BBC News – Sex-starved fruit flies turn to drink.
Defeating witches an evil spirits.
‘Items of clothing found concealed in Australian buildings tell the story of a battle waged by early settlers with the evil spirits they feared were lying in wait in their unfamiliar surroundings.’ BBC
BBC.
BBC News – Goldman Sachs resignation: Muppet letter is everyone’s fantasy.
A man resigns because of the way Goldman Sachs thinks of its customers.
The Guardian/ Rodrigo Abd/AP
Syrian activists claim 16 people killed in Homs reprisal attacks | World news | guardian.co.uk.
After posting yesterday on an optimistic note, I cannot turn away from this appalling picture from Syria.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, there is no excuse or justification for killing and injuring children. That’s what’s happening.
You don’t have to look too far these days to cry. Syria, the ever-increasing likelihood of Israel attacking Iran, the world’s economic turmoil, and the quagmire of Afghanistan, to name just a few, give optimists a hard time, and make them wonder if their glass is actually emptying.
But then, most of us are lucky, and live in parts of the world where we able to do, say and think much as we like. We’re free, and enlightened, and can identify the problems, and strive to overcome them.
Look what man has achieved through determination, dialogue, and yes, by world leaders digging in, and not giving up.
Tyranny. Over sixty years ago the free world defeated a monstrous fascist regime that would have exterminated the Jewish race, and attempted, and possibly succeeded, in dominating the world.
Apartheid. World pressure eventually brought the racist regime in South Africa to it’s knees, and allowed Nelson Mandela, a man imprisoned for thirty years for his opposition to apartheid, to be the first black president of a nation populated by over 90% non-whites.
Medicine. Every day, we hear of dramatic advances in medical science, and the improvement in the cure and treatment of illnesses. Life expectancy has nearly doubled in the last 100 years.
Technology. It’s changed our lives beyond all expectations, and will go on doing so, and all for the better.
Science and nature. We know so much more. Scientific discovery knows no bounds, and improves our life, and provides a greater understanding of our planet, for those that inhabit it, and the universe.
Civilisation. We’re much more tolerant. Racial and sexual discrimination is an evil of the past. It’s still around, but diminishing by the day. Diverse and different sexual orientation is no longer taboo, and class divides have been swept away.
This is a rosy picture. There’s much more to do, and many problems to solve. Hope, and the desire to improve mankind, and the belief in human dignity, and the right of all men and women to be equal will continue to make life a better place, for all.
If you give up, and become a pessimist, and see the world as broken, then progress, and the drive for change stops, and the world will go into terminal decline.
But it won’t happen. The glass will always remain half-full.
Take a look at the ‘ten innovations that could help shape a better world’ from the annual TED festival in California. You might not agree with them all, and you could be amused, but they’re worth a moment’s consideration. Let me summarise them.
I found a fascinating story on the BBC website today, about a poor man, known as Oetzi, who lived 5300 years ago, and whose discovery has become the oldest known murder case.
Current DNA techniques have revealed that he was lactose intolerant, had O blood type, and a predisposition to heart disease. Poor chap, he didn’t have much going for him.
But the lactose intolerant might not have been such a bad thing. I don’t think they’d quite got the hang of making milk and cheese in those days, and it would have helped his heart disease.
Take a look at his body shown on the link. It was found, intact, in 1991, frozen on the Italian Alps.
The image of the reconstruction of his body and face is quite scary. It looks like someone I’ve seen in the movies, or on TV.
Imagine living all that time back. Freezing temperatures up in the Alps, no clothes to wear, no medicine, poor food. But then there probably weren’t any politicians!
So, I guess, the morale to this short story is today, with such scientific advances, murderers can be bought to book forever, even after they’re dead.
It makes a good story.
BBC News – Journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik die in Homs.
Can the world still do nothing?
Marie Calvin and Remi Ochlik
