Chocolate reduces risk of strokes for men, research claims | Science | The Guardian

Chocolate reduces risk of strokes for men, research claims | Science | The Guardian

How Google and Apple's digital mapping is mapping us | Technology | The Guardian

"Every map," the cartography curator Lucy Fellowes once said, "is someone's way of getting you to look at the world his or her way." What happens when we come to see the world, to a significant extent, through the eyes of a handful of big companies based in California? You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist, or an anti-corporate crusader, to wonder about the subtle ways in which their values and interests might come to shape our lives.
How Google and Apple's digital mapping is mapping us | Technology | The Guardian

electronic devices on planes during takeoff and landing | Technology | The Guardian

Why do I have to switch off my Kindle for takeoff and landing? | Technology | The Guardian

Cannabis more damaging to under-18s, study suggests | Science | The Guardian

Cannabis more damaging to under-18s, study suggests | Science | The Guardian

From the Abstract   to "Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife"
Persistent cannabis use was associated with neuropsychological decline broadly across domains of functioning, even after controlling for years of education. Informants also reported noticing more cognitive problems for persistent cannabis users. Impairment was concentrated among adolescent-onset cannabis users, with more persistent use associated with greater decline. Further, cessation of cannabis use did not fully restore neuropsychological functioning among adolescent-onset cannabis users. Findings are suggestive of a neurotoxic effect of cannabis on the adolescent brain and highlight the importance of prevention and policy efforts targeting adolescents. 

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/22/1206820109.abstract

Is Twitter anything more than an online echo chamber? | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Is Twitter anything more than an online echo chamber? | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Apple v Samsung patent trial: how the jurors can decide | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Apple v Samsung patent trial: how the jurors can decide | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Is there a link between ADHD and spectacular financial failures? | Laurence O'Dwyer | Science | guardian.co.uk

Is there a link between ADHD and spectacular financial failures? | Laurence O'Dwyer | Science | guardian.co.uk
what was interesting was the study of ADHD related genes in Kenyan nomads :

• The nomads with the ADHD-related gene were found to have a higher body mass index than their settled counterparts with the gene. Novelty-seeking and increased impulsivity may have helped the nomads to obtain food. The researchers also suggested that the shorter attention span conferred by the DRD4 7R gene might help nomadic children to learn more efficiently in a rapidly changing outdoor environment.

Insight: The dark side of Germany's jobs miracle | Reuters

Wage restraint and labor market reforms have pushed the German jobless rate down to a 20-year low, and the German model is often cited as an example for European nations seeking to cut unemployment and become more competitive. But critics say the reforms that helped create jobs also broadened and entrenched the low-paid and temporary work sector, boosting wage inequality.
Insight: The dark side of Germany's jobs miracle | Reuters

• a 20-year low, and the German model is often cited as an example for European nations seeking to cut unemployment and become more competitive. But critics say the reforms that helped create jobs also broadened and entrenched the low-paid and temporary work sector, boosting wage inequality. Labor office data show the low wage sector grew three times as fast as other employment in the five years to 2010, explaining why the "job miracle" has not prompted Germans to spend much more than they have in the past. Pay in Germany, which has no nationwide minimum wage, can go well below one euro an hour, especially in the former communist east German states.
• Trade unions and employers in Germany traditionally opt for collective wage agreements, arguing that a legal minimum wage could kill jobs, but these agreements only cover slightly more than half the population and can be circumvented
• Critics say Germany's reforms came at a high price as they firmly entrenched the low-wage sector and depressed wages, leading to a two-tier labor market.New categories of low-income, government-subsidized jobs - a concept being considered in Spain - have proven especially problematic. Some economists say they have backfired. They were created to help those with bad job prospects eventually become reintegrated into the regular labor market, but surveys show that for most people, they lead nowhere.
• While wage inequality used to be as low in Germany as in the Nordic countries, it has risen sharply over the past decade. "The poor have clearly lost out to the middle class, more so in Germany than in other countries," said OECD economist Isabell Koske. Depressed wages and job insecurity have also kept a lid on domestic demand, the Achilles heel of the export-dependent German economy, much to the exasperation of its neighbors.
• ILO's Ernst says Germany can only hope that other European countries do not emulate its own wage deflationary policies too closely, as demand will dry up: "If everyone is doing same thing, there won't be anyone left to export to.

