Money and sanity

Recovery From Schizophrenia: An International Perspective.

Apparently, according to a WHO international study, living in poorer countries gives a better chance of recovering from schizophrenia:

Outcome from schizophrenia is routinely better in developing world settings, and this difference becomes apparent during the initial 2 years of illness. But even for developing world patients with a poor early course, outcome is superior to that of developed world patients with an equivalent early course. Employment rates are substantially greater for developing world subjects, and some authors have attributed this to the freedom from the economic disincentives to employment that can accompany the provision of disability benefits in the industrial world (1). The editors, who include a well regarded medical anthropologist, are cautious about attributing the improved developing world outcomes to specific cultural factors. Shantytowns may not be ideal "communities of recovery," they point out, and extended families can be tyrannical as well as supportive. They conclude, however, that family involvement may be a key positive factor. They point to "the extraordinary engagement of Indian families in the course of treatment," (p. 280) coupled with low criticism and reduced demands. They also point to a startling difference in one component of social inclusion. Nearly three-quarters of Indian subjects with schizophrenia were married at follow-up, compared with about one-third of people with the illness in the developed world centers.

How odd.

Reviving polytheism

Bring back the Greek gods - Los Angeles Times

I missed this a couple of weeks ago - the Los Angeles Times runs an article arguing that polytheism makes more sense than monotheism, and suggesting that the modern world would be better off with it.

Yes, I think we should have some type of contest for new, more appropriate gods for the 21 st century.

I would like to take the article to task on several of its suggestions, but have no time right now.

The funniest serious gadget for some time....

Mangroomer DIY Electric Back Hair Shaver - wax-free smoothness at a stroke - The Red Ferret Journal

Eating at Teneriffe

It's rare that I get to eat out at somewhere new that I feel I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Today, my wife and I tried out a "European Tapas bar" at Teneriffe, the former dockside industrial area of Brisbane now full of woolstores and warehouses that have all been converted to apartments for young couples, old couples, and gays; which essentially means the suburb seems childless. (We had to leave ours locked in the car for a couple of hours.)

The name of the tapas place is Salon, and you can go look at the menu at its website. It also had a pretty eclectic drinks selection, and everything was just great. They do the breakfast menu until 2pm, the waiter told us. (I suppose it takes that long for the ecstasy to wear off from last night's clubbing.)

I have been wanting to eat at a quality tapas place for some time, and was not disappointed.

All Brisbane readers are encouraged to support it; I want it to still be open in 12 months time when we next have the opportunity to have a Sunday lunch alone.

(And need I say it: just kidding about the kids.)

What a resume; what a life

Spotted this in a New Yorker review of a couple of books about the history of cars:

In 1921, a team of G.M. researchers looking for a way to prevent knock discovered that by adding small amounts of tetraethyl lead, or TEL, to the fuel supply they could solve the problem. By that point, the toxicity of lead was already well known. Indeed, one of the G.M. researchers behind TEL, Thomas Midgley, very nearly poisoned himself while working on the additive, and several workers at a plant experimenting with TEL died gruesome deaths as a result of exposure to it. (Midgley went on to invent Freon, which was later discovered to be destroying the ozone layer.)

The author apparently argues that even in the 1920's, chemists proposed avoiding the problem by increasing petrol octane, which is the solution that, 50 years later, was finally forced on the car manufacturers after untold public health harm by leaded petrol.

Anyway, I had never heard of Thomas Midgley before, even though it sounds like he almost singlehandedly did the world in; which is quite a feat, really.

Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about him....Ah well, there you go: typically, I am not original in my thoughts:

One historian remarked that Midgley "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth history." ^[1]

He also died in a "stranger than fiction" fashion:

In 1940, he contracted polio at the age of 51, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his death when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of this device and died of suffocation at the age of 55.

I hope we have all learnt something from this post*.

*(I have no idea what, but it was sort of fun.)

Clapton goes clean

There are two anecdotes about Eric Clapton which I hadn't heard before in the Salon review of his autobiography. (Mind you, I have never followed his life story closely; maybe the first one is common knowledge?):

Clapton was prone to outrageous behavior when drunk, which was now most of the time. He did one entire show lying down onstage. He was particularly fond of crude practical jokes. The nadir came when he decided to play a trick on his drummer, who had taken a girl back to his hotel room in Honolulu. Intending to spoil his pal's night and give him a good scare, Clapton grabbed a samurai sword, walked out onto a ledge 30 stories up, and made his way into the drummer's bedroom. Neither the drummer nor the girl were amused, and neither were the police, who came to the door with guns drawn, thinking he was some kind of assassin.

Odd how he was lucky to avoid the (much later) sad fate of his son.

