A climate of mindAnyone who cares about climate change has to be tired of the vitriolic tirades that masquerade as public debate over that issue. Climate change has become a rhetorical contest akin to a sports match, with each side seeking total victory – often through the cynical manipulation of fear, distrust, and intolerance. No wonder the public is confused. More
Global warming and violent behaviour
Mary Claire King, as much as any individual scholar, has changed how we think about what it means to be human. She did so using genetics as a lens through which to see what was otherwise invisible.. It was King who first identified a key gene in breast cancer. It was King who helped to identity the missing dead in Argentina in the 1980s. It would also be King who, in 1975, first compare the genetic similarity of humans and chimpanzees. It was known chimpanzees and humans were similar, kin, but just how similar? More
Climate & mental healthWhen people think about climate change, they probably think first about its effects on the environment, and possibly on their physical health. But climate change also takes a significant toll on mental health, according to a new report released by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica. Climate change-induced severe weather and other natural disasters have the most immediate effects on mental health in the form of the trauma and shock due to personal injuries, loss of a loved one, damage to or loss of personal property or even the loss of livelihood, according to the report. Terror, anger, shock and other intense negative emotions that can dominate people’s initial response may eventually subside, only to be replaced by post-traumatic stress disorder. More
Devil’s dictionary
PLAGUE: n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharaoh the Immune. The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Video: VanishingWe’re entering the Earth’s sixth era of extinction – and it’s the first time humans are to blame. This video introduces you to the key species, and the people who are trying to prevent them from vanishing. Watch now
@TrueSciPhi: “How astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings into view...” Virginia Woolf
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