World Cancer Research Fund advises people to limit consumption of beef, pork and lamb and avoid processed meatThis article titled “Cut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchers” was written by Denis Campbell, health correspondent, for The Guardian on Sunday 22nd May 2011 23.06 UTCCancer experts have issued a fresh warning about eating red and processed meat after “the most authoritative report” on the subject blamed them for causing the disease.The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) is advising people to limit their intake of red meats such as beef, pork and lamb, and to avoid processed meat such as ham and salami altogether. “Convincing evidence” that both types of meat increase the risk of bowel cancer means people should think seriously about reducing how much they eat, it recommends.The charity kickstarted a global debate in 2007 when it published a study which identified meat as a risk factor for a number of different forms of cancer.WCRF-funded scientists at Imperial College London led by Dr Teresa Norat studied 263 research papers that have come out since then looking at the role of diet, weight and physical activity in bowel cancer. An independent panel of leading cancer experts then reviewed their conclusions. “For red and processed meat, findings of 10 new studies were added to the 14 analysed as part of the 2007 report. The panel confirmed that there is convincing evidence that both red and processed meat increase bowel cancer risk,” said the report .“WCRF recommends that people limit consumption to 500g (cooked weight) of red meat a week – roughly the equivalent of five or six medium portions of roast beef, lamb or pork – and avoid processed meat,” it added. About 36,000 Britons a develop bowel cancer every year, and some 16,500 die from it. It is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer after lung cancer.About 17,000 cases a year (43%) could be prevented if people ate less meat and more fibre, drank less, maintained a healthy weight and kept active, the WCRF says.Its 850-page report, releasedon Monday, is “the most authoritative ever report of bowel cancer risk”, cancer prevention experts claim.Professor Alan Jackson of Southampton University, the chair of the WCRF’s continuous update project expert panel, said: “On meat, the clear message that comes out of our report is that red and processed meat increase risk of bowel cancer and that people who want to reduce their risk should consider cutting down the amount they eat.”Growing concern about red and processed meat prompted the government in February to advise consumers for the first time to consider cutting down. That came after the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), experts who advise the government, examined the evidence on the subject. It decided that those meats probably increase the risk of bowel cancer.People who eat 90g or more a day should cut down to the UK average of 70g, SACN recommended. It advised having smaller portions or eating those meats less often. A 70g serving could be three slices of ham, a lamb chop or two standard beef burgers.WCRF’s review has also firmed up from “probable” to “convincing” its view of the protection against bowel cancer afforded by eating foods containing fibre, such as wholegrains, pulses, fruit and vegetables.Milk, garlic and dietary supplements containing calcium also “probably” reduce the risk, the expert panel concluded.But farmers’ leaders denounced the WCRF’s new report and accused it of deliberately choosing the first day of National Vegetarian Week to publish it in order to maximise publicity for conclusions which the charity first reached years ago.Chris Lamb, a spokesman for BPEX and EBLEX, which represents England’s pig, beef and lamb farmers, said: “Average consumption has been in or around 500g a week for a few years. The vast majority of consumers aren’t exceeding this and don’t have to worry about [this]“, he said.The risks identified by the WCRF were unchanged, he stressed.Lamb argued it was unfair for the WCRF to highlight meat as a contributory cause of bowel cancer when the main risk was to people who are generally unhealthy, for example by consuming too much food, alcohol or fizzy drink.“They aren’t assisting consumers. Consumers eat and enjoy meat as part of a balanced diet, and meat plays a valuable part in that balanced diet”, said Lamb. “If you eat or drink anything in excess it’s a danger. Therefore, if you can pick on meat in order to get headlines, then you aren’t actually helping consumers.”Professor Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said red meat can form part of a healthy, balanced diet. “It is a good source of protein and vitamins and minerals, such as iron, selenium, zinc and B vitamins,” she said, “but people who eat a lot of red and processed meat should consider cutting down. The occasional steak or extra few slices of lamb is fine but regularly eating a lot could increase your risk of bowel cancer.”Bowel Cancer UK chief executive Deborah Alsina said: “The report significantly adds to the available evidence into the increased risk of bowel cancer from eating too much red and processed meat; and strengthens the evidence of how eating food with fibre in it protects people against the disease.Hazel Nunn, a senior health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: “With barbeque season just round the corner, this is a timely reminder that how much alcohol you drink, how active you are, your weight, and how much red and processed meat and fibre you eat can all have a bearing on your risk of bowel cancer.”• Growing numbers of lung cancer patients are having life-saving operations thanks to advances in surgical techniques. The proportion of patients with the disease who undergo surgery has risen from one in 11 in 2005 to one in seven last year, according to a study by the NHS Information Centre. Lung cancer kills more people than any other form of cancer. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogCut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchersRelated posts:Alcohol to blame for 13,000 cancer cases a year in UKTurkey Ham?World Development Report: Why no mention of Paris?
