Review Tuesday: 'Not your ordinary doctor'

Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. A fortnight ago I reviewed The Pen & the Stethoscope – a collection of short stories all written by doctors [1]. As chance – or perhaps grand design – would have it, of the several library books I had on order, the one that arrived next for me was on a somewhat related topic. Not your ordinary doctor is a 346-page 2010 non-fiction book about doctors who’ve also pursued non-medical fields of endeavour [2, 3]. In most cases their non-medical fame (or notoriety) exceeded their medical repute; in other cases vice versa. Author Dr Jim Leavesley tells the stories of sixty ‘medical truants’ comprising doctors to royalty and national leaders; doctors in the arts; doctors who’ve been adventurers, inventors, athletes or politicians; and doctors who’ve been criminals. Several of their names are well known – including Aristotle, Keats, Maugham, Roget, Borodin, Conan Doyle, Chekhov, Gatling, Bass, Livingstone, Grace, Bannister, Montessori, Crippen – and some not. Only a few are Australians. Only a few are women. And only a few are contemporary. This is the eleventh book written by Dr Leavesley (who since 1986 has been an accomplished and loved ABC broadcaster) [4]. He writes nicely. But all too often excessive factual detail distracts from his main theme. Yet overall this is book’s fascinating. And its 16 cm square format’s refreshingly different. Though the cover photograph relevance escapes me. Ho hum.

Google Body: What if?

In late 2009 I wrote I’m a physician and not a surgeon because I’m an introvert and not an extrovert [1]. In September 2010 I wrote that another reason’s I’m not fantastically dextrous [2]. But there’s a third reason: I hated studying anatomy. Actually I’ve always been, and I still am, curious about the human body’s structure. But in the early-mid 1960s when I was in the early years of my undergraduate medical course studying anatomy, it was taught in a didactic, dry and thus unappealing way. I thought so, anyway. So I learnt enough to pass the exams. But I didn’t master it. At least to the degree I needed to be a surgeon. This regret came flooding back to me this week when I read of Google Body [3, 4]. Google says it’s ‘a detailed 3D model of the human body. You can peel back anatomical layers, zoom in, and navigate to parts that interest you. Click to identify anatomy, or search for muscles, organs, bones and more’ [5]. Here’s the link [6]. In the left side-bar you choose a female or male figure. And you go from there. Left click and drag to rotate the image. Search via the box top right. For Google Body to work you’ll need a web browser that supports WebGL [7] (for 3D interactivity), e.g. Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari 10.6 or higher. But not Internet Explorer. It’s a fantastic program. I wonder if it’d been around in the 1960s I’d be a surgeon today. I doubt it. But you never know. Ho hum.

List: 'Top Ten World tallest skyscrapers'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Sweetheart Vivienne and I share many likes. Including Freudian theory (even though nowadays its popularity’s waning). So when we see a man driving a big car, we pontificate about the size of his – er, how shall I put it – male member. I’ve no idea if size is everything. And I don’t care. But I suspect size matters to lots of people. And, I dare surmise, most of them are men. And so to today’s list: from thetoptenlist.net it’s ‘Top Ten World [sic] tallest skyscrapers’ [1]. Wikipedia says there’s no accepted definition of a skyscraper; to be a skyscraper a building has to be habitable; and. interestingly, the word ‘skyscraper’ was originally a nautical term [2]. It’s instructive to contemplate that from 1873 to 1974, 15 skyscrapers were sequentially the world’s tallest. And all 15 were in the USA [3]. Since then all the successive world’s tallests have been in Asia or the Middle East. The current number one (pictured), in Dubai UAE, is a massive 828 metres (2,717 feet) tall [4]. In other words, over half a mile high. And almost 10% of Mt Everest’s height. Man’s ingenuity building a skyscraper that high is awe-inspiring. Moreso as it’s a massive 319 metres (i.e. 62%) higher than its predecessor. Of the nine other contemporary tallest in the list, five are in China, two are elsewhere in Asia, and two are in the US. I don’t know how many of the ten were conceived and designed by men. My guess? All of them. Ho hum.

