“…Apples that suppress appetite could also be in the pipeline, with the first varieties on shelves within five years.”

via Extra healthy apples on the way as scientists crack genome for Golden Delicious | Mail Online.

“North Korea is a real place to me. For most of us, I think, North Korea occupies the same imaginary plane of existence as Mordor. But it is real, and one thing I came to appreciate is that most North Koreans are normal people living in abnormal conditions…”

What’s It Like to Be a Tourist in North Korea? – Interview by Christina Larson | Foreign Policy.

Why does anyone receive suboptimal care? After all, society could not have given us people with more talent, more dedication, and more training than the people in medical science have—than you have. I think the answer is that we have not grappled with the fact that the complexity of science has changed medicine fundamentally. This can no longer be a profession of craftsmen individually brewing plans for whatever patient comes through the door. We have to be more like engineers building a mechanism whose parts actually fit together, whose workings are ever more finely tuned and tweaked for ever better performance in providing aid and comfort to human beings.

via News Desk: The Velluvial Matrix : The New Yorker.

“Being spiritual but not religious can lead to complacency and self-centeredness,” says Martin, an editor at America, a national Catholic magazine based in New York City. “If it’s just you and God in your room, and a religious community makes no demands on you, why help the poor?”

via Are there dangers in being ‘spiritual but not religious’? – CNN.com.

Um, thanks but no thanks, CNN. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the relationship between community giving and religious affiliation was decoupled long ago. Articles like these are what I call “pandering” not journalism. Who’s asking “Is there danger in being Religious but not Spiritual?” I think that question should be higher in the minds of the quoted catholics and Jesuits.

Tony Blairs “cool Britannia,”epitomized by hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs and media stars, offered little to the working and middle classes. Despite its proletarian roots, New Labour, as London Mayor Boris Johnson acidly notes, has presided over that which has become the most socially immobile society in Europe.

via The Future Of Americas Working Class | Newgeography.com.

A very interesting perspective on how economic growth in the post-millennial western world is defined by a hollowing out of the middle, the consolidation of the super-wealthy, and the growth of a large, working-poor class. And, all of it is wrapped up neatly in a bow of complete social immobility.

It might be cliche to sound the call of the “rich get richer while the poor get poorer,” or it might be anti-conservative to suggest that there’s a policy agenda that should speak to mobility. But, having spent time in places like Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Mexico, I can attest to the value of social mobility. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the notion of “freedom” to which we vigilantly cling as conservatives is best reflected by social mobility, or “opportunity.” The freedom to take risks and strive for a greater future, the freedom to take risks, fall flat on one’s face, and be able to pick themselves up again. Each of these freedoms is dependent on access to capital, healthcare, and education, and a social net to some degree – making the each of these – capital, health, education, and welfare – fundamentally conservative values, in as much as they support the most conservative value of all – freedom of social mobility.

There’s a fine line, of course, between creating a state in which social mobility is a driving force, and creating a welfare state. Britain appears to be struggling to find that balance, with immigration and the widely available dole wreaking havoc on their social contract.

Perhaps worse that the effects of immigration and welfare policy, however, is the corrosive dissolution of manufacturing industries. This is something that I’ve observed in my travels. The Middle Class, as we know it, is the product of reasonably well-paid manufacturing jobs – a class of employment that drove our economies through the fifties, up until the late eighties. Countries that have never had such an industrial leg up on creating a middle class inevitably stagnate at an equilibrium comprised of a wealthy elite and impoverished masses. That’s where our western economies are headed today – the loss of those jobs is corrosive to our social contract and mobility. When the middle class can no longer afford to perpetuate itself, you’re left with Bangladesh, or Rio de Janeiro.

That’s not to say that western cities are going to turn into Rio over night – though some might argue that its happening already (see: Safer in Baghdad than Chicago). Regardless, I believe as conservatives we have an obligation to forward a policy agenda that cognizant of the value of small government, but also not forgetful of the “freedoms” on which our continued success, failures, happiness, and mobility are dependent.

via Reddit.

In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change.

Read on at Salon – “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”. (found on Reddit)

From the CDC: “The results of experiments and observations of insect biting behavior indicate that when an insect bites a person, it does not inject its own or a previously bitten person's or animal's blood into the next person bitten. Rather, it injects saliva, which acts as a lubricant so the insect can feed efficiently. Diseases such as yellow fever and malaria are transmitted through the saliva of specific species of mosquitoes. However, HIV lives for only a short time inside an insect and, unlike organisms that are transmitted via insect bites, HIV does not reproduce (and does not survive) in insects. Thus, even if the virus enters a mosquito or another insect, the insect does not become infected and cannot transmit HIV to the next human it bites.

There also is no reason to fear that a mosquito or other insect could transmit HIV from one person to another through HIV-infected blood left on its mouth parts. Several reasons help explain why this is so. First, infected people do not have constantly high levels of HIV in their blood streams. Second, insect mouth parts retain only very small amounts of blood on their surfaces. Finally, scientists who study insects have determined that biting insects normally do not travel from one person to the next immediately after ingesting blood. Rather, they fly to a resting place to digest the blood meal.” http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/qa/transmission.htm

via This has been bugging me for a while: Why is it that mosquitoes do not transmit HIV or AIDS? : science.

The worst was one fine Easter morning. We were all sitting at the kitchen table preparing to dig in to our Easter breakfast. The table was nicely set. Our plates were full. I remember my mother putting two English muffins into the toaster which was placed in the middle of the table. She pressed down on the lever and sat back down. AS the toaster heated up, all the roaches which had been feasting on crumbs came spilling out over the sides, a river of twitching antenna that ran over the butter dish, our plates and down the legs of the table. Ugh.

via What’s your worst roach story? : AskReddit.