Category Archives: medical

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

Here’s this month’s collection of links to items you may have missed the first time round. As usual we start with the seriously scientific and end with … the not so seriously scientific.

Science, Technology & Natural World

London blogger Diamond Geezer visits the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. I’ve never been there, but I really should because, although it will be much changed, my mother worked here as a draughtsman’s tracer during the WW2.

A guide to the spiritual world of Hawaii’s lava. Guess you need it if you insist on sitting atop a huge volcano!

We have this notion that all humans are descended from a small population in East Africa. However the current theories are that this is wrong and that our origins are much more diverse and colourful. [LONG READ] [£££]

Now you might think this is bit of an obvious thing to do, but scientists have finally unravelled the genetic secrets of roses.

So what sort of nutter spends his life being stung by insects? Justin O Schmidt is the answer.

Health & Medicine

Do you keep marine fish? If so do you know how deadly your aquarium might be?

It seems that migraine changes your brain and the way you experience the world – all the time, not just during an attack. [LONG READ] [£££]

Nothing is off limits at the Menopause Cafe – watch the video!

Sexuality

Oral sex has been around for a long, long time: here’s a brief history from ancient China to DJ Khaled.

Environment

So how are we really going to solve our waste problem? New Scientist takes a look. [£££]

This is why I don’t indulge in long-haul, safari holidays: it seems tourism’s carbon impact is three times larger than previously estimated.

Following which, the Guardian looks at the true cost of eating meat, only to find this is also even worse that we thought.

But then we can’t even manage the food we don’t eat: Sainsbury’s has dropped a pilot project to halve food waste.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

So here’s a 45-year-long American study on how to raise genius children. No it isn’t for parents to “hothouse” normal kids but to take the brightest and stretch them. Now explain to me why we shouldn’t have Grammar Schools! [LONG READ]

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

New evidence suggests that ancient humans settled the Philippines 700,000 years ago. That’s around 600,000 years before previously thought.

The Ancient British Queen Boudica was the scourge of the Roman’s in Britain. Or was she?

How about finding an 800-year-old label to date a shipwreck in the Java Sea – and thereby rewrite its history?

Wow! Just, WOW! An historian has created an incredibly detailed map (above) of the medieval trade routes across Europe, much of Africa and much of Asia. Absolutely stunning!

London

So just why has the number of Londoners using are tube recently fallen so dramatically?

Lifestyle & Personal Development

Scientific American reckons that we don’t understand ourselves as well as we think, and offers ten things you don’t know about yourself.

If you’re really curious, and not at all paranoid, you can get a clue as to how long you are going to live.

Every year there is a Boring Conference in London. Diamond Geezer reports on this year’s siesta fiesta.

Did you ever want to know everything Facebook and Google know about you? Here’s how. [LONG READ]

Shock, Horror, Humour

And to round off this month’s offerings, we have not one, but three amusements …

Ever wondered what to do with your old bras? Well you can always donate them to the cows.

Not to be beaten by the Boring Conference, the Flat Earth Conference suggests the Universe is an egg and the moon isn’t real. There’s another report here.

And finally … If you ever happen across a Tube Snake, do make sure you report its location as they are an endangered species in need of conservation.

Toodle-pip.

medical, personal

Yes, I’m Fat

In an article on BBC News website over the weekend one woman talks about how she feels about being fat. I found it interesting because so much of what she says chimes with how I feel. Here are some of the things she says and which I share (plus a few tropes of my own).

Feeling good about your body isn’t always easy when you are overweight.
. . .
Quite literally, I am the elephant in the room.
. . .
I am fat, there’s no getting away from it.
. . .
I don’t think there’s a single part of me … that is small.
. . .
Society has its own sort of perception of people like me – we are disgusting, fat, slothful, lazy, incompetent, stupid.
. . .
[H]ow could you be that fat? The answer is simple – a lack of control, a lack of confidence …

Yes, I have a lack of self-control; it isn’t good enough now but it was much worse years ago when I first put on weight. It is partly down to the lack of confidence but it’s also, in part, the anxiety and depression.

It’s kind of sad that I’m comforted by food rather than other elements in the world.
. . .
The eating combined with my osteoarthritis and other disabilities doesn’t help – the additional weight on the joints isn’t a positive impact.
. . .
I did swim, but don’t any more.
. . .
“Just lose weight.” I hear that all the time from family, friends, colleagues, doctors …
It’s not rocket science – I know that … but that means effort, doesn’t it? It means having to motivate myself and persevere … I can’t …

I can’t because mostly the depression acts as a complete roadblock. I wish it didn’t, but despite trying just about everything available I’ve not yet found a way through the roadblock.

What is also for many oversized people, me included, is that the brain doesn’t internally know one’s real size. The brain still thinks of you being your normal size and doesn’t adjust for your new size. So you don’t (instinctively) realise how much space you take up. You have this internal picture of yourself the way you were (or should be).

People are constantly judging me … I am a reflection of something that they could become. They tell themselves that they’ve got control, they’re sensible, intelligent and no way would they ever get to my size. But let me tell you, I was you once and you could be me.
. . .
The only person I can hold responsible for my position is me. However, I refuse to accept the size I am. This is not who I was meant to be.
If I accept it then I’m telling myself that I’ve given up and I don’t want to give up.
I don’t want to be normal because normal is boring. I just want to be the best of myself.

I wish it wasn’t thus. I don’t like being the size I am. I understand the risks. I know all the things I should do to combat it, and if I could do it I would have done long ago. But having looked at, and thought about, the problem in depth, the first thing that has to happen is to fix the depression and other mental issues. That is a huge challenge, and I’ve not yet found the key to unlocking it – I wish I had!

environment, links, medical, natural history, science

Your Monthly Links

Here’s the usual selection of links to articles which interested me and which you may have missed. We’ve a packed house, so on with the show …

Science, Technology & Natural World

Some interesting speculation on whether a pre-human industrial civilisation could have existed on Earth, and whether we would be able to tell.

Apparently European women are twice as likely to be naturally blond as men.

Ravens. The Tower of London has them. So who better to ask about the intelligence of Ravens.

Wasps. There are countless species of them, they’re mostly tiny, and most are parasitic – indeed there’s thought to be at least one parasitic wasp species for every other insect species.

Ants perform triage and launch rescue missions on the battlefield, but only if it’s worth the effort.

Scientists are suggesting that trees may have a form of “heartbeat”, but it is so slow we wouldn’t normally notice.

Why does soil, especially newly wet soil, Springtime soil and forest soil, smell so identifiably?

It seems many trillions of viruses fall to Earth each day – millions per square metre – and it’s not all bad.

A meteorite found in Sudan contains some tiny diamonds, which means it is thought to be the remnants of a lost planet.

Health & Medicine

Do you suffer from chronic pain? Medics are suggesting that a change of mindset could help reduce the pain as much as analgesics.

Who, apart from me, had flu this last winter? If you did you shouldn’t be surprised as apparently we don’t take flu seriously enough. It really is worth getting the flu jab (especially if you’re in an “at risk” category). Although I was vaccinated and still got flu which floored me it wasn’t anything like as bad as if I’d not been vaccinated.

The NHS is being urged to include boys & young men in the HPV vaccination scheme (currently only adolescent girls are eligible). Not only would it help contain the general spread of the virus, but more and more men are getting head/neck cancers from the human papilloma virus, thought to be due to the young having more oral sex.

A test is being developed that will allow a foetus’s sex to be determined from just a finger-prick drop of blood during the first trimester of pregnancy.

There needs to be much greater awareness of the state of our post-birth vaginas. As usual the UK lags behind our old enemy, France, in post-partum rehabilitation.

And while we’re at it, we still have an appallingly poor knowledge of the anatomy for the clitoris. Yes, that’s all of us, it seems!

Environment

Unlike my neighbour, most of us understand that plants are important. Here’s why.

Bees are important too. And you can help the bees by doing less. Just mow your lawn only every two to three weeks.

Scientists are developing an enzyme to eat plastic bottles.

Art & Literature

It’s reported that Neil Gaiman is to make a film of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy.

