Parkinson Canada Webinars

Status: Current. Video: available through some podcast platforms; no consistent YouTube mirror confirmed.

Tulip Talk often functions as an audio or video webinar library rather than a personality-driven podcast. That is an advantage when the listener wants an organized presentation about a particular subject rather than continuing conversation among regular hosts.

Recent programs have covered women and Parkinson’s and the practical use of medications. The Canadian setting also gives listeners information about Canadian services and community resources, while much of the clinical and personal material is universally relevant. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

 

 

The strongest lived-experience podcasts

Movers and Shakers: A Podcast About Life with Parkinson’s

Status: Current. YouTube: partial, including clips and related Parky Voice material.

Six prominent British people with Parkinson’s meet in a pub and talk about what the disease actually feels like. The format produces something that institutional podcasts rarely achieve: candid disagreement, gallows humor, impatience with the medical system and the sense that one is overhearing intelligent friends rather than attending a patient-education seminar.

Its eighth season began in May 2026, with material connected to the World Parkinson Congress and the group’s continuing advocacy work. It is one of the best podcasts for reducing the isolation of Parkinson’s, especially for listeners who appreciate British wit and are not looking for relentlessly inspirational messaging. (Movers and Shakers)

The Secret Life of Parkinson’s

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

This program concentrates on the parts of Parkinson’s that outsiders cannot readily see: the effort required to perform ordinary actions, emotional variability, embarrassment, fatigue, family life and the difficulty of explaining symptoms that come and go. Its underlying purpose is to give words to experiences that patients often struggle to communicate.

The series was publishing as recently as July 2026 and has a substantial YouTube channel with full video conversations. It is particularly suitable for sharing with family members who understand the diagnosis intellectually but do not yet understand its daily texture. (Apple Podcasts)

 

 

The Parkinson’s Experience

Status: Current. YouTube: no clear official full-series mirror found.

Hosted from the perspective of someone living with Parkinson’s, this show combines empathy and humor with expert interviews. Subjects include deep-brain stimulation, medications, exercise, diet, relationships and the psychological work of adapting to a disease whose manifestations are unpredictable.

New episodes continued in 2026, including programs on Tai Chi and related approaches to movement and well-being. The host’s willingness to describe personal uncertainty keeps the expert interviews from becoming abstract lectures. (Apple Podcasts)

I’m Not Dead Yet!

Status: Current. YouTube: no clear complete mirror found.

The title gives an accurate indication of its tone. Judy, a care partner, and Travis, who was diagnosed at 35, discuss Parkinson’s with irreverence, personal anecdotes and an evident refusal to let the disease monopolize the identities of either the patient or the caregiver.

The program also brings in guests to discuss treatment, research and practical problems. New episodes were appearing through June 2026. It is a good choice for listeners who dislike solemn, carefully institutionalized patient narratives. (PCLA)

2 Parkies in a Pod

Status: Current. YouTube: occasional associated video; no dependable full mirror found.

Dave Clark and Kuhan have more than two decades of combined experience living with Parkinson’s. Their conversations are deliberately open about both the burdens and the unexpected benefits of becoming part of the Parkinson’s community.

A July 2026 episode asked how close the field might be to a cure, while other episodes cover daily management and encounters with researchers and advocates. The strength is peer companionship: the listener is not merely being educated but is spending time with two people who know the disease from the inside. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Life in Motion: The Parkinson’s Podcast

Status: Current but intermittent. YouTube: yes.

Bryce Perry and Brian Campkin offer long-form, relatively unpolished conversations about living with Parkinson’s. The discussions can move from practical strategies to frustration, identity and humor without being forced into a rigid educational format.

Episodes appeared in 2026, although the cadence seems less frequent than that of the large foundation podcasts. A video version is available on YouTube, making this a good choice for listeners who prefer to see facial expression and movement as part of the conversation. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Shaking It Up with Parkinson’s

Status: Current. YouTube: video material exists, but a full-series mirror was not clearly established.

This newer British series began in March 2026. Physiotherapist Maria Lewis and Vicky Rees-Davies combine professional knowledge and lived experience, addressing movement, mindset, motherhood and the often-absurd aspects of life with Parkinson’s.

