Live long and prosper?

Pill could extend life by thirty years. If this did come to pass, it would obviously only be affordable by the wealthy, so would increase social division. Not only that, but it would only work if people were in gainful employment for those extra years – no use expecting your pension fund to keep you going for all that extra time.

Inbreeding

This article is interesting, not least because several people have commented that there is more than a passing resemblance between myself and Hels’s brother.

Current affairs

In the news today:

Tsunami

Hels and I are trying to comprehend the scale of today’s enormous tsunami in south-east Asia. Having recently read Simon Winchester’s excellent book on Krakatoa, and drawing on my slightly hazy recollections of O and A level geography (plate tectonics and all that), I can understand the science of it all and realise that there is no divine intervention here or yuletide symbolism – merely some enormous movements of the Earth’s crust and some terrible misfortune for anyone that happens to be in the way.
Hels said to me that we are fortunate not to live in a part of the world where this sort of thing might occur. To which I might reply that I’m glad that we live a fair distance inland, protected from the open sea by a good range of hills (though some believe the threat to be over-stated), and it has happened before (although a 2 metre surge may seem small, it can be funnelled in estuaries and harbours and become far more dangerous).

News round

A few current and recent news stories: