Leatherhead Matters

I wrote earlier this week about the “Rise of the Noctors” where in the NHS we will all be seeing more of NOn doCTORS or, nurse specialists. Dr Rant recounts a conversation with one such Noctor related to precribing medication. Please be aware that Dr Rant should not be read by children or, the faint hearted. He is a very angry Doctor!

Make sure you check who is precribing your medication! Then watch this video.

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving & inspiring talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

OK so let me make a confession. My undergraduate degree is in engineering….chemical engineering to be precise. So, I was automatically drawn to ,the subject of the headline, a recently published paper by two Sociology professors from Oxford & Durham Universities. Their paper, titled “Engineers of Jihad” offers the startling conclusion that graduate engineers are statistically over represented among jihadi terrorists.

I should make it clear from the outset that I have never for one moment had the inclination to blow myself or, others, up. I have however, been on the receiving end of suicide bombers in Riyadh but, thankfully I was at the margins of their destruction. Interestingly, the study notes that Saudi Arabia appears to be the single exception to their rule of engineers over represented among jihadi terrorists.

The report is impressive in it’s collation of public data and its hypothesis but, somehow it seems to miss the obvious reason for their startling findings. Engineers know about technical stuff (like making bombs, learning how to fly aircraft etc) & they are good at detailed planning. Now I would have been truly surprised if the professors had concluded that media studies graduates were over represented among jihadi terrorists!

Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that may unlock how memory works.

The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress an obese man’s appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation. Electrodes were pushed into the man’s brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated. The scientists are now testing the technique on patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. The stimulus area was in the frontal lobe area of the brain, an area responsible for higher thought processes, the control of emotions and certain types of memory.

H/T Independent

Calling all handsome males under 35 .And calling all women older than 35, with an annual salary exceeding ₤250k ($500k) and liquid assets exceeding ₤2m. If you are up for some publicity and competition why not enter the Sugar Mamas & Boy Toys speed dating competition.

The top 20 of each sex will be chosen by the Pocket Change website visitors for a speed dating session:

Pocket Change is paying tribute to the women who publicly declare they have the means and they have the needs. Symbiosis has allowed ugly rich men to attract young gorgeous money-hungry women for centuries; it is now the women’s turn. For all of the leopard-print attire and decades of alimony you have amassed in your divorces, we know that there is still a void within you that even an unattractive David Yurman necklace can not fulfill. Flocks of young attractive men are anxious to replace the tired, overworked, undersexed, population of unsatisfying middle-aged single men that are not wealthy enough to date women their kid’s age.

Great analysis on why Alex Salmon is wisely playing the long game and how this is changing the Scottish landscape.

Read  OurKingdom

Passengers waiting to board their flight, but, hot food & blankets will not be provided!!

Read more: Germany’s first nudist holiday flight