Stockholm residents are up in arms over a five storey high blue penis mural.

London

IanVisits has created a useful map of all London’s miniature steam train rides.

Meanwhile another London blogger, Diamond Geezer, has produced a London Random Tourist Inspiration Generator for when you want to go somewhere but don’t know where.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

We’re moving towards a cashless society, or so we’re told. But being cashless puts us at risk, so the Swedes are turning against the idea.

Why are some societies strict and others lax? New Scientist investigates.

Do you want to be more assertive in life? If so there’s a dominatrix in New York who will teach you.

Chiltern Railways, whose trains run north-west out of London’s Marylebone Station, are suggesting eight seated yoga poses you can do on your commute. I struggling to decide how serous they are.

Crazy cat lady is a frequent image in pop culture. But why?

Food & Drink

A recent column in the Guardian is suggesting that eating goat is as tasty as lamb and a sustainable, ethical choice of meat.

Shock, Horror, Humour

And finally, one for the engineers and kids out there. John Collins, aka. “The Paper Airplane Guy“, holds the distance record for flight by a paper airplane. And he shares a few of his secrets with us.

food+drink, medical, words

Orthorexia

Orthorexia

Excessive concern with consuming a diet considered to be correct in some respect, often involving the elimination of foods or food groups supposed to be harmful to health.
A disorder characterized by a morbid obsession with eating only healthy foods.

The OED reports the first use to be as recent as 1997, viz.:

“Orthorexia nervosa refers to a pathological fixation on eating proper food.”
[Yoga Journal; September-October 1997]

“Orthorexia – like anorexia and bulimia – eventually reaches a point where it takes over the sufferer’s life … Raw food fans take this to the utmost extreme.”
[Cosmopolitan (UK edition); September 1998]

environment, history, links, medical, science, sexuality

Monthly Interesting Links

As regular readers will realise, I read a lot of articles in consumer science, consumer history and the more general media over the course of a month – articles which look as if they will interest me. (I don’t generally read politics, business etc.). What I post here are only those items which I think may be of more general interest to you, my readers, being mindful that the humanities people amongst you might want a bit of “soft” science; and the scientists a bit of humanities. So I do try to mostly avoid difficult science and academically dense Eng.Lit. or history – ‘cos you don’t all want to struggle with/be interested in that, though some may. And I obviously don’t expect everyone to read everything, but just to pick the items which interest you most; if you find one or two each month then that’s good.

So, having restated my aims for this series, let’s get down to business – because there is a lot to cover this month.

Science, Technology & Natural World

We start off with something which surprised me: the engineers building Crossrail had to take the curvature of the Earth into account, because of the length of the line and the precision with which some of the tunnels had to be threaded through between existing structures.

Staying on an engineering theme, scientists have developed a method of making wood as strong as steel, and thus potentially useable as a high strength building material.

Changing themes, what really is biodiversity and why is it so important?

The curious history of horses’ hooves, and how five digits became just one.

Following the attack on a pair of Russians in Salisbury, several of the scientific media have been asking what nerve agents are and how they work. This is Scientific American‘s view.

Health & Medicine

A strange, six inch long, “mummy” was found in Chile some years ago, and many people decided it was an alien – hardly surprising given its appearance. However, following DNA testing it has finally been confirmed that it was a very deformed, female, human infant.

Musician Taylor Muhl has a large birthmark on her torso, but it turns out that it isn’t a birthmark but that she’s a chimera, having absorbed a twin sister in utero in the very early days of gestation.

Influenza is relatively common, and benign, in may non-primate species which provide a natural reservoir for the virus. And there are many other such viruses out in the wild which are a concern as (like Ebola, Zika, SARS) they could mutate and jump to humans.

On a similar theme, researchers are coming to realise that there is a genetic component to our susceptibility to many diseases and that disease prevalence partly depends on the genetic mutations we carry.

Sexuality

From consent advice to sex toys and masturbation hacks, YouTube has taken over sex education.

Language

While on sex, the Whores of Yore website has a history of Cunt, the word.

