It’s weird to think how different Afghanistan was back then.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan
Thursday 27 May 2010
Monday 24 May 2010
Having your cake and eating it
Cake is always good right? Wrong! This link is rather unsettling... http://www.cakewrecks.com/2009/09/creepy-crawly-cakes.html
Seriously what were these people thinking? Eek!
Seriously what were these people thinking? Eek!
Wednesday 12 May 2010
THE ELECTION (part 4)
I’m getting a little tired of it all now… My dad is a little worried about my new found interest in the election and fears that I may have abandoned my medical career in light of any future political aspirations that I may be harbouring. I assure you I’m not; I’m just taking an interest in my country that is all.
Short post today! Woohoo! Lol
Tues -Gordon Brown resigns, Weds - David Cameron and Nick Clegg are new PM’s, Thurs - Newspapers declare a love fest!
So Gordon Brown eventually resigned when he saw no other way. He announced that he would be making his way over to Buckingham Palace to speak to the Queen. After he made his resignation speech, his two little boys (who haven’t really been photographed before) and his wife joined him and together they walked away from number 10 Downing Street, which totally tugged at the heart strings. I imagine it went a little something like this –
Mr Brown visits the Queen, tells her he’s resigning,
Brown: ‘I’ve had enough innit!’
Queen ‘You serious?’
Brown: ‘Hell yea!’
Mr Cameron hears the news and goes running over to see the Queen,
Queen: ‘Are you taking over mate?’
Cameron: ‘For sure!’
Queen: ‘You and whose army?’
Cameron: ‘Me and Clegg. We’re safe blud, ain’t ya heard?’
Queen: ‘Alright safe. Kiss my hand and get it over and done with. I got places to be man.’
Cameron then runs back to number 10, takes his wife, Sam, along for the ride (who was wearing dangerously high heels and heavily pregnant), makes a speech (heavily plagiarised from JFK!) and walks into Number 10 and can’t believe his luck! And Clegg is his deputy dawg and a huge love fest follows with Brown left out in the cold.
Um, ok. That may not be quite how it happened and the election and all this politics talk may have frazzled my mind somewhat but you get the gist of it right? Also the kissing the queen thing - I feel this link will explain the whole situation :)
After I got back from University, I watched the news channel to see what I had missed (Yes don’t worry, I’m also worried about my sudden interest in politics as well). This little exchange in the Cameron/Clegg speech made me laugh out loud…
Reporter man to Cameron: ‘Prime minister, when asked what your favourite joke is, did you reply with Nick Clegg?
Cameron: I think I did. Sorry Nick!
Clegg: Did you? Right, I’m off!
Jokes all round. Ha ha ha!
They refer to each rather informally as Dave and Nick through the speech, cracking jokes, smiling at each other… finishing each other’s sentences perhaps? So a full on love fest and I kinda hope it lasts! Lol! With Nick Clegg as the deputy PM, does this mean they get to share number 10 Downing Street. Will they have Nick and Dave have bunk beds? Lol
Jokes aside, the Liberal Democrats and Conservative coalition acronym is con-dem-nation. Ah the hilarity! Seriously the conservatives may not have been my chosen party but at least it’s not ALL conservative. Here’s hoping that the combination of the liberal democrats and the conservatives will last and give the public the best of both worlds. Everyone should be given a chance and sometimes change can be good thing.
Also I someone reminded me of this quote...
“Do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just” (Qur’an, 5:8)
Well I wouldn’t say I hate them (hate is such a strong word), but you get what I’m trying to say :)
So there you have it David Cameron, Nick Clegg and their new joint cabinet...
Brain scans to spot liars
I saw this in the news today and I thought that it was interesting – using MRI scans to observe brain patterns in order to determine if someone is lying or not. It sort of links back to my MSc project on cerebral blood flow patterns in the elderly and how they can be used to detect dementia and neurological changes. It’s a similar principle of detection and so forth :)
At the same time, the I am also aware of expensive these kind of tests are but like the article says, the process needs a lot more work on it before it can be used in a practical setting.
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Professor Tobin
Remember him?! Today BBC Look North reported on the new burns unit which Professor Tobin is leading. Always nice to see a familiar face :)
He was a Dr, the last time I sat in on his lectures where he informed us about cell biology in that lovely Irish accent of his. I think I can safely say that I never once missed any of lectures or lab classes. Is it sad that I wish I had another lovely Irish lecturer here at university, possibly a senior medic? Also is it sad that I remember that lab and its layout? Is it sad that I am still a little besotted with man?
The answer to all the above is... yes of course I am. So people spare me the abuse. I should know better and yet I still can’t help myself :P
Friday 7 May 2010
THE ELECTION (part 3)
The results are in and surprise, surprise we have a hung parliament!
