When Cordelia Mellon Scaife was born in 1928 she was the world’s “richest baby”. Her grand-uncle, the industrialist-turned-U.S. treasury secretary Andrew Mellon, spent his lifetime squeezing workers and fighting to cut rich people’s taxes. But Mellon’s impact on American life didn’t end with his 1937 death. His heir Richard Mellon Scaife — Cordelia’s brother — …
I have just read a fascinating book by a neurologist about psychosomatic illness, (“It’ all in Your Mind” by Suzanne O’Sullivan) where patients present with no obvious symptoms and all tests prove negative. And yet they are having the most scary fits and other signs of illness. The aim of the book is to point …
Continue reading ‘Back pain: probable causes and what to do about them, Part 2’ »
Chronic back pain is on the rise – in part because the way we treat it often does more harm than good. It’s time to think differently about our aches. One in four adults are experiencing it right now, and 90 per cent of people having back pain at least once in their life. Nearly a …
Continue reading ‘The back pain epidemic: Why popular treatments are making it worse’ »
We’ve heard about sweatshop factory collapses and fires in countries like Bangladesh. We’ve seen stories about labour conditions abroad and we should by now be aware that the people who make our clothes earn so little they can barely, if at all, afford to feed their families,. On top of that people are dying slowly …
Apparently, an increasing number of men want joy, laughter and happiness in a girlfriend – and no drama. They appear to be looking for a partner who never gets angry, afraid or sad, who never worries about her family, money or her job, never complains, and by extension, gives the impression she will be quite …
I owe the readers an apology. I have spent far too much time alluding to politics on this blog, something Epicurus would tut-tut about were he with us and had a computer. I live between the US and the UK, both unhappy places, and have allowed myself ( I like to think for patriotic reasons) …
People with optimistic outlooks tend to live longer than their more negative peers, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine have found. The study drew on data from two long-running studies of Americans aged over 60: one of 1,500 male war veterans, and one of 70,000 female nurses. At the start of both, the participants …
The acting chief of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Mark Morgan, has offered new assurances to Bahamian survivors of Hurricane Dorian that they will be allowed entry into the United States, less than a day after dozens of evacuees were forced off a ship bound for Florida because they didn’t possess visas. “We will accept anyone …
“You don’t need to go to the gym to benefit from exercise: even activities such as walking slowly or washing dishes can significantly boost a person’s longevity, a study has found. Researchers from Norway looked at data on 36,000 people with an average age of 63 whose activity levels were monitored over six years. Any …
Is it possible to be a comedian when you don’t know who you’re making jokes for? When you’re unsure who is listening, and what mood they’re in? How can comedians tell the jokes they want to tell in a world where the butt of those jokes can turn a community against you? Can comedy survive …
In reply to my posting about winning arguments, Carmen, a regular reader ( thank you, Carmen!) makes the following point: “A pre-problem which I’ve experienced before even reaching a “how-to-win-the-argument” mode, is establishing an agreement–stated or implied– to commit to a conversation. People are adept at giving their political viewpoints but at the same time …
Continue reading ‘Try having a conversation about Brexit!’ »
A report by the New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice examined the number of aging or outdated voting equipment used throughout the country and found that during the 2018 midterm elections, 34 percent of local election jurisdictions were using voting machines that were at least a decade old as their primary form of voting. …
Continue reading ‘Voting machines: in the age of Trump can they be trusted?’ »
People who struggle with sleep might be at greater risk of developing cardiovascular problems, according to Prof Hugh Markus, of Cambridge University. Those (including the author of this posting) who are genetically predisposed to insomnia have a greater risk of heart failure and coronary heart disease. I think I must have personally tried every drug …
Continue reading ‘Study links sleep deprivation with cardiovascular disease’ »
Many arguments are made with minimal understanding, or are based on false premises. Simply asking for more detail and forcing someone to take you through their thinking step by step can expose this. It’s not enough just to give evidence that something is false. To convince the other party, provide an alternative explanation to fill …
In 1689 the Act of Settlement decreed that sovereignty lay with the King in Parliament. By the turn of the last century the King had become a figurehead and Parliament reigned supreme. Supreme over the executive as well. More recently the executive has grown in power. Why is that? Because Parliament has allowed it to …
Continue reading ‘The British crisis: MPs discover they have spines’ »
From the Daily Telegraph “These days, all of us are engaged in politics. Fanatically engaged. Furiously engaged. Twenty years ago, when I was in my teens, apathy was all the rage. In the newspapers, practically every political column was about the lack of interest in politics. Anxious MPs thought apathy was a bad thing. They …
Continue reading ‘Apathy: a follow-on from yesterday’s posting’ »
Being optimistic has been linked to a longer life, with those who see the glass as half full having a better chance of reaching 85 or older. Optimists also have a longer life in general, according to Boston University medical researchers who analysed data from two previous long-term research projects. They found the most optimistic …
There is a problem with the current physics . We have quantum theory for very small particles, relativity for the big stuff, and the Standard Model, which includes all the weird particles discovered by physicists all over the world. All seem true individually, but relativity and quantum theory contradict one another and the Standard Model …
Continue reading ‘Should CERN build an even more expensive collider?’ »
Would you return a lost wallet lying in the street? Of course! Researchers left 17,000 wallets in 355 cities around the world (wow! big spenders!), some containing money, small or large amounts. They found that, when cash was found the finders tended to return it to the owners. If the wallets contained small amounts, say …
The US federal government will rack up $12.2 trillion in deficits through 2029, according to a new projection from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), an $809 billion increase from its last projection in May. CBO, Congress’s official budgeting scorekeeper, said that the deficits would average 4.7 percent of GDP through the next decade, a …
