Measles Outbreak Triggered by Unvaccinated Child What began as a family trip to Switzerland in 2008 ended up as a public health nightmare in California. The family's 7-year-old boy, who was intentionally unvaccinated against measles, was exposed to the virus while traveling in Europe. When he returned home to San Diego, he unknowingly exposed a […]
Links for March 12th
Cyprus conflict closes leaders’ eyes to water shortage Water has been rapidly disappearing in Cyprus since the 1970s, but conflict between Turkish and Greek communities means fixing the problem is not high on the political agenda. Alex Bell finds that Cypriots are now struggling for control of land that is slowly dying. Atheists meet in […]
Links for January 13th
France’s anti-piracy goon squad pirates the font in its logo Boing Boing Hapodi, the French agency that’s in charge of the country’s new anti-piracy scheme (if someone you live with is accused of three acts of infringement, your whole household is taken offline and added to a list of address to which it is illegal […]
Links for December 14th
Cleaners ‘worth more to society’ than bankers – study Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests. The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid. It claims bankers are a drain on the country because […]
Links for December 4th
Don’t strike up the band Visit a pub and there’s every chance you’ll hear background Muzak, or high-volume Sky Sports coverage of Premiership football. But what are the chances of hearing live music? At least as good as they have ever been, says the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which controls the licensing of […]
Links for November 27th
Boots’ cynical stance on homeopathy There's something of a backlash taking place online against Boots today, after their professional standards director Paul Bennett admitted before a parliamentary committee yesterday that the chain sell homeopathic remedies because they sell, even though they know there is no scientific evidence that they actually work. National papers involved in […]
Links for November 4th
Childhood vaccines, autism and the dangers of group think Wallace has run smack into an abiding, perhaps growing, phenomenon of the Internet Age: Citizens armed with information are sure they know better. Readers who brush up against expertise believe they have become experts. The common man rebels against the notion that anyone — not professionals, […]
Links for September 8th
Cory Doctorow: Special Pleading Six years ago, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom couldn’t be counted as a real success for open publishing because I was too obscure to feel the cost of the lost sales. Now, I’m too successful, someone whose name is so widely known that I am uniquely situated to benefit […]
Links for July 6th
Coffee ‘may reverse Alzheimer’s’ Drinking five cups of coffee a day could reverse memory problems seen in Alzheimer’s disease, US scientists say. The Florida research, carried out on mice, also suggested caffeine hampered the production of the protein plaques which are the hallmark of the disease. Previous research has also suggested a protective effect from […]
Links for April 27th
Giving It Away The thing about an e-book is that it's a social object. It wants to be copied from friend to friend, beamed from a Palm (nasdaq: PALM – news – people ) device, pasted into a mailing list. It begs to be converted to witty signatures at the bottom of e-mails. It is […]
Links for April 16th
UK ‘has the worst copyright laws’ UK copyright laws “needlessly criminalise” music fans and need to be updated, a consumer watchdog says. UK laws that make it a copyright violation to copy a CD that you own onto a computer or iPod should be changed, says Consumer Focus. The call came after global umbrella group […]
Links for April 10th
To Newspaper Moguls: You Blew It The Newspaper Association of America is meeting in San Diego this week and they’re preaching up at their own choir loft with angry, self-righteous fire and brimstone about their plight. They need to hear a new message, a blunt message from the outside. Here’s the speech I think they […]