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Cut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchers
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May 23 2011, 4:36am | Comments »
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Why we must make the adder count
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/02/why-we-must-make-the-adder-count
More research into adder genetics may prevent small isolated colonies from dying out. Our only venomous snake is an important part of UK wildlife heritage.
This article titled “Why we must make the adder count” was written by John Baker, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 2nd April 2011 09.00 UTC One of only six reptile species native to Britain, the adder is a fussy creature. Its restriction to specific habitats, and its frequent disturbance by human activity, well-meaning and otherwise, have made its populations isolated and prone to the effects of inbreeding. The Institute of Zoology, Natural England and Oxford University is undertaking a survey of adders (also known as vipers) to identify whether their population in the UK is suffering from a lack of genetic diversity. This is encouraging, and I fully support further research into adder genetics. Two of the other reptile species in Britain, the sand lizard and smooth snake, have always had limited natural ranges here. Because of this, they have strict legal protection and have been the subject of conservation programmes to protect and manage the few sites where they occur, and to reintroduce them to places from where they have disappeared. The adder is one of the remaining four species that we call “widespread” because they have much larger natural ranges in Britain. The adder can be found from the very south-west of England all the way north to Scotland. This does not mean that Britain is brimming with them or any other reptile species: within their apparently large ranges, they are restricted to certain types of habitat. The adder prefers grassland, scrub and woodland edge, primarily on sandy soils. There are also other factors that make it a particularly vulnerable species. Back in 2004, English Nature (now Natural England) contacted naturalists around the country who had good knowledge of adder populations and asked them to evaluate the health of “their” adders, with some interesting results. In their opinion, “disturbance” was the greatest threat. But analysis of the data revealed some other trends. A third of the adder populations were small (estimated as fewer than 10 adult snakes), and more than a third of the populations were isolated. Population declines tended to be more frequent among these small or isolated populations, as is to be expected due to chance fluctuations, but also as you would expect from inbreeding. Amphibian and Reptile Conservation co-ordinates Make the Adder Count, a project encouraging local adder conservation and long-term monitoring of populations, pooling information from a small but dedicated band of adder-watchers around the country. They, too, have consistently reported that the greatest threat to adders is disturbance. On further questioning, it become apparent that disturbance can have different causes. In some cases it refers to destruction of habitat – something that can happen even on protected sites, unintentionally, through “habitat management”. Adders are also still being killed by humans, through overly heavy-handed management of some of the areas they inhabit. Sometimes disturbance can also result from people visiting well-known adder sites. So, can the general public help at all? Certainly. They can visit the Sliding Scales campaign website, a project for recording current or recent distributions of any snakes, as well as visiting the Add an Adder site – which aims to collect “records from the past” (both from personal experience and anecdotes from friends and relatives) to get a better idea of not only where adders are, but also where they used to be. If people find shed skins (or “sloughs”) of adders, they can also be sent to the ARC Trust – those will be used in a research project to better understand adder genetics. The animals we love face a range of threats. We herpetologists wait with interest to learn more about the genetics of our adder populations.
