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Compromising with Racism
Over at Slate, Tanner Colby has a critique of liberal US school busing policies that’s well worth reading. Some historical context: in the wake of Brown v. Board’s 1954 mandate to integrate school districts, a pattern of ‘white flight’ emerged – white parents moving from city centers to the suburbs to avoid having to send…
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Difficulties in assessing the risks of hydraulic fracturing and shale gas extraction: new study shows correlation between birth defects and proximity to gas wells in Colorado.
Natural gas extraction is associated with several known teratogens. A study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives on January 28th by researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health and the Department of Epidemiology of Brown University, USA, finds that for those babies born of mothers living with greater density of natural gas wells…
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Assisted Suicide in Scotland
Kevin McKenna offers a spirited critique (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/01/assisted-suicide-bill-scotland) of Margo MacDonald’s bill on assisted suicide, proposed recently to the Scottish Parliament. Behind the rhetorical references to the ‘culture of death’ MacDonald is seeking to introduce in Scotland, and her ‘deathly obsession’, there are some old arguments, which remain as weak as ever.
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Time to stop the abominable illegality of kidney markets
Do you like the ambiguous title? No, I don’t think illegal kidney markets are intrinsically abominable. Insofar as they are abominable in various respects it is entirely a further consequence of the abominality of making them illegal. The abominable politicians who passed the law and sustain the law are to blame for thousands of deaths…
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“One cup of joe and your brain is ready to go”? – Caffeine as memory enhancer
The first systematic study investigating the effects of caffeine on human performance – sponsored by Coca-Cola – has been published about 100 years ago. Since then, thousands of other studies have been looking at if and in which ways caffeine improves cognitive performance. This question is still debated in science, but there is general consensus…
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Do we have a right to drink? On Australian thugs and French hedonists
It has been an interesting week awaiting the announced reforms on the alcohol laws in New South Wales, Australia. After another incident with alcohol fuelled violence where a young boy died due to an unprovoked single punch, the family of this young man, Thomas Kelly, submitted a petition asking for intoxication to be taken into…
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Marathon mice, enhancement and the will to work out
In his article in the Pacific Standard last week, author Bruce Grierson discusses the emerging scientific evidence that the ‘will to work out’ might be genetically determined. Grierson describes a ‘marathon mouse’, the descendant of a long line of mice bred for their love of exercise, and a 94-year-old woman called Olga, who is an…
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The Texan flautist and the fetus
Imagine that when you woke up this morning, you found yourself lying next to an unconscious stranger. The stranger has a rare life-threatening illness, and unbeknownst to you he was plugged in to your organs during the night. You are now stuck to the stranger. If you disconnect the life support he will die. If,…
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The incoherence of Obama’s position on marijuana
U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent interview in the New Yorker was surprisingly interesting. While some have noted his disapproval towards a (hypothetical) son playing pro football out of concussion concerns, the more remarkable comments concern marijuana: he says it’s “not very different from…cigarettes” and “I don’t think it’s more dangerous than alcohol.” He did…
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Doctors: turn off your computer and listen to your gut
‘Between the NHS and social care, there must be total commitment to ensuring that interaction is paperless, and that, with a patient’s consent, their full medical history can follow them around the system seamlessly.‘ So said Jeremy Hunt,the Health Secretary, on 16 January 2013. And NHS England say that: ‘Our vision is for a fully integrated…