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Oliver Sacks: "Don't skip the footnotes"
Health, Sports & Psychology

Oliver Sacks: "Don't skip the footnotes"

...openness to the pleasures of life: Many more examples could be given across Sacks’ incredibly wide-ranging work. We should, however, avoid sentimentalising neurological difference. Many of Sacks' subjects suffered greatly, finding themselves languishing between worlds in a lonely, purgatorial existence. The 1973 book Awakenings provides perhaps the most compelling...
View article Oliver Sacks: "Don't skip the footnotes"
Article 5 mins
The dog beyond the mirror: Experiments with dog consciousness
Health, Sports & Psychology

The dog beyond the mirror: Experiments with dog consciousness

...opened and each dog was individually introduced to the inside of the cage and allowed to freely move for 5 minutes. The time taken by each dog to sniff each sample was recorded. The result was surprising: all dogs devoted more time to smell the urine samples of the others rather than their own, and this behavior confirmed the hypothesis that dogs seem to know their own...
View article The dog beyond the mirror: Experiments with dog consciousness
Article 5 mins
From the Sumerians to Shakespeare to Twain: why fart jokes never get old
History & The Arts

From the Sumerians to Shakespeare to Twain: why fart jokes never get old

...opening poetic ode refers to the flatus as “Cure of cholick, cure of gripes, tuneful drone of lower pipes.” Swift then goes on to subject the fart to a detailed analysis – carefully describing its legal, social and scientific dimensions – before concluding that there are multiple species of fart, including “the sonorous and full-toned or rousing fart,” “the...
View article From the Sumerians to Shakespeare to Twain: why fart jokes never get old
Article 10 mins
Scotland Votes 2016: Campaign snapshots
Society, Politics & Law

Scotland Votes 2016: Campaign snapshots

...opens you to claims of defeatism – as Conservative leader Ruth Davidson discovered – while hinting at victory wins you the “most arrogant” prize. 2. The indyref stick Clearly the Scottish independence referendum did not settle the constitutional debate. The main opposition parties, particularly Scottish Labour, are repeating last year’s UK election claim that...
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Article 5 mins
What do safe drinking guidelines mean?
Health, Sports & Psychology

What do safe drinking guidelines mean?

...open way, so they can make informed choices. This admirable aim of treating the public as adults capable of making up their own minds seems in stark contrast with the authoritarian tone of publicity from the Department of Health, which baldly says “Men should not drink more than 14 units of alcohol each week, the same as women”. Neither the press release nor the...
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Article 5 mins
Has Donald Trump improved the US economy in fifty days?
Money & Business

Has Donald Trump improved the US economy in fifty days?

...open question for economists. But there seems to be an agreement that the multipliers peak after a considerable amount of time. One influential study by British economist Andrew Mountford and US economist Harald Uhlig in 2009, which was based on data on the US economy, found that the maximum impact is estimated to occur only after five years. So while it’s difficult to...
View article Has Donald Trump improved the US economy in fifty days?
Article 5 mins
How does earthquake science help us track North Korea's nuclear tests?
Science, Maths & Technology

How does earthquake science help us track North Korea's nuclear tests?

...opened for signatures, aiming to ban all nuclear explosions. To enforce this treaty, the Vienna-based CTBT Organisation is establishing an International Monitoring System with over 50 seismic monitoring stations to detect nuclear tests anywhere on Earth. This system doesn’t just use seismometers. Infrasound instruments listen for very low frequency sound waves,...
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Article 5 mins
John Perry Barlow: An Appreciation
Science, Maths & Technology

John Perry Barlow: An Appreciation

...open information infrastructure." The internet is not and never was the most important fight in our world: addressing racial and gender bias, averting climate catastrophe and addressing gross income inequality are all far more important than the internet ever was. But the internet is the terrain where that struggle will be waged -- which makes the internet fight the most...
View article John Perry Barlow: An Appreciation
Article 10 mins