The most recent episode I found was released in June 2026. Because one host is a physiotherapist, the show has the potential to bridge the usual separation between expert instruction and the realities of trying to follow that instruction while living with the disease. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

The Shake It Up Show — Shake It Up Australia Foundation

Status: Current but intermittent. YouTube: no clear full mirror found.

This program provides an Australian perspective through interviews with people affected by Parkinson’s, researchers and members of the advocacy and fundraising community. It is more story-centered than narrowly clinical.

An episode featuring Christine Jeya appeared in March 2026. Its geographical focus is distinctive, but the personal accounts and research discussions travel well beyond Australia. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Power Over Parkinson’s Profile Interviews

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

Produced by an exercise- and wellness-oriented foundation, this interview series profiles people with Parkinson’s as well as medical, research and fitness professionals. Its center of gravity is empowerment through movement, community and practical action rather than a comprehensive review of every aspect of the disease.

The feed remained active in April 2026. It is particularly relevant for people who regard exercise not merely as a recommendation from the neurologist but as a central part of their Parkinson’s identity and routine. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

 

Research and clinically oriented listening

Parkinson’s Disease Education Podcast

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

Hosted by physical therapist Michael Hyland, this series is concise, explanatory and unusually willing to examine specific claims, devices and emerging treatments. Episodes frequently ask whether the evidence behind a much-discussed intervention is strong, weak or simply incomplete.

The program was active through June 2026 and offers video editions. It is a useful antidote to both indiscriminate enthusiasm and indiscriminate pessimism, although listeners should still distinguish discussion of an experimental treatment from evidence that it is ready for clinical use. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Parkinson Weekly — Professor Bas Bloem

Status: Current. YouTube: no clear official complete mirror found.

This is designed for listeners who want to keep up with Parkinson’s research without reading every journal themselves. Bas Bloem and colleagues select a paper or clinical question and translate it into a short, digestible discussion.

The feed was still publishing in June 2026. It is more research-focused than most patient podcasts, but Bloem is notably skilled at explaining why a study matters—or does not yet matter—to actual clinical practice. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Reflections on Parkinson’s Disease — Oruen

Status: Seasonal or intermittent; latest episode found December 2025. YouTube: no clear mirror found.

This is a compact specialist series featuring prominent movement-disorder neurologists Bas Bloem and Werner Poewe. Episodes are generally brief and focus on mechanisms, OFF periods, personalized therapy, clinical misconceptions and unresolved questions.

The last episode I found was dated December 10, 2025, so it should be treated as a periodic or possibly resting series rather than a current monthly feed. The archive remains valuable because the hosts explain how expert neurologists reason about Parkinson’s, not merely what recommendation appears at the end of that reasoning. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

MDS Podcast — International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

This is the most professionally technical program in the survey. It is not exclusively about Parkinson’s—it covers the broader movement-disorders field—but it regularly discusses Parkinson’s research, clinical measurement, quality of life and important articles from specialist journals.

Episodes continued through July 2026. It will appeal most to clinicians, scientifically sophisticated patients and listeners who do not mind encountering terminology that is not always translated into ordinary language. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

No Silver Bullet: Parkinson’s Disease Podcasts

Status: Current but intermittent. YouTube: yes.

This patient-led British project conducts long interviews and webinars with scientists, clinicians and advocates. It is especially valuable when one wants an hour or more with a knowledgeable guest rather than a tightly edited twenty-minute overview.

A research-review program with Simon Stott appeared in January 2026, and the YouTube archive includes many extended presentations. The title appropriately discourages belief in a single miraculous answer, but individual discussions of diet, fasting or experimental approaches should still be heard as exploration rather than personal treatment instructions. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Talking Parkinson’s Research

Status: Current; recently renamed. YouTube: no clear full mirror found.

Formerly known as the North of Scotland Parkinson’s Research Podcast or the NoSPRIG Pod, this program emphasizes research conducted with meaningful patient involvement. It offers a Scottish perspective on mechanisms, studies, research participation and how scientific priorities are chosen.

The project was active in 2026, including a World Parkinson’s Day special and episodes under its new title. It is distinctive because the people affected by Parkinson’s are treated as participants in research culture rather than simply as recipients of research findings. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

 

 

Brief, practical and regional programs

Pearls for Parkinson’s with Dacy Reimer

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

These are brief, often four- or five-minute segments offering a single practical idea for everyday life. The format is ideal for a listener who does not always want a forty-five-minute interview and would prefer one usable suggestion at a time.