The other story is how he came finally came clean, and it's a perfect fit for the AA approach:

In 1987, driven by fear that Conor would grow up to see him as the drunken mess that he was, he returned to Hazelden, where he had a dramatic revelation that proved to be what he says was the turning point in his life: "In the privacy of my room I begged for help. I had no idea who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, that I had nothing left to fight with ... I surrendered." Clapton writes that he has never wanted to take a drink or a drug in the 20 years since that moment.

Let's hope it stays that way.

More on politics

Some random thoughts:

1. why hasn't some Liberal sympathiser put up on Youtube the video snippet I saw this week of Maxine McKew getting all carried away dancing in the street at Bennelong? Labor figures dancing after the Keating election win did them harm in the 1996 election. Maxine looking as if she is celebrating already is equally not a great look.

2. Kevin Rudd has come out first with some home buyers assistance, although it would seem it is all about only saving a deposit, which has little to do with the problems with servicing large mortgages.

I have been betting all along that the Liberals would have a substantial policy on home buying assistance, and I hope that such an announcement figures in the official campaign launch, and is more far reaching than the Labor policy.

By the way, when are the official campaign launches? They are always interesting to watch not so much because of content, but more as theatre.

3. The Coalition advertising campaign seems more reactive than anything else, and that's not good. Too much time spent aligning the ads with the focus groups, I think.

4. More talk today about possible big financial meltdowns being just around the corner. Peter Costello may have been right to raise the issue when he did. It should work in the Coalitions favour, but who knows with this electorate...

5. Catallaxy actually has a good discussion going on at this week's open forum about tax cuts and interest rates.

Grrrr...

What is it with ABC journalists wasting time in interviews with John Howard about transition arrangements with Peter Costello? Kerry O'Brien started off his second interview with a question about this last Monday's, and Barry Cassidy did it again on Insiders today (transcript not up yet). Do they think they know something that the PM is not telling us? Otherwise, I thought the PM's position on this was very, very clear, and why waste time asking him about it.

Then I turn over to Sunday, and catch the end of an interview in which, I reckon, Kevin Rudd was being handled very gently by Laurie Oakes. There were all sorts of things he said that could have been challenged (in particular, his simultaneous claim that its Howard who is into scare campaigns, and that Peter Costello as PM would make Work Choices tougher!) There's no doubt Labor is running scare ads too, with more to come.

Then Laurie says post-interview that there was still a touch of Captain Cranky about Howard this morning...maybe it's because of the type of interviewing he is having to put up with.

Better off not knowing

Brain imaging seen leading to more false alarms | Science | Reuters

Turns out that if you have an MRI of your brain for no particular reason, you might get a surprise:

Improvements in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have led to increased detection of minor brain abnormalities that may worry the patient, but often will never cause any problems, according to study findings reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study involved 2,000 people, between 46 and 96 years of age, with no symptoms of brain disease who underwent MRI between 2005 and 2007.

Dead brain tissue was the most common abnormality, seen in 7.2 percent of subjects. Other abnormalities included benign brain tumors and ballooned blood vessels, also known as aneurysms.

This terminology is very "cute":

While incidental findings on MRI, sometimes referred to as "incidentalomas," may prompt further investigation they should never be used as the sole reason for receiving a particular medical or surgical treatment, van der Lugt emphasized.

Weird country

Here's a short but interesting article from The Economist on what it's like to visit North Korea as a tourist.

Don't expect much choice in accommodation:

Most Westerners are put up in a hotel on a river island, an Alcatraz of fun that they may not leave unescorted. To keep curiosity at bay there is a swimming-pool, a bowling-alley, a putting-green and two saunas (one hot; one seedy).

One assumes that the North Korean government is aware of the "seedy" sauna, and figures it at least keeps tourists occupied on something other than thinking about the decay all around them.

Just don't mention clear air turbulence

The Airbus A380, 'flying villages' and the future of flight - International Herald Tribune

The arrival of the Airbus A380 has received rave reviews and generated much interest (with beds on board naturally leading us into Richard Branson-esque mile high club talk yet again,) but it has also encouraged silly talk of new mega-size airplanes being places where people will be encouraged to stand and walk around:

Virgin Atlantic (which has ordered six A380s, with delivery delayed until 2013) says it plans to offer such amenities as a fitness center, a casino, beauty salons, bars and restaurants, and a family area.

"We want to give passengers the choice to move around in this plane," a Virgin spokeswoman said. "The idea of sacrificing seats for space is something we have done with Upper Class on our 747s, with a bar and lounge area."

Either Boeing or Airbus (I've misplaced the link) has an interactive guide showing couples standing having a cocktail at the bar.

Yeah sure. So what about the routine advice you get now from (I think) all airlines that when you are seated you should keep your seatbelt on?

It's surely not at all safe to actually encourage passengers to mill around bars, gyms or "family areas", and I reckon its basically dishonest PR to pretend this will be become the norm.