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

Researchers have analysed a huge number of DNA samples to discover that Homo sapiens interbred with Denisovans on multiple occasions, as we did with the Neanderthals.

Why did Oxford and Cambridge have a monopoly on UK university education for several hundred years, when universities proliferated across the rest of Europe?

Long before the height of the slave trade and the British Empire, black Africans lived freely in Tudor England.

In 1600 Giordano Bruno burned at the stake as a heretic and it looks likely that this was for believing in the existence of planets outside our solar system.

The oldest message in a bottle has been found on a beach in Western Australia.

London

Mudlarking: the pursuit of archaeological treasures hiding in the mud of the River Thames foreshore. Warning: you need a licence!

John Joseph Merlin, a wizard in Georgian London.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

Brad Warner, one of our two favourite Zen Masters, on waking up happy.

So just how many beak-ups does one have to have before one finds “the one”? Search me!

The exorcists are coming, and it doesn’t look good.

We’re living through a crisis of touch where lots of basic human contact like hugging is no longer acceptable – and it is having a serious effect on our mental health.

OK guys, this is for you: 100 easy ways to make women’s lives better. Basically: be considerate!

Finally, following on from the above two items, an article I found rather nauseating about the supposed crisis in modern masculinity. Gawdelpus all!

More next month! Meanwhile, be good!

food+drink, medical

Eating and Diets

Here’s an interesting article, originally from New York Magazine, by a couple of specialists on nutrition which explodes many of the myths around diets etc. In their preamble they say:

It’s beyond strange that so many humans are clueless about how they should feed themselves. Every wild species on the planet knows how to do it; presumably ours did, too, before our oversized brains found new ways to complicate things. Now, we’re the only species that can be baffled about the “right” way to eat.

Really, we know how we should eat, but that understanding is continually undermined by hyperbolic headlines, internet echo chambers, and predatory profiteers all too happy to peddle purposefully addictive junk food and nutrition-limiting fad diets. Eating well remains difficult not because it’s complicated but because the choices are hard even when they’re clear.

With that in mind, we offered friends, readers, and anyone else we encountered one simple request: Ask us anything at all about diet and nutrition and we will give you an answer that is grounded in real scientific consensus, with no “healthy-ish” chit-chat, nary a mention of “wellness”, and no goal other than to cut through all the noise and help everyone see how simple it is to eat well.

The article itself is a long read, but very illuminating.

medical

Flusurvey

I now seem to be recovering from a heavyweight bout with this year’s flu; I’ve lost most of the last 10 days and still have a sore throat and cough, so I’m not yet out of the woods. This is despite having had my flu jab last autumn.

But we know that this year’s vaccine hasn’t been as effective as usual. That’s for two reasons, both (this year) relating mostly to the nasty A-H3N2 virus:
(a) The virus for the vaccine is picked some 9 months in advance because it takes that long to manufacture the vaccine. (So the stains for next winter’s flu jab have probably already been fixed and production started.) In the meantime the strain circulating in the wild may well have mutated, meaning the vaccine isn’t fully effective.
(b) Researchers have recently realised that the virus can also mutate during the production process, so even if what’s circulating in the wild remains fixed again the vaccine isn’t a perfect match.
That is bad news because not only does it look as if both are happening, but A-H3N2 is an especially nasty flu strain; in years where it is circulating there is always an up-tick in cases. H3N2 is the so-called Aussie flu as it is what was circulating in the Antipodes during their last winter (our summer).

Because of the way in which flu works, each year’s vaccine contains three or four different strains. Usually two Influenza-A strains (this year an H1N1 and H3N2) and one or two Influsenza-B strains (this year a B/Brisbane strain in the normal trivalent vaccine, with the quadrivalent vaccine adding a B/Phuket strain). B strains are generally less common and less virulent; A strains can be very nasty viruses, especially for the elderly and those with co-morbidities (like diabetes and COPD).

That’s a very simplified explanation of flu and what’s happening; there’s a very full explanation on Wikipedia. And it is really an aside. What I came here today to tell you about is Flusurvey.