The program reached at least episode 26 in June 2026, and episodes link to accompanying YouTube material. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Parkinson’s EmPower Talks with Dacy Reimer

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

Produced with the Wisconsin Parkinson Association, this is the longer-form companion to Pearls for Parkinson’s. It features clinicians, industry experts and community figures discussing how people can live more knowledgeably and independently with Parkinson’s.

New episodes appeared in March and May 2026, with YouTube versions linked from the feed. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Parkinson’s Association of San Diego Podcast and Microcasts

Status: Current. YouTube: yes.

This is a large regional library with more than 100 episodes, many of them under ten minutes. Its practical, modular format makes it easy to search for a specific problem without committing to a long conversational show.

Episode 120 appeared in June 2026. Although produced for a San Diego organization, much of the educational material is applicable anywhere. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

On Time: A Parkinson’s Podcast — Brian Grant Foundation

Status: Apparently resting or between seasons; latest episode found October 2025. YouTube: no clear full mirror found.

This is a candid, daily-life-centered program associated with the Brian Grant Foundation. The interviews often focus on permission to keep playing, creating, exercising and participating rather than allowing Parkinson’s to define the limits in advance.

The feed contains approximately 38 episodes, with the latest one I found dated October 6, 2025. I found no formal announcement that the podcast had ended, so “inactive” would be too strong; “between seasons or resting” is more accurate. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

 

 

Two completed series that remain especially valuable

When Life Gives You Parkinson’s

Status: Completed March 20, 2024. YouTube: selected or partial material.

Larry Gifford was an experienced broadcaster when he was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s at 45, and that professional skill shows. The series combines documentary storytelling, family conversations, interviews with specialists and advocacy without losing the sense that the listener is following one person’s unfolding life.

The original series explicitly concluded on March 20, 2024, after more than 120 episodes. Some podcast directories later displayed related material from the PD Avengers, but that should not be mistaken for a full revival of the original program. This is perhaps the clearest example of a “retired” podcast that remains a major Parkinson’s resource. (Apple Podcasts)

Parkinson’s Disease Podcast — Health Unmuted

Status: Completed miniseries from 2022. YouTube: no clear official mirror found.

This is a deliberately structured introductory series rather than an open-ended weekly podcast. Its episodes proceed through the basics of Parkinson’s, diagnosis, young-onset disease, treatment, clinical trials, exercise and nutrition.

All the episodes appear to have been released on September 6, 2022. For a newly diagnosed person—or a family member trying to establish a coherent framework—the fact that it is finished may be an advantage: it can be heard from beginning to end as a short audio course. (Health Unmuted)

 

Additional titles worth knowing

A number of smaller or newer podcasts also surfaced in the search, although I did not find enough dependable recent feed information to classify every one confidently as active or retired:

This Is Parkinson’s is hosted by journalist Lisa Volenec and emphasizes honesty, humor, stigma and empathy. Ordinary Life: A Podcast About Parkinson’s is a New Zealand program with a cheeky, candid perspective on young-onset Parkinson’s and invisible disability. Parkinsons with Geoff concentrates on cognitive symptoms and coping tools, delivered with dry British humor. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Parkinson’s Policy Podcast focuses on advocacy, legislators and public policy. Parkinson’s Pathway Pals: Tuesdays with Teresa offers strategies and guest interviews about thriving with Parkinson’s. You, Me, and PD presents the perspectives of a couple—one partner with young-onset Parkinson’s and the other a spouse and caregiver—and includes exercise, nutrition, faith, planning and grief. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

Trembling EMT: My Parkinson’s Journey follows an emergency medical technician through early-onset diagnosis, treatment and clinical trials. Parkinson’s and Me: Early Parkinson’s Journey—Insights, Faith, and Forward Motion combines physical and emotional experiences with an explicitly faith-centered approach. Live Parkinson’s—Live an Exceptional Life! emphasizes exercise, nutrition, optimism, social connection and resilience. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

These smaller programs may contain exactly the voice a particular listener needs, even when their production is less regular or their archives are modest.’

 

How to use this enormous library

The best approach is probably not to select one “best Parkinson’s podcast.” Different shows serve different psychological and intellectual functions.