Potato growing - a giant conundrum

In Mole Creek autumn’s here. Well and truly. And this morning Sweetheart Vivienne flies to Melbourne. So two days ago we harvested our potatoes. Mostly from two 5-metre long patches we’d put down in our orchard – sown between a thick layer of newspaper below and straw mulch on top. These potatoes were small. Disappointingly so. Our sharefarmer neighbour Sharon said that even after their above-ground stalks and leaves have died down, potatoes left in the ground continue to grow in size. I don’t know if she’s right. And this year I won’t know – because our entire crop’s in the box (pictured). The same day Sweetheart Vivienne and I also harvested the last of the potatoes we’d grown in a stack of car tyres – in soil enriched by compost. Included were, as you can see in the photograph of the combined orchard/tyres crop, two giants. They’re the biggest potatoes we’ve ever grown. How did we do it? Beats me. Both were near the tyres’ rubber. Maybe it was warmer there. Wetter, too. Or perhaps it was the variety of potato. Or even, given Sharon’s theory, leftovers from last season. Or all of the above. Who knows? Like many things in my life, food growing’s something I’d like to improve incrementally and iteratively season-by-season. But so many variables are involved that it’s impossible to know what works – and what doesn’t. Anyway it’s fun. As it can be. Because it’s not my livelihood. Ho hum.

Chiropractic: not all it's cracked up to be

Chiropractic [1]. First, a disclaimer: I work in Deloraine in the Deloraine Chiropractic clinic [2]. My landlord’s Dr Roberto De Souza – a chiropractor and an exceptionally lovely man. My personal view of chiropractic? First, I must explain, there are basically two groups of chiropractors, i.e. those who diagnose and treat musculoskeletal symptoms by physical spinal techniques, and those who use same or similar techniques to treat non-musculoskeletal conditions they believe are spinally caused, e.g. lung, digestive, skin conditions. I tolerate – without embracing – the first group, for though I may disagree with their theories on disease, injury and symptom causation, doctors don’t know everything, and if something works then it works. (And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. But maybe it’s better to try it than not.) The second group I shun totally. Because their practice’s not remotely scientific. Regarding medicine and chiropractic, as Australian Doctor editor Dr Kerri Parnell wrote last Tuesday: ‘the issue is fraught’ [3]. The tension’s probably due to a sense of being threatened – on a clinical level but also regarding finances and professional rivalry. On 13 June 2009 I wrote of the Simon Singh case [4]. Singh was sued by the British Chiropractic Association following his vehement public criticism of chiropractors who use spinal manipulation to treat childhood conditions including asthma, colic and ear infections. On 15 April 2010 the BCA officially withdrew its lawsuit, ending the case [5]. As a result of Singh’s article and case, 25% of UK chiropractors are under investigation [6]. Ho hum.

Clear message (but mixed metaphor)

Mens sana in corpore sano [1]. This Latin quotation’s from a poem written around 100 CE by Juvenal [2]. It translates as ‘A healthy mind in a healthy body’. I reckon few people have both a healthy mind and a healthy body. I have neither. But no argument from me that a healthy body and healthy mind’s a worthy ideal. Young people are likeliest to have both – because their minds are developing, and they’e not old enough for their bodies to have been wracked by their lives’ vicissitudes. But accumulating evidence shows the bodies of average young Australians aren’t healthy [3, 4]. Recent survey data shows that among year 8-11 students 25% are overweight or obese, 85% aren’t sufficiently physically active, and 76% and 59% don’t meet the advised dietary guidelines for vegetables and fruit respectively. Damning, eh. For these kids, to hell with mens sana in corpore sano. This is a massive problem with massive implications for our nation’s future. So it must be tackled. Self evidently leaving it to the youngsters themselves and/or their parents isn’t working. So governments and perhaps NGOs must make the running (pun intended). Or cycling. ‘National Ride2School Day’ was last Wednesday [5, 6, 7]. As Neil Armstrong said in another context ‘That’s one small step…’ [8] But as Chinese philosopher Lao-tsu said over 600 years before Juvenal: ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ [9]. Ho hum.

The not so super Supermoon

Each 29 days the moon rotates around Earth. Moon’s orbit’s not circular, but egg-shaped. So there’s a point at which it’s closest to Earth. This point’s called the lunar perigee. It’s not a fixed distance. On average it’s 364,397 kilometres. But two nights ago it was 356,577 kilometres. This is the closest the moon’s been to Earth since 1993. When one lunar perigee’s in the lowest 10% of the range of all lunar perigees, the moon’s called a Supermoon [1, 2, 3]. When the moon’s at perigee it exerts more gravitational pull, creating higher tides (and a bigger difference between high and low tides). So a Supermoon causes high tides that are slightly higher than normal. And it has some impact on seismic activity due to the stronger gravitational pull between the sun, the moon and Earth. But even so, there’s no clear evidence the Supermoon was a causal factor in the earthquate and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March – which was eight days before the Supermoon. On 11 March the moon was at an average distance from Earth. The 19 March Supermoon was about 20% brighter and 15% bigger than an average full moon. These increases were insufficient to be noticeable to the casual observer. But that didn’t prevent media hype [4]. I was tempted to look. But the entire time between moonrise at 7:28 p.m. on 19 March and moonset at 6:55 a.m. on 20 March, the Mole Creek sky was in full cloud. Ho hum.