Flusurvey is an online system for measuring influenza trends; it is owned by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Public Health England. The UK Flusurvey was launched in July 2009 during the swine flu epidemic and is part of a Europe-wide initiative to monitor influenza-like activity and understand how epidemics spread. Flusurvey collects data directly from the general public (rather than via hospitals or GPs) during the flu season (so roughly October to April). This is important because many people with flu don’t visit a doctor so wouldn’t otherwise feature in traditional flu surveillance.

Anyone who lives in the UK can register to take part. When you register you are asked to complete a short profile of general questions about yourself and your flu risk factors (eg. age, vaccination status). Then each week you’ll be asked to report any flu-like symptoms experienced since your last visit – and you’ll get to see a map of reported flu in your area (by postcode area – the first 3 or 4 characters of your postcode). Participation is entirely voluntary and information is collected for research purposes only; all analysis is carried out on anonymous datasets.

Of course, if you’re sad, like me, you can look at the map, and pages of graphs and statistics, at any time to see where the hotspots are: looking as I write this I see that my area of west London is currently quite warm as are Ilford, SE Wales and the Harrogate area of Yorkshire. I can also see that there was a massive spike in flu cases starting at Christmas and lasting about 4 weeks; so the worst now looks to be over at least taking the country as a whole.

Currently Flusurvey has over 4000 registered participants with about 2500 reporting in each week – which is heavily weighted towards London and the South-East.

I have been completing Flusurvey each week for a number of years and given that it normally takes 2 minutes a week it is a quick, painless and free way of contributing to ongoing research. So if you have half an ounce of altruism, or are just generally nosy about what’s going on, it is worth signing up. If you sign up now, then you will be included in the remainder of this year’s survey and will be in pole position when Flusurvey starts up again next autumn.

beliefs, environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

Again there is a lot in this month’s edition of “Monthly Links”, so straight in …
Science, Technology & Natural World
If anyone thought that human evolution was straightforward and going to be easy to unravel, they need to think again! Hannah Devlin in the Guardian looks at the tangled web.
Sorry, guys, but the jury is still out whether human pheromones exist.
An interesting account of one journalist’s experience of putting everything in their house on the internet of things, and just how much information ends up in places you maybe wouldn’t want it.
Health & Medicine
A very useful article from Quanta showing how herd immunity from vaccination actually works and why immunisation rates are important (oh, and the – not too hard – maths behind it).
Giardia is a nasty little protozoan parasite which is prevalent in developing countries, but even in the developed world it can affect both us and our pets. Now, at last, scientists are beginning to understand how it works.
Sexuality
Our favourite OB/GYN, Dr Jen Gunther, discusses why some women find sex painful, and what they might do about it.


A banned Georgian sex manual reveals strange beliefs. And it’s up for auction next month.
Scientific American‘s Mind spin-off looks at how to be a better spouse.
Environment
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet says Earth is just a big spaceship with a crew and, like any craft, it needs to be maintained and looked after.
Giving up plastic, and really getting it out of our lives, is a surprisingly big challenge. Here’s how a few brave souls fared when trying.
But on another front there is some hope: that the UK might adopt the Norwegian bottle recycling system.
In the first of two articles this month from George Monbiot he looks at some of the ancient philosophy which is holding back our ability to embrace environmental change.
Our second Monbiot article he is mobilising us against a US trade deal, and especially US farming practices.
The answer it seems is wildflowers: strips of wildflowers through fields enable farmers to reduce pesticide spraying and help beneficial native species to flourish.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Some researchers are suggesting that our ancestor, Homo erectus, may have been able to sail and to speak.
Rather later on the journey to modern man, it seems the first Britons probably had dark skin, curly hair and blue eyes – at least the one buried in the Cheddar Caves did.
When do architects set up camp? When they’re building Stonehenge, of course.
Meanwhile on the other side of the world, some clever aerial imaging has discovered a huge Mayan city in the Guatemalan jungle.
Something special happened in 1504: a blood moon eclipse. nd without it the world might have been rather different.
Not long after Columbus and his blood moon eclipse, Henry VIII established the Royal College of Physicians to regulate the practice of medicine in and around London. And they’re still at it, and no longer just in London! And incidentally their museum is free and well worth visiting; and the interior (if not for everyone the exterior) of their Denis Lasdun building is a delight.
London
Which brings us nicely on to London …
An academic report says that the noise on parts of the London Underground is so loud that it could damage passengers and staff hearing.
However London Underground health & safety seem more keen on telling us how to use an escalator. But then most people are in need of this knowledge.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, or Candlemas, is celebrated on 2nd February. It looks like another of those pagan winter light festivals reinvented by the church.
So what really is the secret of having a truly healthy city? Better go ask Copenhagen.