For companionship and recognition, begin with Movers and Shakers, The Secret Life of Parkinson’s, 2 Parkies in a Pod or I’m Not Dead Yet! For a dependable clinical and practical foundation, use the Davis Phinney Foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation and Parkinson’s Foundation programs. For closer contact with the research literature, add Parkinson Weekly, the MDS Podcast, Talking Parkinson’s Research or No Silver Bullet. For short, immediately usable segments, try Pearls for Parkinson’s or the San Diego microcasts.

A particularly good personal “listening diet” might therefore contain four streams:

1. One lived-experience program, so that Parkinson’s does not become merely a list of symptoms.
2. One foundation podcast, for organized and relatively dependable education.
3. One research-oriented program, to follow the changing scientific landscape.
4. One brief practical feed, for suggestions that can be tried in everyday life.

It is also worth searching the archives by problem rather than date. A five-year-old conversation about telling friends, adapting exercise, handling embarrassment, negotiating a marriage or coping with an unpredictable day may be more useful than this week’s episode about a molecular target in an early laboratory study.

 

A note about credibility – don’t believe everything you hear!

Podcasting lowers the barrier to entry, which is both its virtue and its risk. Personal experience does not require a randomized trial to be meaningful: a person’s account of freezing in a restaurant, struggling to turn in bed or feeling unexpectedly well in the evening is valuable precisely because it is personal. But claims about supplements, diets, devices, medication reduction, “healing,” reversal or impending cures require a different standard.

The most trustworthy podcasts usually signal whether an idea is established practice, an emerging possibility, a disputed hypothesis or simply one person’s experience. Programs that promise recovery or healing should be approached with additional skepticism and checked against primary research and the advice of one’s own movement-disorders clinician. One podcast description I encountered explicitly promises to help listeners “recover from Parkinson’s,” illustrating why tone and confidence should never substitute for evidence. (FeedSpot for Podcasters)

 

 

Conclusion

Parkinson’s podcasting has evolved into something like an oral library of the disease. The large organizations provide continuity, professional production and access to experts. Smaller programs supply humor, anger, vulnerability, regional character and the details that formal educational material tends to smooth away. Specialist podcasts allow scientifically curious listeners to hear how neurologists and researchers think before the findings have been simplified into patient brochures.

The distinction between current and completed series is useful for knowing whether to expect another episode next week. It is not a hierarchy of merit. A completed podcast may be a beautifully organized body of work, while a current one may be valuable chiefly because it records the news of the moment. For someone hearing these programs for the first time, the entire archive—old and new—is present tense.

The catalog can next be reorganized by subject—exercise, sleep, medication fluctuations, DBS, non-motor symptoms, research, young-onset disease or care partners—to make individual episodes easier to find.

My AI Blog on the Fauci Diaries (Where to Find Them) and Fauci PR Spin

 

The Fauci Diaries: Celebrity, Reputation, and the Public Life of a Scientist

In July 2026, more than 1,000 pages of diary or journal entries written by Dr. Anthony Fauci during the COVID-19 years became public. The documents had been stored on government systems and were obtained during an investigation led by Senator Rand Paul. Whatever one thinks of Paul, Fauci, or the political controversy surrounding COVID, an unusual primary source is now available: a senior scientist and government official recording, in considerable detail, his own experiences during an extraordinary period of public attention.

• Readers do not have to rely on press excerpts. Senator Paul has placed the material in a public “Reading Room” on his official Senate website:
• https://www.paul.senate.gov/readingroom/
• The Reading Room includes the Fauci diary releases along with other documents assembled during Paul's investigation. One of the released files, for example, is available directly here:
• https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf

The political arguments about Fauci's COVID policies will undoubtedly continue for years. But another aspect of the diaries is almost more interesting: they provide an unusually close view of what happens when a prominent scientist becomes a genuine celebrity.

Fauci Watches Fauci Become Famous

Several journalists immediately noticed how much space Fauci devoted to his own public reception.

Perhaps the most perceptive treatment is Molly Fischer's August 2026 New Yorker essay, “Our Fauci Diaries, Ourselves.”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/critics-notebook/our-fauci-diaries-ourselves

Fischer does not simply argue that Fauci was vain. Her point is subtler. The diaries show Fauci almost compulsively recording the evidence of his transformation into a cultural figure: favorable newspaper columns, television appearances, compliments from celebrities, portraits, merchandise, correspondence, interviews, and descriptions of the astonishing degree of attention he was receiving.

