h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I bet Thatcher would have sold off English words if she'd thought of it. There must be so much potential cash in the OED - around a million words: maybe we could sell the rights to them, at an average of, say, a million pounds each. We'd raise a trillion and pay off most of the national debt.

The money would have to go to the English, of course. The Scots have their own terms like 'haggis' and 'loch' they can sell for their benefit. The Welsh and Irish too. Americans can have the rights to those ones they can't spell, like 'color'.

Maybe not news, but this caught my eye -

http://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo

Well said Stephen Fry - and doesn't the interviewer look nonplussed!!!

Ah, yes. But Gay Byrne has heard it all (it's a good précis of Dawkins and Hitchens) and knew well what he was going to get. If he looked nonplussed, that's how he saw his professional duty, to stand with his older Irish viewers.

I have a lot of time for Gay Byrne. He holds the record for longest-running TV chat show host, and he did a lot to bring Irish opinion gently forward, from the sixties to the eighties, both on TV and radio.

He was then offered similar jobs in America, but they gagged on his name. He refused to use his full name, because he didn't want to impede the rise of a young star at the time with the same name: Gabriel Byrne.

They then asked him had he a middle name? He said, yes: Mary.

"Can Britain Still Defend Itself" asks the Telegraph, according to them none of the main political parties is at all interested in the needs of the Armed Forces. Apparently the RAF scrambled two intercept fighters last week when Russian bombers flew near to Bournemouth. Funny enough I'd just booked in there hoping for a peaceful seaside break, this weekend. I'll pack my tin hat just in case. I suppose it's the right kind of weather for a new cold war, thanks Mr Putin.

Now I didn't expect to see this as a headline...

http://qz.com/337343/indias-royal-enfield-just-rode-past-harley-davidson/

In Iceland it's once again hammer time:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/a-new-guard-for-asgard-iceland-building-first-temple-to-norse-gods-in-1000-years/article22743857/

IS plumb new depths of medieval barbarity.

Jordanian pilot burned to death in a cage - probably a month ago, since when IS have been using him as a bargaining chip, pretending that he was alive, to get the release of one of their own.

Yes, I know what he was doing when he was captured. Yes, I understand the possible consequences of what he was doing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-31121160

The tragic consequence is likely to be the (public) execution of IS sympathisers held in Jordanian prisons.

I genuinely feel sorry for all the millions of Muslims out there who are dragged into this who have no sympathy for this psychopathic bunch of murderers.

PP.

I've heard (may or may not be true) they had a competition on Twitter - "How should we kill the Jordanian pilot"?

When Dickens created Madame Defarge, knitting beside the guillotine,
could he have possibly imagined the collective madness of a mob such
as we see in the Islamic State.

Yes.
And similar atrocities have occurred throughout History.
The disease of evil lurks in the hearts of mankind like
an un-extinguishable ember that flares whenever the
ill winds of Fate caress the glow into flame.

Nuke us all. Be done with it all.
Now if not sooner.

~jwf~

oopsy...
Sorry, thought I was on Facebook.

~jwf~

Too much jogging 'as bad as no exercise at all'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31095384

Scientists studied more than 1,000 healthy joggers and non-joggers over a 12-year period.
Those who jogged at a steady pace for less than two and a half hours a week were least likely to die in this time.
But those who ran more than four hours a week or did no exercise had the highest death rates.

Seems odd that if you do just 90minutes extra jogging a week, you lose absolutely all the benefit of exercising at all.

Yay!

In a sample of 1000 healthy people over 12 years the number of deaths is probably going to be barely significant. The statistical summary is useless without confidence limits and I can't be bothered to read the original paper. Had it been a million people I might have been interested enough to find out what selection bias they had corrected for.

Health stories in the popular press are usually pointless. Science isn't the reason for them being published but rather the focus is on sensationalism. The reporters are rarely, if ever, proficient in statistics and methodology. They only care that the headline is an attention getter.

Years ago, well, decades ago... I happened to be reading a story about the use of infrared lasers to promote healing. The story I was reading was in Discover Magazine so at least it paid some attention to the science. The story I read emphasized that the study was in very early stages and that the results were incremental. The method of treatment required two phase aligned lasers oriented at right angles such that they would have positive reinforcement at the site of an injury, disease or tumor. The hypothesis was that this would heat the local tissue creating increased bloodflow and MAYBE cause accelerated healing or accentuate delivery of chemotherapy.

Then a few weeks later I saw a health news report on the local network affiliate featuring a local "doctor", a chiropractor, using infrared lasers to treat carpal tunnel syndrome. So, since I had some knowledge of the subject I watched this report.

The "treatment" consisted of having the patient sit at a table while the "doctor" waved a flashlight/torch shaped device that projected a circle shaped laser (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that this circle was probably just an aiming device for the actual infrared beam) on the patient's wrists. He would do this for a certain time period followed up by some manipulation of the neck (subluxations and all that). The patient reported some perceived pain relief so obviously that proves efficacy, right!?


Now any time I see any health news report in the popular press, I just file it away for future reference. They're always at least 5 years away from practical application. Maybe whatever miracle medical discovery will become common practice, but most likely there will just be another story that contradicts the earlier one. Today, infrared laser treatment should be common practice if the early reports were to be believed, but I haven't heard anything about it since then.

Seriously, just ask yourself whether or not eggs or caffeine are healthy or deadly. You can probably recall hearing several conflicting reports.



On a side note, look forward to my pending guide entry on the miracle of Proton Radiation Treatment.

Years ago (around 1979-80) I read a report in New Scientist which talked about a new drug called interferon. The scientists said it was early days, but there were hopes of it being the 'silver bullet' for cancer. The next time I heard about interferon was when it was offered to me as a Disease Modifying Drug for relapsing-remitting MS, about 25 years after the original report.

It's good to know that the drug has some use, albeit not the one the scientists originally hoped. Scientists have since admitted that it's unlikely they will ever find a 'silver bullet' drug for cancer, or any other currently untreatable condition, so I'm sceptical of any report in the media that refers to a drug in that way. (I'm also sceptical of 'superfoods'. Check out NHS Choices and you'll find that, with the exception of oily fish (and possibly beetroot) none of the 'superfoods' have any measureable benefits.)

Yep. I remember all the hype about interferon back in the late '80s. It was going to cure all manner of diseases and cancers. It is a very useful drug, but nothing could stand up to that kind of hype. I know someone who had severe liver damage from cirrhosis and interferon treatment was very successful in treating it. Unfortunately, it seems to have just prolonged the inevitable as he's returned to heavy drinking and no one will be surprised when his liver fails again. (Such is the life of a Texas Blues musician.)

And completely counter~intuitively, we're told today that cancer is on the increase, half of the population will suffer some form of cancer in their lifetimes, (article in today's Guardian), the reason for this apparent pandemic is of course that we're living longer and monitoring is so much better than it used to be, age is the biggest predictor in terms of likelihood of suffering cancer. So increased well~being, longer lives, better diagnosis, more cancer. The great medical paradox.

Die young, stay healthy.

Agreed, Khal. Above all, Do Not Get OLD

"Life is short."


No it's not! It's the longest thing you'll ever do.