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April 2 2011, 2:33pm | Comments »
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Tapping into online communities can help councils engage with citizens
Be it on Twitter, Facebook or Linked In, online communities are dominating the conversation and government just needs to get out of the way.
This article titled “Tapping into online communities can help councils engage with citizens” was written by Louise Kidney, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 28th March 2011 08.00 UTC Of all the rumours floating around local government this year, my favourite is that the localism bill introduction in the House of Commons was delayed because nobody could agree on the definition of “community”. A lot of people are interested in defining community at the moment, not just the coalition. The RSA is currently running a project examining the notion of a connected community in real space within the New Cross Gate area – mapping how people interrelate in their everyday lives whether through membership of special interest groups or in gyms. Facebook recently mapped their entire user base and how they interrelate – creating an image that reveals humanity’s need both to connect but also to migrate in all its global glory. We are fascinated with community. Mapping existing connections within a community might seem pointless, until you consider that this might be where the proof of the pudding is for a multicultural society. The truth is, until you ask the question and map a community, how it exists currently and came to be that way, you cannot find the reason or motivation for the cohesion that exists within it, nor transfer that anywhere else. Until you identify who goes to which mosque but also the gym next to it, and identify that that person who attends both is a hub and an influencer, how can you know who the people are who you should be targeting to attend your local neighbourhood meetings? If you engage with the influencers, your message will be passed by word of mouth – but you must identify them first. Even Facebook, a community in a digital space – or rather a collision of a series of friendship circles and communities all interacting and merging – has influencers. Most people, according to research, have about 150 people listed as friends on Facebook – but some have more, and they are the people who we assume cross over groups – the people who link groups, the people who work a room with ease at parties who transfer those networking skills across to the digital world. Again, if you want to get a digital community on board, get them behind your message, or, for example, behind your community clean up – identify the digital influencer in the geographical location you are targeting. Communities can be enormously useful, and these are just a few examples of how. But how do you identify a community that you can’t see – one which exists in a space which allegedly has no borders? And how do you quantify the value of a digital community, surely it’s just a load of people sitting around chatting? Not quite. Wikipedia defines a virtual community as ‘a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographic and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.’ Sometimes it’s obvious that these communities exist online – take a look at any Facebook page on a common interest issue, be that a local issue or a band, and you will see there is a community – a collection of individuals with a commonality. But those links are not always so defined – local government has a community but that community sprawls across many digital networks, from the Communities of Practice to Twitter on the #localgov tag. There is a small article buried as a reference in the Wikipedia article on virtual community. PBS Teachers, an educators’ community over in the US, published a report on understanding the impact of online communities on civic engagement. The figures speak for themselves. 65% of online community members have involvement in civic affairs since becoming members, 44% are more involved in social activism. Instead of frantic typing and little else, it seems that becoming part of a community empowers and motivates people to transfer the feeling of belonging to a community into the real world to effect real, tangible community driven change. The lesson here, perhaps, is that just because something is digital does not mean it has no value in real world. It appears to act as an enabler, and for the RSA and others as an identifier, not an inhibitor. Louise Kidney works in the communications team at Blackburn with Darwen borough council and blogs at ashinyworld.blogspot.com This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Join the local government network for more like this direct to your inbox.
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March 28 2011, 4:08pm | Comments »
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Exclusive Radiohead artwork plus The King of Limbs album stream
See artwork exclusively created for the King of Limbs project and listen to the new Radiohead album in full.
