Facebook et al

US Senators have accused Facebook of disregarding research showing harm to teens. Senators grilled Facebook executives recently, accusing them of ignoring internal research indicating that social media can harm teens. Lawmakers demanded that Facebook executives explain the company’s efforts to attract young users despite evidence that Instagram, owned by Facebook, makes body image issues worse …

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How did Epicureanism work day by day?

Epicureans did not pool their assets in any communal fashion, as other philosophical groups actually did; the argument was that such a practice would either indicate or, worse yet, foster mutual suspicion. It is hard to define such terms as “job” in the context of the ancient world; “Old Money”, Athenian patricians –men only, of …

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Rhino study wins Ig Nobel award

Studies that discovered it is safer to transport a rhinoceros upside-down and that beards may be an evolutionary development to help protect men’s faces from punches, have won Ig Nobel prizes. Another study to receive an award studied the ways cats communicate with humans. The prizes, awarded by science magazine Annals of Improbable Research, were …

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A poem

Thoughts on attending an exhibition of John Constable’s painting at the National Gallery in Washington                 One knows only too well that landscape paintings hide             Unseen miseries, unhappiness and early death.             Yet here’s Old England, on the cusp of change,             Captured immortally by the painter’s brush,             The rustic face …

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A hot dog takes 36 minutes off your life

Every hot dog a person eats shortens their life by 36 minutes, according to new research. Experts at the University of Michigan said that the 61 grams of processed meat in the hot dog results in 27 minutes of healthy life lost. “Then, when considering the other risk factors, like the sodium and trans fatty …

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