Recent Editor's Picks
From the BBC:
[A] US team believe the "waste removal system" is one of the fundamental reasons for sleep.
Their study, in the journal Science, showed brain cells shrink during sleep to open up the gaps between neurons and allow fluid to wash the brain clean.
They also suggest that failing to clear away some toxic proteins may play a role in brain disorders.
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Robert Shiller - whose columns we are privileged to distribute by the kind permission of Project Syndicate - has today been awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Olli Raade
Editor
Cato Institute has published its 17th Economic Freedom of the World Report. The report is produced by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank, in cooperation with the Cato Institute and the Economic Freedom Network, a group of independent research and educational institutes in nearly 90 nations and territories worldwide.
From the BBC: Going on health kick reveses ageing at cellular level, researchers say.
Quote:
"The University of California team says it has found the first evidence a strict regime of exercise, diet and meditation can have such an effect."
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"The researchers saw visible cellular changes in the group of 10 men who switched to a vegetarian diet and stuck to a recommended timetable of exercise and stress-busting meditation and yoga.
In the 1990's in Russia a man who had been in jail several times, in total for 40 years, was interviewed in the television.
The reporter asked why he was in jail.
"For nothing!" replied the man.
"It cannot be" said the reporter, "for nothing you get max five years."
In the May/June issue of the Foreign Affairs Mark Blyth writes about austerity, i.e a deliberate deflation of domestic wages and prices through cuts in public spending in order to reduce a state's debts and deficits, to increase competitiveness and to boost "business confidence". The results are now in according to Blyth, and they are consistent: Austerity does not work.
(In the picture Olli Raade, Editor to Facts & Arts)
"Except for the lucky few who have the gift, students struggling to coax music out of a piano are in for a world of pain. Most of them just suffer in silence, and so do their families in the next room, as sharps become flats, allegro becomes lento, and Mozart rolls over in his grave.
Extract:
"A young man from provincial Italy brought style back to the recent Van Cliburn Piano Competition with unbridled displays of joy at the keyboard and a mature artist's mastery of the music. The audience exploded in shouts and stomps after his performances and webcast viewers around the world showered him with praise. The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram dubbed the phenomenon 'Deljamania'."
The emergency call centre in Helsinki, Finland, has during the past few days received tens of calls from worried citizens who wanted to report seemingly orphaned seagull chicks. The head of the Fire Department on duty asks the public to use an alternative service number in order not to crowd out other emergency calls.
Olli Raade
Editor