This article titled “Exclusive Radiohead artwork plus The King of Limbs album stream” was written by Caspar Llewellyn Smith, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 28th March 2011 09.06 UTC Six weeks after Radiohead issued The King of Limbs as a download – engendering a flurry of excitement – the band are releasing the CD version of the album. At noon on Monday, the record will be launched at three special events in London, Manchester and Glasgow, where a free newspaper created by the band called the Universal Sigh will be handed out to fans. Radiohead are also releasing a “newspaper album” version of the King of Limbs priced at £30 – although this will involve a different newspaper than the one handed out to fans. The London event will take place at the Truman Brewery on Dray Walk, London, E1 6QL, the Manchester event will be outside the Bread and Butter Cafe on Tibs St in the Northern Quarter and the Glasgow event will take place on Dundas Street. There are another 59 similar events worldwide – and fans in New Zealand have already got their hands on the paper. You can listen to a stream of The King of Limbs above, and below are two exclusive examples of artwork created for the project, credited to “Zachariah Wildwood & Donald Twain”. The Universal Sigh features writing from authors Robert MacFarlane (whose books include Mountains of the Mind and The Wild Places) and Jay Griffiths (winner of the Discover award for the best new non-fiction for Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time). The Guardian will be bringing you our own view of Radiohead’s newspaper, plus our own special response to it later today. . .
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March 28 2011, 3:49pm | Comments »
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The future for UK wines looks rosé
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/28/the-future-for-uk-wines-looks-rose
I think they mean English wine really, rather than UK wine, but surely the traditional English wine is made from apples and called cider?
This article titled “The future for UK wines looks rosé” was written by Andrew Mourant, for The Guardian on Monday 28th February 2011 17.00 UTC At his vineyard near St Emilion, Martin Krajewski makes some of France’s best-known rosé wine. But, in an increasingly competitive market, he’s anxious to improve it. Yet while the University of Bordeaux, 20 miles or so down the road, is a leading centre for wine studies, it’s to Plumpton College, in the South Downs of Sussex, that Krajewski has turned for help. Moreover, he’s given the college £75,000 to help fund research programmes. And Krajewski, a lifelong wine enthusiast who made his first batch of elderberry aged 12, isn’t the only donor. Aspiring wine-maker Mark Driver, intent on becoming England’s leading producer of champagne-style fizz, has invested £100,000. The college now hopes to double its money through gift aid and the government’s matched funding scheme, which aims to increase voluntary contributions to higher education providers by matching donations, pound for pound. Both men prospered in the City of London before dedicating themselves to wine production. Krajewski had increased his investment at Château de Sours over several years before taking over entirely. Last October, Driver, a former hedge-fund manager, sank £3.5m into buying Rathfinny Farm, near Lewes, which he plans to cultivate with 400 acres of vines. Plumpton College was an unknown quantity to Krajewski until his daughter Charlotte, who inherited his passion for wine-making, chose to study there. At first he had doubts. “I said ‘Are you sure’? But I read up about it and thought it sounded interesting. I’m amazed by what it’s achieved in quite difficult circumstances. It compares well with any other college or university around the world.” What impressed Krajewski was that graduates of Plumpton’s wine-making degree course – unique in the country – hold senior positions in vineyards across the globe. “Plumpton is small; it’s really hands-on. If you go to university in Bordeaux, you stay there. You’re assigned to one particular chateau where all your practical experience is done.” About half of the Château de Sours production is rosé, described by the late Auberon Waugh as probably the best of its kind in the world. “We’ve invested in processes and equipment,” says Krajewski. “But although we do our own research, we’re a small business and don’t have a lot of time. “We believe Plumpton can improve our wine. They’ll be doing research on the terroir [land in which vines are planted] and taking samples for analysis. They’ll have different approaches. Hopefully, the benefits will be mutual. But the donation I’ve made isn’t just to research rosé. I believe what the college is doing is exciting for the next generation of student wine-makers.” Krajewski says the English wine industry is “very important, but not recognised”. Driver, who is enrolled as a student at Plumpton, agrees. He was impressed by seeing college alumni working around the world and at English sparkling producers Nyetimber and Ridgeview. “I think it [investing] is one of the best things we can do for the future of English wines,” he says. “Research is really important, but none has been done in the UK apart from bits and pieces. No one’s pulled it all together and written definitively – for