What makes me laugh about this situation is that the Lib Dems who in the past have been labelled the ‘wasted vote’ party are now in a position of power. They get to decide who will lead the country… if they side with Labour, then Gordon Brown will continue as PM, if they side with the Conservatives then David Cameron becomes PM.
A quote from David Dimbleby: “The best form of government is dictatorship tempered by assassination”, a quote from WH Auden.
Somebody let that man have rest, he has been on television since 9pm last night!
In the past, it has been well known that the Liberal Democrats do not agree with the Conservatives and that the Lib Dems are often similar to Labour. So where does that leave us? Looks like both David Cameron and Gordon Brown will be trying to seduce Nick Clegg to join their party. Now there’s an image that will stay in your minds for a while. And on that note, I shall take my leave, lol.
God bless the BBC, lol and yes that is a whole lot of blue :-/
Dementia 2
A bit of background information about dementia specifics... and yes I do love my anatomy and physiology –
It’s a bit obvious but the brain needs to be looked after as it can’t be rewired when things go wrong.
Physically the weight of the human brain decreases by approximately 5% between 30 and 70 years, 10% at 80 years and 20% at 90 years of age. As we age, anatomically our brain structures change. Ventricles tend to enlarge, meninges being to thicken, there is a loss of nerve cells (which is minor and selective) and a general decline in quantity of nerve processes. The presence of senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles and granulovacuolar degeneration, increase with age and are present in 80% of healthy individuals that are aged 70 years and above. There is also a biochemical decline of neurotransmitter systems and ischemic lesions are present in half of normal people over 65 years of age.
The problem lies within the relationship between post mortem histology and brain function in life. In general as we age, there is a general decline in functional capacity and adaptability as well as the increased occurrence of chronic degeneration conditions such as Parkinson’s and so forth. Currently half of general hospital beds are occupied by the ageing elderly and the management of this population is riddled with problems such as; increased sensitivity to the possible side effects of treatment, most patients tend to have more than one disorder present as well as social and psychiatric complications.
These psychiatric complications arise as the elderly often unwell and have sensory impairments and so it is difficult to determine what is normal ageing and what is not. Standard tests such as the mini mental state examination (MMSE) measure intellectual intelligence and the diagnostic significance of these scores increases as these test scores tend to decline from mid life onwards. Tests like the MMSE focus on learning new tasks but do not fairly represent the value of experience. Clearly the short term memory does deteriorate and decreased motor function (changes in central nervous system) may help to explain the impaired performance in tests due to the slow response speed. However changes in attitude (i.e. increased rigidity, caution) and personality (disengagement from society) also need to be taken into account.
Demographics of the elderly population are dependent on their societies (i.e. traditions and customs in asian countries such as China vary significantly from the normal practices in western countries such as England). On the whole, we are seeing an ageing population and so the social structure has also changed compared to previous years. Usual destinations include care homes, living alone or with their partners (a significant majority do do this now) and very few live with their children. Some have very little family to help and with many middle aged women working, this means that there are less people to visit. A disturbingly large proportion of the elderly population are living dangerously close to the official definition of poverty what with poor accommodation and lower incomes compared to the younger population, which I find very disturbing. You only have to glance at the newspapers during the coming winter to months to see what kind of issues the elderly in this country have to contend with i.e. unable to pay the increased heating bills etc.
Perhaps it is just my outlook on life and how I have been brought up, but the abandonment of the elderly does anger me. A lot. May be I am taking it too seriously, I mean it’s not like I am related to these people. In fact even familial ties do not hold a lot of water these days; they seem to have no importance as they did in previous times – a factor that is contributing to a ‘broken Britain’ as Cameron would say.
And yet I still feel a connection to these elderly people around me. I choose to care because I genuinely want to care for them and not because my intended profession asks me to do so; to care for all people equally regardless of age, creed or colour. When I assess these people and I take the time to sit and talk to them, I do it because I want to know more about them and how they got here and not use it as a method of impressing the senior clinicians or getting the best diagnosis – things that would further my career. I can’t say it is entirely altruistic because that would be untrue; I am put in those situations because I am here to do a job which will benefit me primarily in achieving my career aspirations – but at the same time I hope it benefits them personally as well as medically.
These people have worked hard in their lives, contributed to the society we live and yet when the time comes to reap the benefits they are cast aside like spare parts. I see their own family members short tempered and not willing to ‘waste their time’ with them. Often we hear familiar terms bandied about when discussing this section of society; ‘a dinosaur’, ‘stuck in the dark ages’, ‘not willing to adapt/ be flexible’, ‘reaching the end of their mortal coil’, ‘they’re not contributing to society so why waste precious resources on them?’ are just a few that I have heard. However I believe that is not true.