And now for something completely different: felines with official positions and cats with careers.
Food & Drink
Noreen and I have been taking about false food for years, now it seems that researchers have cottoned on to its pervasiveness.
Finally some real food: an ancient Greek recipe for a honey cheesecake. I must say, it’s not my taste though.

More at the end of March – which is Easter weekend.

history, links, medical, science

Your Interesting Links

Here here we are with the first 2018 collection of links to articles you may have missed the first time.
Science & Natural World
Long, long ago one of Britain’s most eminent natural scientists (as they then were), Robert Boyle (1627-1691), wrote a wish list of scientific breakthroughs. The original document still survives in the Royal Society and Jason Kottke has recently taken a look at what happened to some of those aspirations.
So just why is it so hard to swat a fly? Spoiler: Time!
It’s known that around 10% of humans are naturally left-handed, but cats have paw preferences too though they appear to be gender dependent.
From cats to rats. Unlike the former, the latter do not have a good reputation. But is this really deserved? Should we look more kindly on the rat? I think we probably should.
I wasn’t sure whether to put this here, or at the end … Zoologists have decided that the Moustached Monkey is separate species. And yes, it really does have a handlebar moustache!


In another curious discovery, divers have found a previously unknown population of Red Handfish which walk on their fins rather than swimming!

For some years there has been debate over whether some curious and tiny structures in very very old rocks are signs of primordial life. Now the scientists involved are presenting new evidence which could challenge our current ideas about Earth’s early millennia. [LONG READ]
Health & Medicine
What is the next big global health threat? Zoologist Mackenzie Kwak in the Guardian makes the case that it isn’t an infectious disease but a disease vector: ticks.
And now for a strange piece of medicine: it seems that some people are able to smell illnesses. [LONG READ]
We, all of us, men included, need to find the courage to talk about cervical smears. Not being female I don’t know how uncomfortable and undignified they really are (and I doubt my imagination does it justice) but this is one screening test which really does save lives.
Now this really is weird! Medics have discovered that when you move your eyes from side-to-side your eardrums move as well. And no-one has a clue why that is! You may be able to demonstrate this for yourself (I think I can): sit quietly and move your eyes up and down and notice what it feels/sounds like in your ears; now try moving your eyes side to side and I think it feels ever so slightly different in the ears.
Environment
Respected scientist Prof. Sir John Beddington FRS is a former UK government chief scientific adviser. He puts forward the case that the EU’s renewable energy targets (specifically as related to bioenergy) could raise emissions rather than lower them.
Apparently no-one wants used clothes any more. Why? China!
Living without plastic. Is it even possible? Well here are a few hints & tips on how you might be able to.
Language
Harry Mount considers why, even in this digital age, Latin is an essential skill.
“As Black as Newgate’s Knocker” is a phrase I’d never encountered before. London Guide Peter Berthoud looks for its origins.
How did War Artists depict WWII London? [LONG READ]
Art & Literature

Swedish artist Carolina Falkholt is known for her giant, multi-coloured murals of vulvas. Now she has painted a giant penis on a New York apartment block – only to have it painted over within days. Really!, some people have no sense of fun!
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Egyptian mummies were often placed in cases made from scraps of used papyrus. Now scientists have worked out a way to read these scraps without destroying the case – and it looks as if they’re going to throw some interesting light on everyday Ancient Egyptian life.
Like many cathedrals Westminster Abbey has attics and hidden corners, especially up in the triforium and above the vaulting. Archaeologists have discovered that they contains a treasure trove amongst the discarded waste including thousands of fragments of early stained glass. How much else have our great churches cleared away?
Early map-making was often somewhat fictitious, if not deliberately so, and many early maps contain islands which have never existed!
London
IanVisits looks back at historic London and some of the Crossrail-style projects which were never built.
Parliament is falling down, not just metaphorically but in reality – the Palace of Westminster is in really dire need of a major refurbishment but everyone is sitting on their hands. [LONG READ]

