Abstract: There's a hidden reason why women don't seem interested in sport...
I remember the first time my wife beat me in a sport. We had recently got engaged and were playing squash, and she totally pulverised me. Some years later whilst enjoying our honeymoon in the 'berg she beat me at bowls. Later that same evening I challenged her to a game of pool. What happened? Suffice to say it's a game I no longer have the confidence to play.
In fact, if I remember correctly I have a reason for no longer challenging her at putt-putt either. In my defence though, my wife is a former provincial hockey player and I have the hand-eye coordination of a rabid squirrel.
But then my wife is not normal, because women normally shun the idea of playing sport, and it's quite possibly for a reason unknown
Why women suck at sport
Diamond Light Source: Just call it The Eureka Doughnut
Abstract: The DLS is a bit like the LHC, except it works...
"Sure the DLS is a VIP, but it's certainly no LHC." My wife shook her head rather sadly at my pathetic attempt to introduce a bit of pop culture into the realm of physics. She was right. All I had succeeded in doing was making a comparison between two very important particle-accelerators (VIPs) sound like a rap-off between a couple of boy bands.
It's hard to argue that CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) hasn't hogged most of the limelight in the recent study of particle physics - it's big, really big, very expensive and, amongst other things, is apparently looking for all the answers of the Universe - but they're hidden in something particularly small called, rather humbly, The God Particle.
As such the LHC holds all the ingredients of a good story:
Whip out your moral muscle!
Abstract: There's a 'muscle' in your body that could make you healthier...and wealthier...
What's long and hard and brings a smile to the face of many a woman? You're right: it's the decision of whether or not to have another piece of chocolate cake; and if decades of research are anything to go by, it's what makes us successful in life. No, not the chocolate cake...the other thing.
If there's something that separates us humans from our fellow animals, it's the capacity for higher thought. A wild animal never really ponders whether or not to eat something. It never struggles with the greater philosophical question surrounding the morality of consuming another living thing. It just chomps it.
There are of course many examples in the animal kingdom where food, instead of being eaten immediately, is stored for later, or transported to a mate or offspring;
Bar-headed geese and the physiology of high-altitude flight
Abstract: How geese can beat their wings where angels fear to fly...
Imagine you're a mountaineer of the highest order. After years of training and planning you're on Mount Everest; and after weeks of acclimatisation, you've left base camp far behind and are on the last stretch to the summit.
The air is so thin, the temperature so low and the winds so strong that without the specially designed clothing you're wearing and the oxygen you're breathing you'd be dead within minutes. You're clawing your way upward, bit by bit, every breath belaboured even with the precious oxygen you're using.
Eventually, almost unbelievably, you make it to the summit. You have only minutes before you have to descend; but for those few, brief moments in time, you're on top of the world. You gaze around knowing that nothing else lives at this height. You slowly,
Why ‘love’ no longer has any meaning
Abstract: 'Love' no longer has any meaning, and women are, to a degree, to blame...
According to popular culture, you should have been reading this two weeks ago; but if you had, it wouldn't have had any value. In fact, it would have been like what any wife thinks of her husband's opinion in an argument: without foundation.
Poets, writers, and singers have, for thousands of years, made an impact expressing the emotions, trials and fortunes of love. However, I think it's fair to argue, the main focus has always been on what we could call 'young love' - the raw, deeply electrified passion that sparks between two people exploring each other for the first time. This period peaks when one or the other uses the previously unspoken four- letter 'L' word: 'love'.
This word is then used to identify the nature of the relationship
When girls go mad
Abstract: Teenage girls display signs of delirium. No, seriously...
Ask any parent of a teenage girl what the experience is like and they will shake their head, appear for a second as if they're about to burst into tears, and then, from somewhere deep inside, bravely dig up a tired smile and say something like, "we do our best". For such parents, science may now be able to offer a reassuring hand on their shoulder. Sort of.
There's something particularly challenging in raising a teenage girl. It's hard to describe without wanting to reach for a double scotch, a carton of cigarettes and then your cellphone to call your therapist. 'Testing' is a word most parents of teenage girls would use to describe their offspring during this particular period in their lives. It's not a coincidence then that their eventual blossoming into young adulthood
Cost of medicines a killer in developing countries
Abstract: Even essential medicines are not finding their way to developing countries...
Every seven years, hundreds of people from all over the world - academics and people involved in health administration - meet to evaluate and discuss ways in which essential medicines can be used more effectively in non-industrialised, lower and middle-income countries. The third ICIUM (International Conference for Improving Use of Medicines) was held last month in Antalya, Turkey.
Speaking on 8th December at a feedback session from ICIUM 2011, Dr Hans Hogerzeil, Professor of Global Health at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and the former Director for Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies for the World Health Organisation (WHO), presented an appeal for government regulation to address two of the major problems identified at the conference: the highly inflated costs of essential medicines for some of the world's poorest communities -
Beware the mind of the crowd
Abstract: If you think you're in your right mind shopping in a crowd - think again!...
...and they're off! And they stop. This weekend sees the start of 'the madness', when hundreds of thousands of people gallop into the province's shopping centres and promptly come to a grinding halt. They will curse and they will say how much they hate it, all the time unaware that they are undergoing a subtle but fascinating change.
This is one of the most stressful weekends of the year. Many businesses around the country closed shop on Thursday ahead of the long weekend, their staff heading off on their holidays, many of them into KZN. The province is groaning under the strain of the extra bodies, and most of them will squeeze into the already busy shopping centres, credit and debit cards at the ready, impatient to place added
Fall in funding to combat neglected diseases
Abstract: A global downturn in funding is threatening research into neglected diseases...
Potential new treatments and vaccines for diseases including malaria and tuberculosis may never reach patients because of a downturn in international funding for research into "neglected" diseases, a new study has warned.
After 10 years of steady increases, global support for research and development for innovative drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics that largely affect the poor in developing countries fell by 4 per cent to $3bn last year, according to the G-Finder report produced by Policy Cures, a non-profit group.
The drop threatens a number of research programmes that have entered clinical trials in humans and offer considerable promise to improve prevention and treatment for up to 31 diseases.
Mary Moran, the organisation's director, said: "It's time for governments to step up to the plate, otherwise we risk losing a decade of investment that is
What’s the future for big pharma?
Abstract: The model for big pharma has changed. So, now what?...
If there's one thing big pharmaceutical companies and their investors agree on, it was captured yesterday in the words of British Prime Minister David Cameron: "the old big pharma model is in flux - a new model is emerging."
The Prime Minister was speaking at the FT Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference in London, where he laid out the Government's plans to encourage life sciences research in the UK.
The words came at a time when many big pharmaceutical companies are in fact looking more at emerging markets such as India and China, not only as markets for their products but also as locations for research facilities. The most recent evidence came just a few months ago when Pfizer announced the closing of its research and development facility in Sandwich, Kent.
The lure of emerging markets
Their