The elderly population that I see around me are a group of people, the majority of which did believe in working hard and providing for their families. Can we say the same for the current generation – those scrounging off benefits to the detriment of the hard working, tax-paying, law abiding citizens of society? I mean what sort of message is that sending to the younger generation? I may be a 20 something and I am aware of how this is making me sound but at the time how many of us can genuinely say that we take to the time to understand these people?
Dementia
[TED talk] http://www.ted.com/talks/gregory_petsko_on_the_coming_neurological_epidemic.html
Following the above article, it was recently announced that a large sum of money was being allocated to dementia research. But my question is how is that divided (the money is NOT ring fenced, meaning that no specific points to focus on have been highlighted) and who is regulating what goes where. It’s great to have the money but a bit useless if you don’t know where it needs to be used. We need aims and objectives to be identified first, then appropriate funding allocated; a clearly organised and structured funding process.
But I suppose at least some headway is being made both in terms of funding and new treatments as shown in this second article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1273924/Powerful-new-drugs-switch-memory-brain-giving-hope-Alzheimers-sufferers.html
http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/704667?src=cmenews&uac=126316FT
Thursday 6 May 2010
THE ELECTION (part 2)
Yay! I voted :)
... and thankfully so did others :)
I’m watching the election coverage and I’ll tell you something, it is definitely not the same as the US election coverage last year, lol. So far I love how the BBC graphics team have gone all out in terms of effort, watching Jeremy Vine waltzing up and down the virtual staircase at 10 Downing Street – amazing stuff, lol. The first result in was for the seat in Sunderland, where Labour still held onto their seat but with a significant drop in the number of votes, most them switching over to the Conservatives. Then there a huge wait between until the next result… and so the BBC graphics team sprang into action to fill time, lol. Seriously did Sunderland have the rain man counting for them or something?
That's a whole lot of blue...
I took the lag time between results to read up on the history of elections which can be found here.
During this time we also heard reports about some people (initially in Leeds and Sheffield) being turned away from polling stations as they were too late. Stopping people from exercising their political right? What a joke! It’s not as if the election was unexpected and they had no idea that these people would be turning up. The people in charge of the polling stations stated it was an unprecedented turnout. However the turnout had only increased slightly since the last election and they should have foreseen this as this election has been covered extensively. I wonder if this will have repercussions for both the election results and legal issues associated with those who were not able to vote.
Also I feel I should apologise; I have done quite a few political tweets over the past few days and I feel a little sick! Normal service shall resume shortly.
I was tempted to stay and watch the whole election coverage. But then I thought better of it as a) I’m tired b) the flow of results coming in is soooo slow and c) I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a ‘hung parliament’ which doesn’t really warrant staying up till 6am to find out. It’ll still be there tomorrow so I’m off to bed! Goodnight everyone!!!
Wednesday 5 May 2010
THE ELECTION (part 1)
I am the first to admit that I am not interested in politics yet over this past year, I’ve found myself leaning towards it more and more. It all started with Obama to be honest so I’ll blame him for now :P
So the UK election. Would you believe this is the first time we have had televised debates before an election. How behind the times are we? Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were the parties involved in the three TV debates and this caused a little upset between some of the smaller parties (i.e. the Scottish national party) and went to court to try and stop the debates from taking place. Needless to say the debates went ahead and Nick Clegg (Leader of the Lib Dems) came out on top in the first debate as oppose to David Cameron (Conservatives) who everyone thought would outshine them all. He did in the end manage to regain first position for the last two debates.
Labour's spoof results
The Conservative's spoof results
The election campaign this year has certainly been interesting! Labour managed to get celebrity endorsements from David Tennant (Yea!), Eddie Izzard, Conservatives got Michael Caine and the Lib Dems got Colin Firth. The TV election broadcasts were an interesting watch. You can watch the broadcasts for Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats by clickling on the links.
However it wasn’t all smiles and there were some difficulties at times, for example David Cameron being completely slated by this Bradford woman (LOL!) and Gordon Brown with his 'bigoted woman' gaffe (Poor Gordon!).
I find the party rivalry perfectly summed up by this little excerpt from Bremmer, Bird and Fortune ...
Cameron: ‘Please vote for change. Vote for a fresh young face to represent UK politics’
Public: ‘Ok we chose him’ *pointing at Clegg*
Cameron: ‘Nooooooo, not him!’