Book written in DNA code | Science | The Guardian

Book written in DNA code | Science | The Guardian

Blood pressure drugs for mild hypertension: Not proven to prevent heart attacks, strokes, or early death - Slate Magazine

Blood pressure drugs for mild hypertension: Not proven to prevent heart attacks, strokes, or early death - Slate Magazine

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

5th anniversarty of start of the financial crisis

apparently this date 5 years ago considered the start of the financial crisis...half a decade! and how many cans still being kicked down how many roads?
Financial crisis: timeline | Business | The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interactive/2012/aug/06/financial-crisis-five-years-on

We must respond to the far right's web threat | Matthew Goodwin | Comment is free | The Guardian

We must respond to the far right's web threat | Matthew Goodwin | Comment is free | The Guardian

India: the dark reality behind the west's idea of the sub-continent's success

The path to prosperity is not as straight and smooth as many would like to believe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/05/jason-burke-west-too-optimistic-about-india

BBC News - Facebook 'like' adverts tested with VirtualBagel experiment

BBC News - Facebook 'like' adverts tested with VirtualBagel experiment

The philosopher making the moral case for US drones: 'There's no downside' | World news | guardian.co.uk

It's one of the US's most controversial policies; one that resulted in large numbers of civilian deaths overseas. So why does Bradley Strawser see targeted killing as a moral obligation?
The philosopher making the moral case for US drones: 'There's no downside' | World news | guardian.co.uk

My own views are that if the assault itself is justified, than drones are probably a better moral option than normal methods, since reduce heat of the moment passion or error, can be recorded to help accountability, and have should be more accurate given the supporting techonology.
But - this is very easily confused with the morality of the attack, and in particular 'kill lists' of unconventional enemies, which is another matter entirely.
Perhaps the most worrying fact about drones per se, is that the ease,  dispassionate, and removed nature of their use, might mean they are over used, without proper consideration or analysis. if the stakes are high for the aggressor, then more justification, including moral justification, is generally sought.

Extracts from the article :

• One objection sometimes posited is that there is something wrong or ignoble in killing through such lopsided asymmetry. "I share the kind of gut feeling that there's something odd about that. But I don't see the ethical problem. What matters to me is whether the cause itself is justified. Because if the operation is justified and is the right thing to do ? and by the way I'm not claiming all US military strikes are ? then asymmetry doesn't matter."
• Strawser said a third objection, that drones encouraged unjust operations by reducing the financial and political cost to the US, was serious but surmountable
• Strawser says cases where drone strikes allegedly killed innocents would be unjustified, but did not render the technology illegitimate. "If the policy to begin with is wrong then of course we shouldn't do it. It's irrelevant if we use drones, a sniper rifle or a crossbow." He says he considers poison gas and nuclear weapons inherently wrong because they did not discriminate ? unlike drones.
• "The question is whether drones will tempt us to do wrong things. But it doesn't seem so because we have cases where drones were used justly and it seems they actually improve our ability to behave justly. Literally every action they do is recorded. For a difficult decision (operators) can even wait and bring other people into the room. There's more room for checks and oversights. That to me seems a normative gain."
• Straswer says he understands why many shuddered over revelations of the so-called White House "kill lists" but believes it, in fact, shows accountability at the highest level, unlike Abu Ghraib, when authorities pinned blame on lower ranks

Why politicians are making morality fashionable again | Society | The Guardian

Why politicians are making morality fashionable again | Society | The Guardian

Extracts :

• the [last decade's seeming] suppression of morality-talk has served another very good purpose: the language itself is being used differently, as if it needed time in retreat in order to purge itself of its puritanical associations. It left the stage muttering about people shagging each other and strode back on later lamenting how the privileged are screwing the masses. Look at how the uses of moral language have been pressed into service in recent weeks and you'll find that they do not concern mere private behaviour but the point at which individual actions have consequences for wider society. Morality has recovered its political dimension
• So why is this happening now? There are several possible reasons. One is that moral shoulder-shrugging is much easier when times are good
• However, even before the crash, the ground was being prepared for the return of morality. As far back as the 1970s, the sociologist Ronald Inglehart suggested that as material wealth increased and people became more economically secure, their attentions would turn to their non-material needs, such as for autonomy and self-expression. He saw us entering a period of post-consumerist disillusion, where we look for things that are meaningful, not just fun, expensive or fashionable.
• Few were explicitly looking for a greater sense of moral purpose, but once people start looking for the deeper, more serious things in life, eventually they are going to have to grapple with the distinction between what is good and true and what is corrupt and false. At that point, morality enters the picture.
• And there is always a risk that governments, or even lobby groups, can create a kind of moral panic about an issue which is not critical, but which diverts our attention away from more serious wrongs. 
• The most fundamental problem with morality's return, however, is that society still lacks a sense of where it comes from and who is qualified to make claims for it
• Morality becomes essentially social, not personal. And because it is social, that means the only way to deal with it is socially. So we shouldn't be looking for new moral authorities to replace the church. Rather, we should see public moral issues as requiring a negotiation between all of us.
• However, if radio phone-ins, online comments and tweets sent to television programmes are anything to go by, we are nowhere near ready and able to raise public discourse to the level required for this. And so the danger is that we will either fall back on the old authorities or allow new moral leaders to emerge who may well base their pronouncements on little more than populist sentiment.
• We have remembered that a proper sense of morality is essential, but we also need to be mindful that a misguided one can be deadly.

Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

Paleolithic diets have become all the rage, but are they getting our ancestral diet all wrong?
Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network

Extracts :

• In other words, there is very little evidence that our guts are terribly special and the job of a generalist primate gut is primarily to eat pieces of plants. We have special immune systems, special brains, even special hands, but our guts are ordinary and for tens of millions of years those ordinary guts have tended to be filled with fruit, leaves, and the occasional delicacy of a raw hummingbird4.
• Which paleo diet should we eat? The one from twelve thousand years ago? A hundred thousand years ago? Forty million years ago? IF we want to return to our ancestral diets, the ones we ate when most of the features of our guts were evolving, we might reasonably eat what our ancestors spent the most time eating during the largest periods of the evolution of our guts. If that is the case, we need to be eating fruits, nuts, and vegetables?especially fungus-covered tropical leaves.
• But if you want my bet, the majority of the recent (last few million years) changes in our guts and digestion will prove to have had more to do with agriculture than with meat-eating. As hominids and/or humans switched to eating more meat, their bodies might have evolved so to be able to better digest meat. I could be convinced. But, we know our human digestive systems DID evolve to deal with agriculture. With agriculture, some human populations evolved extra copies of amylase genes, arguably so as to better be able to deal with starchy foods. With agriculture, several human populations independently evolved gene variants that coded for the persistence of lactase (which breaks down lactose) so as to be able to deal with milk, not just as babies but also as adults. With agriculture, the species in our guts seem to have evolved too. Some populations of humans in Japan have a kind of bacteria in their guts which appears to have stolen genes for breaking down seaweed, 
• But the truth is, for most of the last twenty million years of the evolution of our bodies, through most of the big changes, we were eating fruit, nuts, leaves and the occasional bit of insect, frog, bird or mouse. And so while some of us might do well with milk, some might do better than others with starch and some might do better or worse with alcohol, we all have the basic machinery to get fruity or nutty without trouble.
• There are, however, trillions of microscopic caveats, trillions of tiny ways I could be wrong. What might be different, either between you and me or between you and me and our ancestors is the sort of gut bacteria we have to help us digest our food. The new era in study of gut bacteria (and their role in digestion)?the era of the microbiome?may reveal that our stone age ancestors, by eating a little more meat, cultivated bacteria that help break down meat, which they then passed on to us (during birth which is messy and has long been), their maybe meat-eating descendents.
• Recent research has revealed that the gut microbes of chimpanzees and gorillas do seem to work a little differently than those of monkeys

Friends - NYTimes.com

In the era of facebook 'friends' - some interesting points about real friendship as people get older.
Why Is It Hard to Make Friends Over 30? - NYTimes.com

• As external conditions change, it becomes tougher to meet the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other, said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology and gerontology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is why so many people meet their lifelong friends in college, she added.
• External factors are not the only hurdle. After 30, people often experience internal shifts in how they approach friendship. Self-discovery gives way to self-knowledge, so you become pickier about whom you surround yourself with, said Marla Paul, the author of the 2004 book ?The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making, and Keeping Friends When You?re Not a Kid Anymore.? ?The bar is higher than when we were younger and were willing to meet almost anyone for a margarita,? she said.

Escalation of commitment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Escalation of commitment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Escalation of commitment was first described by Barry M. Staw in his 1976 paper, "Knee deep in the big muddy: A study of escalating commitment to a chosen course of action".[1] More recently the term "sunk cost fallacy" has been used to describe the phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, starting today, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit. Such investment may include money, time, or ? in the case of military strategy ? human lives. The phenomenon and the sentiment underlying it are reflected in such proverbial images as "Throwing good money after bad" and "In for a dime, in for a dollar" (or "In for a penny, in for a pound").

Is Windows 8 Really a ‘Catastrophe’ for Content Creators? | Techland | TIME.com

Is Windows 8 Really a ‘Catastrophe’ for Content Creators? | Techland | TIME.com

• Metro-enabled apps will only be allowed over Windows 8?s guardrails by going through the Windows Store itself. And like Apple, Microsoft intends to take a 30% cut of any sales made through the store.
• However, you only have to enter Windows 8 through Windows Store?s gates if you're designing a Metro-interface application. If your app isn't Metro-enabled, you can bypass those gates entirely.
• But yes, there's reason for anyone to be concerned when a company takes an open system and replaces it with one that, in addition to requiring content creators pay at the toll booth, includes strictures that prohibit content that doesn?t meet, say, a company?s definition of what is and isn't morally acceptable. Is it a violation of free speech when a private company chooses to censor an app containing nudity or overt political themes, as Apple has itself done in the past? Maybe not. But what happens if the market shifts so that the only way to access such apps is through a private distribution system with those restrictions?