P.S. Still on matters astronomical, happy southern hemisphere autumnal equinox to you.

An Eight Hours Day energy musing

The 8-hour work day. It’s commemorated and/or celebrated today in two Australian States via a public holiday – called Labour Day in Victoria (the first State to achieve it, in 1856) and Eight Hours Day in Tasmania (the last, in 1874) [1]. Savouring this holiday made me ponder if a shorter work day means lower productivity, all else being equal. My conclusion? I don’t know. A recent a New Yorker article examined an analogous matter. Titled ‘The Efficiency Dilemma’, it asks: ‘If our machines use less energy, will we just use them more?’ [2] Usual wisdom says we’ll use them less. But the writer, David Owen (pictured) [3], disagrees. And he quotes examples to back up his view. He attributes his conclusion to the ‘Jevons paradox’ [4] – that economical fuel use leads to increased consumption – propounded in 1865 by Englishman William Jevons [5]. Nowadays, Owen writes, the phenomenon’s called ‘rebound’. And experts who insist energy rebound’s currently non-existent, are wrong. Thus, seemingly illogically, he advocates inefficient machines: ‘If the only motor vehicle available today were a 1920 Model T, how many miles do you think you’d drive each year…?’ But he discounts mandatory machine inefficiency as unrealistic. His ultimate proposal? Increased energy efficient machines, but costlier energy.

P.S. Samsung’s just unveiled a game-changing prototype LCD TV which is solar powered, i.e it gets all the power it needs from ambient light. You can watch it during the extra leisure time the 8-hour work day’s brought you. Ho hum.

List: 'Ten models who have rocks stars for parents’

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Earth’s a sphere. In other words, it’s not flat. In yet other words, no playing field’s perfectly level. And, identical twins excepted, no two people are born equal. We all have different genes to each other, and different environments. Ideally everyone on Earth would have an equal opportunity in life. But in practice that concept’s pie-in-the-sky. Nature and nurture prevent it. (As an aside, I’m so pleased I’m in Australia at this moment, and not in Libya, say.) Like it or not, some people are more privileged than others. Doors selectively open for them. Corners are cut. Bumps are smoothed. And so to today’s list. From The Vine, it’s titled ‘Ten models who have rocks stars for parents’ [1]. Its blurb intimates, I think, that rock stars tend to have good looking kids. Of course models need to be good looking. Or at least not bad looking. It goes on to say that having a famous last name helps. Yet four of the ten models’ last names aren’t known to me. And ten of the ten models ditto. But I’m a mere backwoods farmer, to be sure. As for rock stars having good looking kids, arguably all ten models fit that bill. They may have become models even without their pedigrees and names. But we’ll never know – because there’s no control group. And the playing field’s not flat – even if your mum or dad’s not a rock star. Ho hum.

Alvin Wong: the real-life statistical composite happy man

Much of last Monday’s College session was devoted to reflective learning. I still don’t know exactly what reflective learning is. But I know it’s contemplative and introspective. Yesterday I returned home after a week in Victoria. Coming home always causes me to reflect on my life: what’s okay, what I should improve, how and when. And so on. A key aim of mine’s happiness [1]. I think I know when I’m happy. But I definitely know when I’m unhappy. Happiness is a worthy aim. It must be. Because it’s the topic of much research. Each Monday morning I send a ‘happy week’ email to Sweetheart Vivienne and our darling ones. Responding to last Monday’s, SanFran daughter sent me a link to this NYT article titled ‘Discovered: The Happiest Man in America’ [2]. It describes a statistical composite for the happiest person in America: tall, Asian-American, observant Jew, at least 65, married with children, lives in Hawaii, runs own business, household income over US$120,000 a year. And, lo and behold, the NYT located a man meeting all these criteria: Alvin Wong (pictured). Is Alvin a happy chap? He said he’s very happy. I hope that’s so. For his sake. And for the researchers’ sake, too. Me? I already know I’ll be relatively unhappy until next Monday morning – when I’ll be meeting Sweetheart Vivienne at Launceston Airport. Ho hum.