These few days and the parties have been going into over drive, campaigning as much as they can in these last few days. It has been suggested that a lot of people (unlike previous elections) are undecided on who to vote for and I am definitely one of those people. I think we must live of those areas that are still undecided as we have been bombarded with personal letters, leaflets, phone calls and door to door visits from each of the party leaders. I remember the day the general election was announced; we had a Labour party member knocking on our door the very next day. With no explanation of their policies etc, his first line was;
Man: ‘Hello, can we count on your vote for Labour?
Me: Err…
Man: Well, we want to keep the BNP out now, don’t we?
Me: *laughing* well then you’ve definitely got my mum and dad’s vote!
Man: And you?
Me: Err… I’m not sure. I haven’t decided yet. Sorry.
I hate that I apologised, I mean what was I apologising for?! Also the man had really weird teeth which did not help matters as I couldn’t concentrate.
I also saw a clear divide on Facebook with my family and friends taking sides all of a sudden.
The student union encouraging people to vote, definitely a good thing.
The picture on my sociology teacher's Facebook wall.
My old high school teachers (Yes, my old high school teacher for sociology and business studies are my friends on FB!) seemed to side with Labour, stating that we were too young to remember Thatcher’s spell as PM and how bad it was. Voting Conservative would only bring all that back again! I found quite a few family members were for Labour (despite their mistakes) or the Lib Dems (the hopeful party). However there were a few exceptions, some of these family members recently had a rally to demand that a high school should be built in their area. David Cameron was present and I guess that sealed the deal!
So everyone is being reminded to vote and I’m not sure whether it’s the popularity of social networking sites or the extensive coverage of the changes that this election will bring about, but everyone and I mean EVERYONE is talking about it. I suppose it’s reassuring to know that people do care about what will happen to the country and are taking an interest in some politics.
The BBC iPlayer packed with political broadcasts
Tomorrow is Election Day and I still can’t make up my mind about who to vote for. I used votematch.org.uk and after answering a series of 30 statements and whether I agree with them or not. The statements were basically lines taken from each party’s policy manifesto and at the end we were asked to rank which topics were most important to least important. My result came up as 68% conservative followed by Labour and then Lib Dems. That definitely shocked me, lol. And yet I still can’t decide… there are negative points for each party and at the end of the day, aren’t all politicians the same? Early polls have suggested we may be heading for a hung parliament (Yea, I didn’t know what that was either, lol!). Argh, I am so confused!
I did however find some light hearted articles such as this ‘What not to do in a polling station’. Questions answered included; Can I use music to inspire me on who to vote for? (err, no), Is voting in my PJ’s ok? (Apparently this fine, but which self respecting person would wander about in their PJ’s in public? Weird!)
This also made me laugh… a baby was registered to vote. I know people are concerned about their future but that is perhaps taking it a tad too far?
So anyway, the big day is coming up fast! The things that will be at the forefront of my mind when I’m going to cast my vote will be the NHS, education and the economy. Labour have had a rough ride, made a few mistakes and people do feel a little betrayed but at the same time how do we know if the others will do any better? They might even worse than the current ones we have! I can’t bad mouth the other parties or tell people who to vote for but I personally have a pretty good idea on who I SHOULDN’T vote for, lol.
So I hope it all goes well/ to plan? Lol, I’m not sure what to expect but good things please. Thank you :)
Nahiiiiii!
For those of you that don’t know me, I may have a small crush on Keanu Reeves :P Ok, so maybe he can’t act as well as others but isn’t he just so handsome/ pretty? Lol
My cousins’ love fuelling my crushes so when Saba forwarded this email to me, I should have known something was up. I mean come on; even hotmail knew this message was dangerous for me!
How could you Saba?!
Wah!!! :'(
Read the full article here.
You want to know what the bad thing is – I quite like Charlize Theron as an actress and so it makes it very hard to dislike her. Damn! Saba said they make such a cute couple... and I’m afraid I might have to agree :(
Sunday 2 May 2010
Fancy a stroll?
I got an email this morning from the PA of one my professor’s.
Hello, the following message on behalf of Prof:
Dear all,
I was considering doing the 3 peaks walk this May 2010. If anybody was free and wanted to join me - that would be great! (Sounds good, get some exercise, fresh air, take a break from study/work etc. Sure, why not?)
The complete round is 23 miles, (Wow, that’s a long walk, but I do it, how great would I feel at the end. I’m ok with this. What else do I need to know?)
and takes about 12 hours (Whoa. Stop. 12 hours... as in half the day? I mean Prof is a nice guy but really, 12 hours? Plus what if I’m only one who turns up? That’ll be weird. Very weird)
Suggested timetable would be: (Even in recreational activities, Prof loves having a timetable :P)
People would be free to leave or join at any of these locations/times. Should be a good day out. Bring partners/friends and dogs (sorry, no cats!). (Discriminations against cats? :P)
Unfortunately I did not go...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
