Life, medicine and stuff

Generally speaking, increasing the perceived likelihood of being caught is a more effective deterrent than severity of sentence. Police targetting of violence hotspots is effective. Restorative justice (in the form of community conferences) reduces repeat violence where a heartfelt apology is given. Fear of violence increases where there is evidence of criminal damage, litter and…

As in, courage derived from the imbibing of alcohol. Wikipedia takes a positive line, saying that the idea of it being perjorative propaganda is wrong. Instead, it suggests the Dutch were a feared naval power in the 17th century, and their ferocity must have been fuelled by drink. A letter in the Times says it…

From November data, the Health Protection Agency has warned.

What a great word! From the Greek for the constellation known as Ursa Minor (although I still don' t get the Greek literal meaning), it means a focus, a centre of attention, around which everything else revolves. Ursa Minor contains Polaris, the Pole star.

Bit before my time, but I was aware of these atrocities being carried out in Germany at the same time as Palestinians were hijacking aeroplanes and such like. And of course, I wondered what exactly their problem was. Not democratic rights, for sure. And indeed, they were mostly middle class. From http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5919/ I understand now…

“Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.” WH Auden [from http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2008/10/happiness-six-c.html]

The blossom is out in full now, it's plum tree but it looks like apple blossom but it's white. It's the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that ever could be and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the…

Scotland has a much higher suicide rate than England. Part of the explanation is that the Procurator Fiscal system here involves an investigation into the death, after which the outcome is reported to the family directly. In England, the Coroner's report is a public document – it is believed that this puts pressure on the…

BMJ article suggests that the high death rates among drug users explains about a third of the excessive mortality rate in Scotland compared with England. So that still leaves diet, alcohol, smoking… [BMJ aug 08]

Research into the vasopressin receptor in humans found that men with a 334 allele were less likely to be marrie and scored lower on the partner bonding scale; whereas men with 2 copies of the allele were twice as likely to have had a marital crisis in the past year! [Proceedings of the National Academy…