P.S. H/t SanFran daughter. You knew I’d love this NYT article. And you were right.

Review Tuesday: RACP CPD information session

Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. The Royal Australasian College of Physicians is a learned college responsible for training, educating and representing over 13,500 physicians and paediatricians in Australasia [1]. Including me. Effective last 1 January, it made its continuing professional development program [2] mandatory for all its Fellows [3]. Non participation means no RACP rights and privileges. And from last 1 July the Medical Board of Australia made participation in a CPD program a mandatory requirement for renewal of medical registration [4]. The College’s CPD online recording system’s called MyCPD [5]. Last night in Melbourne the College held a 2-hour information session on CPD and MyCPD – because Fellows’ 2010 data must be loaded into MyCPD by 31 March. With 70-80 of my colleague physicians, I attended. An elderly lot we were. Seemingly younger physicians are having little problem with mandatory CPD and MyCPD. But not so older physicians. They barely constrained themselves during the didactic presentation by the (non-medical) head of the College’s CPD Unit. Then came question time, which was a signal for a cathartic explosion of anger and frustration. Especially with the fact there’s no evidence mandatory CPD produces better and safer doctors. The chairwoman struggled to keep control of the session. Eventually she relented and closed it – 20 minutes early. I went home replete with two MyCPD points (towards the 100 I need for 2011). I learned nothing – except how angry and frustrated my colleagues are with mandatory CPD and MyCPD. Ho hum.

List: 'The Lure of Lists'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar. It’s been called ‘A Melbourne institution’ [1]. I’ve written that I rate its coffee 10 out of 10 [2]. I’ve also written of my Ottawa friend Mark (who’s affectionately called ‘Canadian Idle’ because he’s a tenured professor who’s been known to put in a few days of work each decade – between sabbaticals [3]. Years ago, I don’t recall how many – he and I had a bet. Nor can I recall what the bet was about. (No doubt when he reads this, CI’ll refresh my memory.) But I do recall the bet’s prize: the loser buys the winner a Pellegrini’s cappuccino. To date, CI and I haven’t been in Melbourne concurrently. Ten days ago, he emailed me a link to a list. In the Economist and titled ‘The Lure of Lists’, it’s an essay about a Columbia University professor’s addiction to lists, and especially ‘top 1001 things you must’ lists [4]. True to form it includes its own list: five reasons explaining the allure of both top 1001 lists (and other lists). These reasons make sense to me as a List Man. And I’ve noted the essay’s in the Economist’s ‘More Intelligent Life’ section’. As a List Man, I rest my case. Oh yes: CI emailed me again, telling me I don’t mention him much on Farmdoc’s Blog; and if I mention him more, he’ll consider foregoing the aforementioned Pellegrini’s cappuccino. As you know, I’m a parsimonious fellow [5, 6]. So, thanks for the link to today’s list, CI. CI. CI. CI. CI. CI. CI. CI. CI. Ho hum.

Time-lapse music. I think it’s fantastic

Time-lapse photography [1]. I’ve long been fascinated by it. Whether it shows flowers opening, clouds rolling by, the sun setting, seeds germinating or whatever – the speeding up of slow phenomena’s spellbinding. To me, anyway. A sister process – one I’ve never come across before – is time-lapse music: Last Wednesday salon.com posted this page [2]. It links to two sound files – which together total 74¼ minutes – comprising five seconds of every single No. 1 pop song – from the beginning of time through the '90s’. I can’t work out if the snippets are in chronological order. I suspect they aren’t. But who cares? I don’t. I think it’s fantastic. In the 1970s or 1980s, I was fortunate to witness a competition between my mum and my English mate Norman. Norman played snippets of music, and the idea was for mum to name each track as soon as she could. She did really well. It’s decades ago, but as I recall she got most if not all of them correct. And after only a few seconds of each track. She would’ve adored these salon files. I must admit I haven’t listened to all 74¼ minutes. But I recognised more songs than I thought I would. And in many cases the singers too. I’m pleased that, as per the salon blurb, the latest song in the compilation dates from the '90s. Because I suspect I couldn’t name any 21st century chart-topper. Ho hum.
P.S. Today’s the last day of a seemingly time-lapsed summer. It seems to have sped by at an alarming rate. I hope autumn’ll pass more slowly.

