Health and Welfare
It seems that researchers at City U of New Yawk have induced the growth of new memory and learning brain cells in mice. [Link] While the treatment has been used on folks suffering from a variety of brain aliments, it offers potential benefits for more than those with what are usually though of as brain maladies.
A recent Gallup poll indicates that 0.31 of Americans hold the Bible to be “absolutely accurate and should be taken literally word for word,” 0.47 hold the Bible to be “the inspired word of God,” and 0.19 hold it to be “a book of ancient fables, history and “moral precepts” recorded by man.” [Link] These numbers are pretty much in line with an earlier survey on “belief” in evolution. [Link]
Meanwhile, there is an article in the Chicago Tribune considering the emergence (not in a complexity sense) of a third political party. [Link] My suspicion is that its more likely for things to remain the same or for several additional “parties” to emerge. The problem, I suspect, comes down to partial alienation.
If you look at the two political parties platforms, you find a whole bunch of topics, most of which they agree on. But at core, there are about a half dozen that they disagree on. And this is at root what is amazing.
Let’s take a survey of Americans on these half dozen topics and give them some yes-no choices. That means there are 2^6 possible combinations of answers – 64. But here’s what’s amazing. We only have two parties, and herein lies the nature of the beast.
Not everyone rates each of these topics equally, some are more important than others, so they will support the party whose platform is most congruent with their druthers and priorities. So in this way the parties attract more than the ~0.015 of the population that one would expect.
Or at least they have. The issue now is that more and more people are becoming alienated from compromise and as a result are becoming more and more dissatisfied with the two parties. But at the same time at least some of them have the sense to recognize that splintering can result in either Balkanization or Polish veto. Hence the speculation that things will stumble on until they fail or the whole political scene may disintegrate into some number of parties, maybe even 64?
And the thing that hamstrung the emergence of these new parties in the past like geography aren’t as much of a factor with the internet. No wonder the Yankee government is so ambiguous on network neutrality!
Finally, researchers at U British Columbia have done research that indicates coffee consumption reduces the likelihood of contracting gout. [Link] This is indeed good news. Indeed coupled with earlier news of the benefits of wine and beer, we may imbibe and feel better.
