Life, medicine and stuff

Podsigns_wo2 I see that in New York they are considering making it illegal to cross the street while wearing earphones.  Not only is it potentially dangerous being deaf and distracted, it also means that I regularly get a fright that someone is looming behind me.I know I shouldn't be in thrall to my iPod, but…

Research into how cars overtake cyclists shows that if you don't wear a helmet, cars give you more room (about 8cm).  If you wear a wig (ie if you look like a woman from behind) they also give you more room.  In the morning cars give you less room.  Presumably to do with how busy…

Women are not just victims of men's sexual aggression.  Motivations for extramarital partnerships in rural Malawi include money for survival, but elsewhere money for attractive consumer goods, passion, and revenge for a husband's infidelity. In Malawi there is also considerable talk about condoms especially among men – but that virtually all the discussion of condoms,…

Smoking accounts for a large part of the health inequality seen among men.  Encouraging smoking cessation, increasing taxes on tobacco, banning tobacco advertising and smoking in public places may be a pragmatic way to address the contribution of smoking to health inequality among men.  It does however shift the locus of responsibility on to the…

No estés lejos de mí un solo día, porque cómo, porque, no sé decirlo, es largo el día, y te estaré esperando como en las estaciones cuando en alguna parte se durmieron los trenes. No te vayas por una hora porque entonces en esa hora se juntan las gotas del desvelo y tal vez todo…

Skiing in Obergurgl for the second year running – temperature on Wednesday was 10degC, cf -10degC on that day last year.  I hear that people in Chamonix last week were skiing on grass and horse manure, not snow. An iceshelf 5x the size of London collapsed recently in Canada -only now discovered during a recent…

Gunpowder, printing, magnetic compass, silk, porcelain, as well as the breast strap and horse collar (massively improved efficiency of horse power eg for ploughing cf oxen). Not nearly as important within China – gunpowder was not developed into weapons because politically very stable, printing was the exclusive skill of the religious powers (for manufacture of…

China destroyed an old weather satellite with a missile. They have always called for an international treaty on space weapons but of course the US never wanted to play. Looks now as if they were playing a game all along. Jobs and nationalism would be the only two pillars on which Chinese communism could sustain…

Vietnam has grown its economy by 7.5% per year for 20 years since Doi Moi market reform. Only 20% of population now live in poverty cf 75%. Now exports rice, coffee, pepper. More motorbikes less bikes! Yet still very rural society. Lots of small scale projects eg loans to families for seed or cattle, local…

The IPCC report on global warming is to be published this month: it has become increasingly pessimistic.   12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began; ocean temperatures have risen at least three kilometres beneath the surface; glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both hemispheres; sea levels are rising…