instance, about successful clones that will produce the right results in the right environment. There are no journals to compare with those in America and Australia. “What we need in England to take wine on to the next level is a top-quality research institution that will provide information for wine-makers and vineyard owners. It will raise skill levels.” Driver finds himself in the odd position of being a first-year student making business decisions normally taken by an experienced graduate. He is employing consultants to help. Rathfinny’s first harvest is due in 2014, and his first sparkling wines, after maturing and secondary fermentation, should be ready by 2017. The donations have allowed Plumpton to retain Dr Belinda Kemp as wine lecturer and department research co-ordinator. Kemp graduated from Plumpton with a first-class degree in viticulture and oenology, then completed a PhD at Lincoln University, New Zealand, researching the effects of vine-leaf removal on fruit ripening. Climate change cuts across several of Plumpton’s research projects. But although warmer temperatures are welcomed by England’s vineyard owners, they come as a mixed blessing. “It isn’t as easy as just saying we can now grow grapes for champagne,” says Kemp. “Everything is complicated.” For instance, last year some English vineyards suffered their first infestations of light-brown apple moth, whose grubs damage leaves and fruit. “We’re looking at ways of combating it without using pesticides. It’s the sort of project we’ll see more of. We’re such a new industry – we have everything to learn. There’s a range of projects under the climate-change umbrella.” Plumpton is also studying the chemistry of wine and innovations that could be used in the UK. England is on the northern rim of wine production and one problem is excess acidity in the grapes. Meanwhile, the college will continue its existing research into three different ways of making rosé and work on refining the methods used by Krajewski at Château de Sours. There will be further studies into champagne-style wines, which look to offer the best chances of commercial success for the English industry. Plumpton can now afford a collaboration with Professor Richard Marchal from the University of Reims to investigate, among other things, how juice changes in quality immediately after grapes have been pressed. “Richard Marchal is an expert on production of champagne and sparkling wine, and his coming to Plumpton is recognition of the possibilities in the UK,” said Krajewski. Soon Plumpton will be home to Britain’s first purpose-built wine research centre, currently under construction, and costing about £500,000. Kemp will establish new research links with the University of Brighton, of which Plumpton is a part. Industry collaborations are planned with UK and international companies, and the college hopes further private funding will allow sponsorship of MSc and PhD research students. Wine studies at Plumpton have come a long way since Chris Foss, who heads the department, set up the first part-time course in 1988. There are now 500 students, including 140 undergraduates. The donations make a tremendous difference,” he says. “They allow us to go beyond teaching into proper research, which is fundamental for a university. “More important, the wine industry now has a dedicated problem-solving tool, which it can use to support its developments. It will be a case of ‘We have this problem … Plumpton can sort it out’.”
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February 28 2011, 1:07pm | Comments »
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Half of living languages face extinction
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/21/half-of-living-languages-face-extinction
As world communications improve, the number of local languages is bound to be reduced. But some of those about to be lost could be repositories for specialist knowledge and important cultural heritages, so should we care about the living languages facing extinction? This article titled “Half of living languages face extinction” was written by Lucy Tobin, for The Guardian on Monday 21st February 2011 17.00 UTC You’ll never again hear anyone speaking Laghu, and anyone yearning to communicate in Old Kentish Sign Language is out of luck: it, too, has gone the way of the dodo. But there’s still a chance to track down a conversation in Gamilaraay, or Southern Pomo – if you’re prepared to trek to visit to one the few native Americans still speaking it in California. Of the 6,500 living languages currently being used around the world, around half are expected to be extinct by the end of this century. It was concern about the cultural and historical losses that result from a language disappearing that inspired the World Oral Literature Project, an online collection of some of the 3,500-plus “endangered languages” struggling for survival in the world. The heart of the project, run by Cambridge University, is a large database listing thousands of languages alongside details such as where they are spoken and by whom, plus audio clips. On the site, surfers can discover that Laghu was a language spoken in the Solomon Islands until it disappeared in 1984, Old Kentish Sign Language was a precursor to the modern-day version, and Gamilaraay is still used by the Kamilaroi tribe of New South Wales. The project