This week's compendium

Here’s this week’s compendium. This week…

1. Google launched teachparentstech.org whose name says it all [1]. It’s informative. And fun too.

2. the Daily Mail published this article on Israeli airport security’s cutting edge [2a]. Tiny Israel leads the world. H/t The Rubin Report [2b].

3. Grammar Girl explained how to pluralise surnames [3a, 3b]. Important info at this greeting card writing time of the year.

4. Nutrition Diva expounded the benefits of nuts, and also peanuts (which, she said, are legumes and not nuts) [4]. I love peanuts even more now.

5. the Australian Government announced subsidisation of nicotine patches to help smokers kick the addiction [5a]. Good move. The recently released 30th US Surgeon General’s report on smoking documents smoking’s continuing scourge [5b],

6. a treehugger item explained that if 66% of the UK’s shops closed their doors, carbon emission savings would equate to 1.1M fewer cars [6]. I bet they don’t, but.

7. an MJA paper concluded sheepskins are an effective method of bedsore prevention [7]. I wonder if this is the reason the sheepskin price has risen lately.

8. on a sadder note, the floods in south eastern Australia have drowned many southern hairy-nosed wombats in their burrows [8a]. What a tragedy. Southern hairy nosed wombats are a listed endangered species [8b].

Finally, I wish you, dear Farmdoc’s Blog readers, a wonderful week.

Stay in bed, two reasons to...

I’m ashamed. Really ashamed. But I’ll come clean. I tried my hardest. I did. But I managed only 9:46 a.m. What’s this about? Yesterday was Stay in Bed Day 2010 [1, 2, 3]. It’s an initiative of the Australian Mitochondrial Disease Foundation [4]. The first one was in 2009. It aims to raise community awareness of mitochondrial diseases [5, 6]. The AMDF says about 90,000 Australians are at risk of developing one. What’s the link between mitochondrial disease (‘mito’) and staying in bed? A main symptom of mito is energy loss – so severe that sufferers have trouble getting out of bed. Mito diseases are genetic, so I don’t know what can be done to prevent them. Stem cells, maybe. Effective treatment seems more feasible. Either way, it’s a worthy cause. But, to come clean again, the main reason I stayed in bed yesterday – until 9:46 anyway – was the gloomy election result. Most likely it’ll be Australia’s second hung parliament (our first was in 1940) [7]. The thousands of postal and absentee votes to be counted may influence the overall result. Or not. But what’s 100% clear is delay: delay declaring a result, and if it’s a hung parliament, delay forming a workable government. And even when a government’s formed, it’ll be beholden to minority interests. So the bold and expensive initiatives needed to move from a carbon economy won’t happen. I think I’ll go back to bed. And get in training for Stay in Bed Day 2011. Ho hum.