Interesting stories from the week gone by
Spanish Dinners How can you find out what people are really think? Spanish Mayor Michel Montaner has one answer. Every night he goes to dinner with a different family of his constituents. As the Rioja and Paella kick in, people drop their inhibitions and tell him what’s really on their minds. But what would English people really say if Rishi Sunak dropped in for a curry and a glass of Cobra?
Time to stop the steal American readers: why does Wyoming (population 581.381) get the same number of Senators as California (population 39 538, 223)? How come Donald Trump beat Hilary Clinton in 2016, although he had 2 868 686 less votes? Could one tiny part of the answer lie in the reform of the so called Electoral College, that strange machine whose sole purpose seems to be to baffle foreign TV viewers on Election Night? Thanks to P Seymour
Indian Measles There is one ineradicable truth. If you ignore science, you get poor outcomes. Certain regions of India have always had low vaccination rates, and the result is a mass outbreak of measles, a disease which could have been eradicated by now. Not that India is unique in denigrating the experts. We remember a certain popular British “newspaper” leading the charge against vaccines here in the 2000s, with appropriately baleful results. Nature Briefings, Measles Outbreaks threaten eradication
Large measles outbreaks, centred mostly in four cities, mean India is set to miss its self-imposed deadline of eliminating the disease by 2023. The country already had persistently low immunization rates when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted measles vaccination campaigns. Between 2019 and 2021, only 56% of children received both doses of the measles vaccine by the time they were 3 years old.Nature | 5 min read
LSS gets smug Well, we can’t help it. Because our old doctrine that “research in one one field usually has spin offs in others” was never more true than this story. Remember Covid-19 and the success of mRNA vaccines? Now this same class of vaccine may be effective against some types of tumours. We’re in early days. But next time someone down the Dog and Duck spouts off about tax cuts, you point out the advantages of a little spending on education.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-64176038
This week’s song Medieval music is its own treasure house of sounds, but can be a little forbidding for newcomers. As a way in we offer this old French song S’on me Regarde, which probably dates form the thirteenth century,as the melody and harmonies will not be unpleasing to the modern ear
#democracy #spain #electoral college #usa #uk mRNA #India #measles #medieval music
Learning, Science and Society 