Polio is a disease that should be long dead by now. Some readers will be old enough to remember rooms full of ‘iron lungs’ – grotesque life-support machines that did the breathing for children left paralysed by this deadly infection. With their small heads poking out through a tight rubber seal, steam engine-like contraptions sucked and pressed on the child’s chest in the hope that their strength would recover. Polio infection was also called ‘infantile paralysis’ and it struck terror into the hearts of parents everywhere. The viral disease starts out like a mild flu then attacks the brain and spinal cord. A blight on humankind, children who survived could be left with monstrous deformities. Read more
Tag: the mind
The Science of the Midlife Crisis – a modern myth?
They say that life begins at 40. If that is true, then I have four and half years coddled up in the womb of young adulthood before I am birthed into the cold harshness of ‘middle age’. We tend not to think too much of being ‘middle aged’, and we all know someone who has gone through (or is going through) the dreaded ‘midlife crisis’. About a quarter of adults aged over 40 say that they have had such an episode and the story usually goes something like: a 40- or 50-something man splashes his lifesavings on a flashy sportscar or noisy motorbike, starts a rock band, and/or quits his job to swan off with a younger woman. What on Earth could possibly possess a responsible grownup show such sudden reckless abandon? Read more
What’s going on in the mind of a spree killer?
A couple of weekends ago, I was invited onto BBC Breakfast News to review the Sunday papers. Arriving at the studio in Salford, Manchester, at 6am, the producer presented me with a foot-high pile of the day’s newspapers and instructed me to pick five stories to talk about on air. All should be from different papers, none could be from the front page, and two needed to be ‘serious’. The Munich shootings had happened just two days before, when 18-year-old Ali David Sonboly lured victims to a McDonald’s restaurant before going on a killing spree that left nine dead and 35 injured. It was a horrific news event that simply couldn’t be ignored. Taking a deep breath, I sat down on the red sofa and flicked open a copy of The Observer to discuss this baby-faced teenager’s murderous acts. It’s not the sort of thing any of us want to talk about, let alone in front of 2 million people, but trying to understand the mind of the young killer could actually help prevent such tragedies happening again. Read more
Spelling out the truth about dyslexia
We’ve all done it: mixed up our numbers and telephoned the wrong person. It’s an easy mistake that’s easy to forgive, but for one Starbucks employee, Meseret Kumulchew, getting her numbers in a jumble landed her in very hot water. While logging the temperature of fridges and water onto the duty roster, coffee shop worker Meseret accidentally wrote the numbers the wrong way round. Apparently accused of fraud and ordered to retrain, she was exonerated earlier this year when the courts ruled her employer had treated her unjustly. She, like an estimated half a million people in the UK, has dyslexia – a condition that many of us simply don’t understand. And the brew is made all the murkier because there is no accepted definition of what dyslexia is. Read more
Is owning a dog is good for you? Separating howling myths from tail-wagging truths
There are some things in life no one ever teaches you. Like the etiquette of dog walking. As a reluctant dog owner of two years, the strange world of dog walkers still mystifies me. Should I let my dog sniff another dog’s crotch? Should I apologise when my dog barks at a stranger? Will the 6 foot, burly man with tattoos thump me if I ask him why he owns a dog as small as a hamster? Read more
Nostalgia: Why we think things were better in the past
They just don’t write blogs like they used to. Back in the good old days there was none of this Twitter or Facebook piffle. Web pages were once simple and images didn’t instantly appear but – like a photo being developed – gradually formed out of a pixelated mess. In the 1990s, receiving an email was still a fun novelty. Ah, the how things were better back then. You kids don’t know you’re born.
Contrary to what you might think, it’s not senior citizens who are the experts in nostalgia. At the tender age of thirty, I’m as adept at reminiscing as anyone. I can fondly remember a bygone era where social engagements weren’t cancelled on the whim of a text-message. Foolish sentimentality? We rose-tinted nostalgics are perhaps the ones most capable of dealing with modern-day life. Today’s blog post is for everyone who thinks things were better when they were a kid… Read more
Do old people get more grumpy?
It is said that during our twenties we spend our time worrying about what other people think . In our thirties, we blame our parents for all our problems. In our forties, we finally realise that no one was really paying us that much attention and all our issues aren’t our parent’s fault after all.
Not so very long ago, a certain Sir Michael rather publically lamented today’s teachers – accusing them of being a group of whinging bums (I paraphrase). One commenter wondered whether it was just his age getting the better of him. She questioned whether there is any research about age-related ‘grumpiness’. In today’s post, you will find out whether there really is any truth to the “grumpy old codger” stereotype – and whether we are all destined to get grumpy as we get old… Read more
New Research says: Men Think About Sex More Often Than Women. Really?
If you want to do some headline-grabbing research it doesn’t get much better than this. Recent research published in the Journal of Sex Research (yes, I was surprised it existed as well) from the University of Ohio tries to give the most accurate-to-date answer to the age old stereotype of whether men really think about sex more than women.
In a slightly more risque blog post that normal (I don’t particularly want to be found on Google searches relating to ‘sex’, for obvious reasons), It nevertheless seemed important to explore such a relevant issue – well, a friend asked me to comment on said research – so that’s good enough.
Sex researcher Terri Fischer (with the help of two obliging students) concluded that men do think about sex more than women – but not by much. If her results are to be believed, it’s a far cry from the claim that ‘men think about sex every seven seconds’. Intriguingly, she also concludes that there are some factors that make women more likely to have erotic preoccupations… Read more
Forget a ‘broken society’ – did Boredom cause the London Riots?

The official report on the reasons behind last year’s riots in the UK will be published tomorrow. It concludes that half a million families in the UK aren’t getting the support they need. It also points the finger at poor parenting, and materialism brought on by advertising. But perhaps there is a more basic, scientific and primitive urge that triggered the rioting? One man thinks that boredom may have been the cause. And he’s not the only one – and has some compelling science to back up his claims.
It sounds an outrageous proposition, but the notion that being ‘fed up’ causes rioting is the put forward in a forthcoming documentary by Canadian film producers, Elevator Films (for release May 2012). The documentary, led by director/producer Albert Nerenberg (of ‘Laughology’ fame), explores the idea that widespread boredom across the UK (through unemployment and poor-schooling) was a key factor in the wide-spread looting of otherwise ‘normal’ English men and women. The film travels the globe, interviewing some of the world’s top thinkers on boredom research. They also asked me to give an opinion. Read more
Fact or Fiction: Do New Year’s Resolutions actually Work?
New Year’s Resolutions: Just what is the point? I used to hate the idea of resolving to do something good just because it was a new year. And yet there seems to be something magical about the stroke of midnight on December 31st: Many of us pledge to get fit, save money or stop smoking. Having witnessed family and friends make dozens of failed attempts, it’s tempting to think that Oscar Wilde had it right…
Resolutions are “pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil”. Oscar Wilde (1909), The Picture of Dorian Gray
Psychologists have tried to answer these questions and a team of researchers from America did some intensive work to find out the secret of sticking to New Year’s resolutions. Read on to find out if you’ve got what it takes to carry through on your resolution…