Lifestyle & Personal Development
Girl on the Net writes a considered piece about the difficult conversations we must all have in response to the the President’s Club revelations and . [LONG READ]
In the same vein here’s another piece which looks at the way everything is skewed in favour of male pleasure while ignoring and denying the concomitant female pain. [LONG READ]
Shock, Horror, Humour
Well, this one had to be our finale … In Saudi Arabia a dozen camels were disqualified from a camel beauty contest for using Botox! You just couldn’t make it up!
Toodle Pip!

food+drink, history, links, medical, science

Your Monthly Links

Here’s the final round for 2017 of monthly links to articles you may have missed the first time around. Despite the holidays there’s a lot her, so let’s get straight in …
Science & Natural World
Scientists have managed to recover, from some amber, ticks from the era of the dinosaurs. Two reports, first from BBC and second from New York Times.
Zoologists have discovered six (yes, six) new species of tiny anteaters which had been hiding in plain sight in the forests of Brazil.
Health & Medicine


Here are a pair of items of flu vaccination. First, why you should get your flu shot every year. And second on why flu vaccine may not be as effective as it should be. And no, the second does not excuse you from the first!
Environment
We all have our own, differing, perceptions of the world even when seen from the same position. And each generation perceives the state of the world from its childhood as the norm. So over the generations we gradually normalise the degrading of the natural world. It’s an interesting idea.
Social Sciences, Business, Law
With fewer people needed to do real work, but more jobs, huge numbers are doing little except continually reworking and reworking business bullshit. [LONG READ]
Art & Literature
The original of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom was due to be sold at auction but has been saved by the French government as a national treasure.
The Japanese have an interesting take on broken things, especially broken pots: they celebrate the breakage by repairing it with gold.
History, Archaeology & Anthropology
Amateur explorers have found a vast, partly flooded, underground passage beneath Montreal.
Still on a watery note, new underwater discoveries in Greece are revealing the wonders of ancient Roman engineering.
DNA mapping of the Irish has shown that they are, well, distinctively Irish – mostly.
Historians are getting increasingly inventive and adept at uncovering the lost texts on palimpsests. [LONG READ]
A number of Elizabethan letters have been donated to the British Library, amongst them one from Elizabeth I stating her suspicions to Mary, Queen of Scots.
Merton Priory in south London was destroyed during th dissolution of the monasteries, and has latterly been over-flown by a motorway. Now the remains are being uncovered and made accessible.
Why do renovations on old houses often find hidden shoes.

Postboxes. They date from the early 1850s, they weren’t always red, and there have been many designs over the last 160+ years. The Postal Museum has an extensive collection.
London
Industrial accidents in Silvertown (in London’s docklands) have been a relatively common occurrence. Here’s the story of one of the earlier and lesser known explosions.
So just how many London Underground stations are there? Diamond Geezer investigates.

Squawking, bright green and feathered … London is home to a huge number of non-native Ring-Necked Parakeets. Many people hate them, but we regularly have them in our garden and I love them both for their colourfulness and their cheeky antics.
Lifestyle & Personal Development
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have free will. We make fewer decisions than we think because politicians set out to make us feasrful so they can manipulate us for their own interest.
Life is not fair. And it is a parent’s job to ensure their children understand this other wise they’ll not cope with life as adults.
There’s generally a lack of trust in male touch (and that’s not new). This is why men keep demanding sex from their partners over and over.
Should we be surprised that in the wake of #MeToo women fear a backlash?
In an increasingly noisy world full of smartphones, conversation is dying. So how do we recover it? Shut up and listen!
Food & Drink
And finally … Just what fruit should be kept in the fridge, and what shouldn’t?

More next month. Meanwhile have a happy New Year!