Actors, musicians, television personalities and other famous people appear repeatedly. Fauci recorded encounters with Julia Roberts, Alec Baldwin, Joan Baez, Bono, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Stephen Colbert, Magic Johnson and many others. He noted Fauci sweaters, bobbleheads, portraits and other manifestations of what had become a minor national cult of personality.

Fischer's interpretation is particularly interesting because Fauci frequently presented himself at the same time as somewhat bemused or embarrassed by all this attention. The diary therefore contains an odd duality: Fauci reports the absurdity of his fame while also carefully preserving evidence of it.

One of Fischer's sharpest observations concerns favorable articles praising Fauci precisely for his modesty and lack of ego — articles that Fauci himself then saved in his diary.

The essay becomes less a simple indictment of vanity than a study of someone watching himself become historically important.

The Washington Post: “His Own Fame”

The Washington Post also focused explicitly on this aspect of the diaries in its July 2026 account, “Fauci's diary reveals his thoughts on a ‘rambling’ Trump and his own fame.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/07/27/faucis-diary-released-revealing-his-thoughts-fame-rambling-trump/

The Post described Fauci's repeated observations about the rapid growth of his celebrity. He documented media appearances, interviews and his increasingly unusual status as a government scientist recognizable almost everywhere.

By May 2020, Fauci was writing that his national and international fame had become extraordinary and describing himself as perhaps the most famous and talked-about person in the country.

That statement can certainly be read as egotistical. But it was also, at least for a period in 2020, not an entirely unreasonable empirical observation. An obscure infectious-disease administrator had suddenly become one of the most recognizable faces in America.

The more revealing fact may be that Fauci thought the phenomenon sufficiently important to document repeatedly.

CBS and the Mechanics of Celebrity

CBS News provided another relatively straightforward account of the released material:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthony-fauci-rand-paul-diary-release/

CBS emphasized the sheer range of material preserved in the journals — favorable coverage, correspondence, celebrity encounters and other evidence of Fauci's extraordinary public visibility.

Taken collectively, these records resemble something between a diary, a professional archive and a scrapbook.

That distinction matters. Most people's private diaries contain thoughts that they assume nobody else will ever read. Fauci's records frequently seem concerned with documenting what other people were saying about Anthony Fauci.

Whether that represents vanity, historical self-consciousness, ordinary human pleasure in recognition, or all three is largely in the eye of the reader.

The More Hostile Interpretation

Other publications drew a much harsher conclusion.

Forbes summarized the controversy under the heading that critics were accusing Fauci of an “obsession with fame”:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/07/29/fauci-testifies-today-heres-what-we-learned-from-his-diaries/

The New York Post went further, publishing an article specifically portraying the diary as evidence of a “fame fixation”:

https://nypost.com/2026/07/26/us-news/dr-faucis-bizarre-fame-fixation-as-covid-deaths-mounted-revealed-in-newly-released-diaries/

Fox News took essentially the same approach:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fauci-newly-released-covid-diaries-reveal-bizarre-fixation-fame-pandemic-deaths-mounted

These accounts place Fauci's observations about celebrity beside the accumulating COVID death toll and invite the reader to see an unflattering contrast: while a national emergency was unfolding, Fauci was noting television appearances, praise and his own extraordinary fame.

That is a legitimate interpretive question, although the characterization is considerably more aggressive than Fischer's New Yorker treatment.

Scientists and Reputation

There is also a broader and less partisan way to read the documents.

Famous scientists have hardly been indifferent to reputation.

Louis Pasteur carefully cultivated institutional prestige and historical priority. Isaac Newton conducted ferocious disputes over scientific credit. Robert Koch, James Watson, Linus Pauling and numerous other major scientific personalities were acutely conscious of recognition, priority and status.

Indeed, the sociology of science has long recognized that prestige is one of the peculiar currencies of scientific life. Scientists do not ordinarily become wealthy because of an important discovery. Instead, the rewards include citations, priority, prizes, named lectures, prestigious appointments and eventually historical reputation.

Fauci represents an extreme modern version of this phenomenon. Scientific prestige collided with television, social media, partisan politics and celebrity culture.

Instead of merely receiving an academy medal or having a laboratory named after him, Fauci found himself portrayed by Brad Pitt on Saturday Night Live and represented as a bobblehead.

And he wrote it all down.