No old fool am I

There’s no fool like an old fool. According to phrases.org.uk this proverb already existed in 1546 when it was included in A Dialogue of Proverbs as ‘But there is no foole to the olde foole, folke saie’ [1]. Methinks it’s as true today as it was in 1546. Or truer. In yesterday’s post I wrote that the robots in Surrogates ‘look life-like in a smoothed-out faux manner, à la Sam Newman, Paul Hogan and Cher’. Then – chance or not, who knows – in the Age yesterday was an article about a recent increase in cosmetic surgery among men [2]. And which men are mentioned? Sam Newman and Paul Hogan (pictured at age 69). (And Shane Warne, but only for teeth whitening though he’s thought to have had botox and laser dermabrasion.) It says men are increasingly turning to cosmetic surgery ‘to stave off the signs of ageing’. I think cosmetically surgified men look stupid – not younger. And I reckon it’s no accident that though Newman, Hogan and Warne are public figures, there’s something immature and, yes, adolescent about them. As if they haven’t grown into compassionate and reflective adults. Given this, it’s no surprise that as their appearance ages, they need to return it to its juvenile form. Boys will be boys. Me? I think I look my age. And I’m proud of that. I’ve no wish to look younger. I wear my face as a badge of honour. Flight attendants and shop assistants now call me ‘sir’. I like that. No old fool am I. Ho hum.

A weighty old matter

This photograph’s of my scale. It’s a calibrated, balance beam scale. A Mercury 211FP. Made in Adelaide. I’ve owned it since the mid-late 1980s. I used it in my Melbourne consulting room until 1998. Since then I’ve practised only in Tasmania – in rooms rented by the day. So from late 2002 when we moved into our Mole Creek house, the scale’s graced our bathroom. Because you can’t manage what you don’t measure, I weigh myself each morning. I’m keen to stay within cooee of my ideal body weight. Or rather of a Body Mass Index of 25 – the acknowledged ideal [1]. It’s currently 22.5. So I’m doing okay. Or so I thought until I read this paper [2] published in the Australasian Journal of Ageing in late December. According to this report [3] of the paper, the figures from almost 25,000 older Australians in the ongoing ‘Men, Women and Ageing’ longitudinal study [4], join an emerging body of evidence that being overweight’s less of a health hazard the older people get. Specifically, over-70s live longest if their BMI’s 26-27. In other words putting on a little weight as you get older’s no bad thing – indeed it may be the secret to longevity. In yet other words, a BMI in the overweight range appears protective for both older men and women. I’m not an over-70. Yet. So until then I’ll keep aiming for a BMI of 25. But I’ll be less upset if I go over it a bit. Ho hum.

P.S. Having written this post, I discovered I've written on these matters before [5, 6]. Sorry.

SpeedKills? You betcha

Today’s ‘Positive and Optimistic Sunday’. In Victoria, around 300 people die each year in road transport crashes [1]. The Transport Accident Commission’s a Victorian Government-owned organisation involved in promoting road safety (and road trauma compensation) [2]. In Victoria’s far north west sits, or rather sleeps, a tiny hamlet called Speed [3]. It’s named after a railway commissioner. Its population’s 45. Noting that speed’s a major cause of road crashes, the TAC came up with the idea of Speed changing its name to SpeedKills. It offered to donate A$10,000 to a local charity if more than 10,000 people supported the campaign on Facebook. Reaching that target took under 24 hours. Then the TAC offered to double its pledge after local farmer Phil Down agreed to change his name to Phil SlowDown if 20,000 ‘likes’ were recorded [4]. The total now stands at over 33,000 [5]. So last Friday the new signs went up, and the TAC presented a A$20,000 cheque to the Speed (aka SpeedKills) Lions Club [6].

P.S. The new names of the town and the farmer will last only a month.
P.P.S. The TAC said five small towns called Speed had been identified in the US, and would be approached to see if they’d also change their name to SpeedKills [7].

P.P.P.S. The TAC’s a sponsor of the F1 Grand Prix [8] and MotoGP [9]. Ho hum.

List: 'Good Sex Award'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Last 10 December I devoted the List Friday post to the ‘Bad Sex in Fiction Award’ [1]. In that post I noted that on salon.com Laura Miller (pictured) [2] deprecated the Award. In her 30 November salon piece titled ‘No sex, please, we’re literary!’, she wrote ‘…the only antidote to the smirking crypto-priggishness of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award and its ilk: forthright praise for the literary sex writing that does work’ [3]. In response to salon readers’ feedback on Miller’s piece, eight days ago Miller announced salon’s ‘Good Sex Award’ [4]. The methodology’s sus, to say the least: Miller asked her friends to nominate their favorite passages about sex in novels published in 2010. The selections had to be the best-written, most interesting and most convincing pieces of sex writing. Miller whittled the responses down to eight which four judges, including Miller, ranked. Here’s are the eight in ranked order [5]. And here are the judges’ thoughts on ‘What makes a good sex scene?’ [6]. Methinks it’s all quite subjective. For example Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom is on the shortlist for the 2010 ‘Bad Sex Award’ [7] yet it was runner-up in the 2011 ‘Good Sex Award’. Ho hum.
P.S. salon’s inviting its readers to send in their nominations for the 2012 ‘Good Sex Award’. That’s more democratic than nominations being submitted only by Miller’s friends.

