things we thought about this week
These Foolish Things A few weeks ago we praised UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for trying to put mathematics at the heart of the education curriculum(LSS 4 1 2023) You know-clear thinking, Bertrand Russell, avoiding foolish opinions, logical thinking, all that sort of thing. Hints that the policy may be less sagacious than we had hoped are dropped in this article from Huffpost
Thanks to P Seymour
The season of all natures, sleep Alzheimers and dementia, their causes and cures, are still a swirling pool of opinions, projects and discoveries. Which is all the more reason to research any advance in this field. Could the common sleep drug suvorexant have a role to play? The Mail thinks so:
Now I’m living in Ecstasy PTSD can ravage the lives not just of sufferers but the families and loved ones around them. Survivors of the 1990s will cast a wry eye on the news that their old friend MDMA may hold the promise of relief for this unfortunate condition Here’s Nature Briefings
The US government could soon approve the hallucinogenic drug MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Psychedelics had long been investigated as mental-illness treatments, until their ban made them difficult to study. The theory is that MDMA allows people to confront their trauma by dampening the fight-or-flight response. Questions linger about how MDMA will be administered and by whom: in recent clinical trials, the drug was combined with psychotherapy, which isn’t regulated. And because MDMA has been around since 1912 and cannot be patented, there’s little financial incentive.Nature | 10 min read
Who guards the guards? When the Sudanese Government set up a special elite guard to keep everyone else in check, it seemed like a great wheeze. They forgot one important lesson Quis Custodiet ipsos cusodes? As any Roman Emperor could have told them, your biggest threat is always from the Commander of your guards. Maybe elections are actually safer for everyone in the long run? This week’s hisory lesson is from The Conversation
It’s the rich wot ‘as the pleasure, it’s the poor wot takes the blame Since at least 1918, the same lesson is relentlessly drummed into English schoolchildren of all ages, via a thousand propaganda outlets “inflation is caused by greedy workers asking for money” Well, maybe so, And then again, maybe not, as this counterintuitive from Larry Elliott ponders for the Guardian:
The heat is on The evidence that climate change is real, is here, and is harming us all now is unmistakeable, as this story from the BBC makes clear. Time is short, and we’d strongly advise that if you come across a denialist you just press the delete button from now on. Let them rot with flat earthers, anti-vaxxers and the flying saucer crowd.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65317469
Your Face and under the Linden Tree I Remember your eyes These carefully crafted and lucid lyrics will recall that warm and sunny summer of 2004 when O Zone topped the Hits Parade with their memorable ditty Dragostea din tei. So for notalgists everywhere, her’e the Moldovan Maestros back,as t’were in fine song
#mdma #alzheimers #sudan #ptsd #climate change #global warming #economics
Learning, Science and Society 