If the smell of woodsmoke makes you uneasy, it could be because your grandparents were once caught up in a house fire. That is the startling proposition thrown up by a study on mice, which indicates that fear can travel down the generations. For the research, a group of mice were taught to fear the …
The number of heroin addicts in the US has more than doubled since 2002. The most important factor in this crisis is the prescription of painkillers such as OxyContin, which are chemically similar to heroin and have been dished out to US patients in ever-greater numbers over recent years, often through high street pain clinics …
Every day in the US, a school goes into lockdown. On rare occasions, the safety drill is triggered by a shooting incident on campus; usually, it’s a false alarm or a precautionary response to a nearby crime or domestic dispute. I can’t remember when lockdowns, originally a technique for defusing prison riots, became the norm …
Recently American venture capitalist Tom Perkins wrote to The Wall Street Journal complaining about the so-called “progressive war on the 1%”, suggesting the US was on the road to an anti-rich “Kristallnacht”. Comparing public criticism of bankers with Nazi persecution of the Jews is really dumb. Back in 2010, CEO Stephen Schwarzman made an equally …
I enjoy watching the Olympics. Generally, they are exciting and well organised. But the cost and the bureaucracy has reached ridiculous proportions. So has the hype and the self- importance of the officials, not to mention the corruption that seems to attend these huge events. Host cities invariably promise new investment, tourism, and development. Governments …