That may be the most fascinating thing about these diaries. They provide a remarkably detailed record of a scientist observing not merely a pandemic, but the construction of his own public identity during it.

Readers inclined to dislike Fauci will readily find evidence of vanity. Admirers may see an understandably astonished man recording an unprecedented experience. A historian might see something more interesting still: a primary document showing how scientific authority, political power, mass media and celebrity became almost inseparable during one of the strangest periods in modern American public life.

I kept the interpretation deliberately somewhat detached, so it reads more as an essay about scientific celebrity than as either a defense or prosecution of Fauci.

The Graduate Revisited: Table of Contents and Brief Biography

The Graduate Revisited: #1, Norman Fell's Landlord as Symbol and Icon

 https://bqwebpage.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-graduate-revisited-1-norman-fells.html

The Graduate Revisited: #2, The Two Scarboroughs

https://bqwebpage.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-graduate-revisited-2-two.html

The Graduate Revisited: #3, The Four-Hour Flight

https://bqwebpage.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-graduate-revisited-3-four-hour.html

The Graduate Revisited: #4, When The Music Just Won't Stop

https://bqwebpage.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-graduate-revisited-4-when-music.html

The Graduate Revisited: #5, The "Mrs Robinson" Character, Her True Origins

https://bqwebpage.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-graduate-revisited-5-mrs-robinson.html

 

About the Author

Chester Featherstone, Ph.D. is Professor of Media Studies at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 1982. His research occupies the largely self-defined fields of cinematic geography, aeronautical hermeneutics, soundtrack repetition studies, and postwar landlord archetypes. Although initially trained in conventional film history, Featherstone gradually developed the view that many of the most important questions in American cinema had been overlooked because previous scholars had failed to pay sufficient attention to flight durations, wardrobe inventories, and Norman Fell.

Featherstone's work has been described as "brilliantly original," "heroically overinterpreted," and "perhaps not entirely necessary." He regards the last characterization as especially unfair.

He lives in Durham, New Hampshire, where he continues work on a projected three-volume study, Toward a Unified Theory of The Graduate.

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Selected Publications of Chester Featherstone

Featherstone, C. The Persistent Landlord Problem: Surveillance and Rent Collection in Postwar Cinema. Hanover: Granite State Academic Press, 1987.

———. "Yorkshire Exceptionalism and the Geographic Misreading of American Popular Music." New England Journal of Media Topography 11, no. 2 (1996): 41–68.

———. The Hudson Valley Paradigm: Reconsidering Scarborough in American Film. Portsmouth: Seacoast University Press, 1998.

———. "Commuter Rail and Erotic Displacement in Nichols: Toward a Hudson Valley Reading of* The Graduate*." Proceedings of the Northern New England Society for Cinema Studies 7 (1998): 113–139.

———. Narrative Airspace and the Postwar American Male. Boston: Commonwealth Academic Press, 2004.

———. "Acoustic Narrative Saturation: The Limits of the Leitmotif in* The Graduate*." Journal of Film Musicology 12, no. 1 (2008): 3–37.

———. Mrs. Robinson at Shortstop: Baseball, Costume, and the Late Invention of Adultery. Hanover: Granite State Academic Press, 2013.

———. Portable Archetypes: Norman Fell and the Persistence of Suspicion. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Media Studies Monographs, 2019.

———, editor. Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Aeronautical Hermeneutics. Durham: Center for Narrative Transportation Studies, 2021.

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Representative Honors

• Founding Fellow, Society for Applied Cinematic Geography

• Distinguished Lecturer, North American Conference on Narrative Transportation

• Recipient, Joe DiMaggio Memorial Award for Interdisciplinary Baseball Studies (declined, citing insufficient archival documentation)

• Honorary Chair, Committee on Musical Persistence and Repetition in American Film

• Lifetime Achievement Award, New England Association for Excessive Close Reading

Current Research Interests: The precise route of Benjamin Braddock's inbound commercial flight; the statistical distribution of suspicious landlords in American sitcoms, 1955–1995; and whether Mrs. Robinson originally owned four Yankees caps or six.

My favorite line is probably the very last one. It leaves Featherstone exactly where he belongs—not reflecting on the meaning of life, but still trying to settle, after forty years of scholarship, how many Yankees caps Mrs. Robinson originally owned. That feels like a proper ending to the collection.