Pot: harmless, or what?

Wowser. What an interesting word. It’s an Australian colloquialism dating from the 19th century. But its etymology’s unclear [1, 2]. Okay, I admit it: I’m a wowser. At least regarding myself. I don’t gamble, smoke, or drink alcohol. And I don’t use illicit substances. No swallowing, smoking, snorting or injecting them for me. My mental functions are deteriorating quickly enough without any chemically-induced acceleration, thank you. I vaguely recall nibbling a hash cookie over a decade ago. And that’s it. I’ve never even had a puff of marihuana – inhaled or otherwise. Marihuana (aka cannabis) [3] is prepared from the Asian flowering plant Cannabis (pictured) [4]. The UN estimates that in 2004 about 4% of the word’s adult population (i.e. 162M people) used it at least annually, and about 0.6% (i.e. 22.5M) used it daily. It was thought to be pretty harmless stuff. Pretty safe. Pretty benign. But as research results accumulate, it’s becoming apparent that this isn’t so at all. Recently the Archives of General Psychiatry published an Australian meta-analysis of 83 studies involving over 20,000 people [5]. It showed smoking cannabis brings forward the onset of psychotic illness; and, less conclusively, it causes psychosis too [6]. Thus, in terms of the above definition of wowser, smoking cannabis can no longer be thought of as a minor vice. So as least as far as cannabis/marihuana/weed/pot’s concerned, I’m not a wowser after all. Ho hum.

Driving Mahmoud out

Today’s ‘Positive and Optimistic Sunday’. A few days ago, during a speech in Tehran at a rally marking the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that ‘the new Middle East will turn into an area without the United States and Zionist regime’ [1]. Leaders of civilised nations seem unclear what to do about this puppet tyrant and his theocratic benefactors. As Iran earns its wealth from petrol and gas, one thing the rest of the world can do is reduce its use of fossil fuels. Electric vehicles are about to hit the market, but their uptake will be slow. Given that petrol vehicles will be around for decades yet, it’s critical they be made as fuel efficient as possible, i.e. they use as little fuel as possible per kilometre. Last week VW unveiled a concept car – the XL1 (pictured) – powered by a diesel engine and a small plug-in electric motor [2]. Its fuel consumption’s 20% of a Prius’s, i.e. 0.75 litres per 100 km – which equates to 1,000 km on A$10 worth of diesel fuel. Its fuel tank holds a miserly 10 litres, and its range’s 500 km. It’s aerodynamic. It’s light. And it could go into mass production in the next few years. It’s said to herald a new age of super-efficient fossil fuel powered vehicles. If that new age eventuates, and it helps the world get rid of Ahmadinejad and his ilk, how positive and optimistic would that be. Ho hum.

Correlation and causation

Here’s a short lesson in Epidemiology 101. The bottom line first: correlation is not inevitably the same as causation. Two factors, say A and B, may be correlated – i.e. when A occurs B occurs too, or A increases (or decreases) when B increases (or decreases). But this doesn’t necessarily mean A causes B – or B causes A. Of course cause may exist – but not necessarily so. An example? Ten days ago the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry published a paper [1] reporting a prospective Scottish study of mortality after head injury. It followed 767 head-injured people, plus groups of matched controls, for 13 years. In this period 40% of the head-injured group died. And their death rate was much higher than the control groups’ death rates. The abstract’s Background section says: ‘Increased risk of death years after injury might be explained by factors associated with, but not a consequence of, the head injury. This unique prospective study investigates mortality over 13 years after injury’. Unique and prospective this study may be, but it sheds no light on whether head injury and subsequent high mortality are causally related (i.e. head injury causes high subsequent mortality) or whether they’re just correlated (i.e. merely present together). In the latter case there may be a third factor associated with both head injury and increased mortality, e.g. smoking, participation in extreme sports, depression. So be on the lookout for claims that A causes B when in reality A’s merely correlated with B. Ho hum.