Here's a passage from CASA that is relevant:

In-flight turbulence is the leading cause of injuries to passengers and crew. ....

From 1981 through 1997 there were 342 reports of turbulence affecting major air carriers. Three passengers died, two of these fatalities were not wearing their seat belt while the sign was on. 80 suffered serious injuries, 73 of these passengers were also not wearing their seat belts.

Just give me more leg room in economy and I will be happy to stay seated as long as I can.

Who would take a holiday there?

Dubai and rape: French youth tells his story - International Herald Tribune

A pretty appalling story about Dubai and its criminal legal system.

Weird science time again...

[0710.3395] If LHC is a Mini-Time-Machines Factory, Can We Notice?

Readers may recall that the Large Hadron Collider (due to start up next year) might, or might not, create large numbers of mini black holes, which might or might not decay completely, perhaps leaving remnants the exact nature of which seem not entirely understood. It might also create strangelets and other exotic things, like Saturn shaped black hole rings, about which the good people at CERN keep saying "don't you worry about that, citizens of Earth."

This is a new one, it seems: there have been a couple of papers recently saying that it might also create twisted bits of space- time which will effectively be tiny time machines.

I haven't read the paper above carefully yet, but its general gist seems to be that such time machines may be hard to detect as they are also expected to evaporate, but maybe they will cause some effect which will be detectable. (Hopefully, expanding to swallow the earth and sending it back to the big bang will not be one of them.)

All very interesting, if you are interested in this sort of thing.

By the way, I have been told via private email from someone who knows a bit more about this that CERN has agreed to do some more safety review stuff. Can't say that I have seen this confirmed anywhere on the Web, though.

The movie few are waiting for

X-Files stars, crew reunite for secretive sequel | Entertainment | Television | Reuters

Who knows, maybe it will be OK. I wouldn't hold my breath, though.

Now, this gives me a good excuse to intone the magic words "Gillian Anderson, Gillian Anderson, Gillian Anderson", and if I throw in the phrase "infamous nude sex scene", hey presto my miserable Friday visitor figures should improve.

Palin on tour

Michael Palin will be in Brisbane for a talk at City Hall next Thursday 8 Nov at 6.30pm.

This seems to be a pretty well kept secret by Dymocks, who are running the event. There might be $20 tickets available still; I have to wait for the booking person to ring me back today after she has counted them up on her abacus, or whatever she has to do.

Geoff: message received, will see if I can get one for you too.

Allergic to Cats

The show Cats is the lamest, most tedious excuse for a musical ever written or performed. (But I should point out that I have never seen anything of Starlight Express, which may be even more awful.)

Its box office popularity seems to be the ultimate success of marketing over quality in the history of musicals.

The only conceivably worse concept for a musical would be one based on horses. (Please, don't tell me if it has been done.)

Wait a minute: come to think of it, a musical performed by a cast of 30 two-person pantomime horses might be better than Cats.

OK, it's good to get that opinion off my chest after 20 years. It's what's blogging was designed for, isn't it?

Tibetans are special

How Tibetans Enjoy the High Life: Scientific American

Here's an interesting story on how it is that Tibetans manage to live in such thin air:

The Tibetans increase their blood flow by producing prodigious amounts of nitric oxide in the linings of the blood vessels. This gas diffuses into the blood and forms nitrite and nitrate, which cause the arteries and capillaries to expand and deliver oxygen-bearing blood to the rest of the body more rapidly than normal. ... Also, the nitric oxide by-products circulating in Tibetan blood are 10 times greater.

In fact, the Tibetan levels of these nitrites and nitrates are higher than those in patients suffering from a bacterial blood infection—septic shock—and the blood flows are typical of people suffering from high blood pressure. Yet, they have no ill effects in Tibetans. "We don't see an increase in vascular resistance," Beall says. The Tibetans also appear to have higher levels of antioxidants in their bodies, perhaps to help reduce the risk of putting so much nitric oxide—a free radical—into their bloodstreams.

The curious thing is (which, incidentally, I haven't seen mentioned in any of the versions of this story about Tibetans, but just was my own recollection) is that nitric oxide has an important role in penile erections.

Is Viagra not needed in Tibet?

Build your own rocket plane

North American X-15 Downloadable Cardmodel

Found via Air & Space Magazine, which is full of articles this month about the X-15.

Absinthetinence

Comedy Central: Shows - The Colbert Report

At the website, go and scroll down the video list and check out the video of Colbert's Absinthetinence pledge (it's currently the third one down.)

It is very funny comedy writing.

There is something good natured about the frequent silliness of Colbert Report, I reckon, which is missing from the general sourness of The Daily Show.

UPDATE: here's what I presume will be a more permanent link to the clip.

China, food, safety etc

774 arrests in China over safety - International Herald Tribune

Doesn't China have ways of dealing with this problem other than via arrest?