is the brainchild of Mark Turin, 37, a research associate at Cambridge University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He grew up in London speaking Dutch and English and had planned to study linguistics at university, but on a gap year in Nepal realised he was interested in “what language unlocked, not just the nuts and bolts of linguistics”, and switched to anthropology. “We know very little about most of the world’s languages, and an incredible amount about the histories and changes of a handful of western European languages,” Turin explains. And he has devoted his academic career to trying to open up little-known languages. “Most endangered languages are primarily oral, and are vehicles for the transmission of a great deal of oral culture,” he says. “That’s at risk of being lost when speakers abandon their languages in favour of regional, national or international tongues.” So the World Oral Literature Project aims to document vanishing languages – and everything about the culture and society they convey – before they disappear. Its database used three major sources to collate the information about the disappearing languages, including Unesco’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. About 150 of its listed languages are in an “extremely critical” condition, where the number of known living speakers has slipped to single figures, or even just one. “As soon as a scholar declares a language to be extinct, you get a phone call from someone furious who says ‘my mother still speaks it’,” Turin says. “But in a way, these corrections are all part of the process of drawing attention to the cause and the sense of urgency involved in careful documentation and description of endangered speech forms the world over.” The project also provides funds for local fieldworkers in countries including Malawi, India, Mongolia and Colombia to collect data and recordings about little-spoken languages. In the past, Turin says, major collections of recordings were lost because they weren’t deemed important. He sees the new site as a “safe haven” for fieldwork on languages that might otherwise be lost. “The vast majority of tapes are just kept in dusty boxes, but to put them on our database we digitise and hopefully future-proof them,” he adds. “All manner of people have been getting in touch to give us their collections, including missionaries, retired scholars and community activists.” One early donor was Reverend John Whitehorn, a former missionary and Cambridge linguist who lived with an indigenous community in Taiwan in the 1950s. “When he came back to England, he walked into Cambridge’s Museum of Anthropology and said, ‘I’ve got books, textiles and tape recordings, are you interested?’ The museum took it all apart from the recordings because they didn’t know what to do with them,” Turin explains. “He went home and stored his collection around the house in plastic carrier bags, where they stayed until he walked into my office with the bags under his arm, and asked, ‘do you want them now?’ The tapes are brilliant, with songs and interviews and linguistic information that might otherwise have disappeared.” The database is currently updated exclusively by academics (though users are encouraged to send in contributions), but Turin hopes that it will ultimately become a Wikipedia-style web 2.0 project “that people want to contribute to”, with user uploads, recordings and discussion to help keep languages alive. To that aim, Turin organises lectures and workshops for linguists, librarians, academics and members of the public to discuss the best strategies for collecting and protecting languages and their research. But he worries that, in academia, funding pressures mean the importance of languages is being overlooked. “These days, students are in a huge rush to finish their PhDs due to time and funding requirements,” he says. “They often don’t have the time to develop a linguistic awareness for the people they’re studying, and have to rely on interpreters and translators. But it’s just not the same.” Turin is used to hearing sceptics dismiss the research. “I get a lot of people saying that they think this work is pointless as all minority languages that have no utility are better off dying off anyway – a kind of social Darwinian position,” he says. “But I usually ask them whether they feel the same about all the old churches and buildings that Heritage Lottery money is helping to restore – or the plight of species around the world. Our work means we’re helping not only endangered languages to stay with us, but all the culture and history that they denote.” http://www.oralliterature.org/database
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February 21 2011, 11:16am | Comments »
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‘Water poverty’ to rise in the UK as scarcity pushes up bills
Somehow this report in the Guardian manages to completely avoid the use of the phrase “water meters” or “self disconnection” instead resorting to “new charging models” and “new pricing system”. The use of a banded system with only two points of increase implies that a meter is installed but distorts consumer behavior as the period end approaches if the next band is close. What is really needed is a massive investment in the water supply infrastucture so that top quality drinking water is no longer used to flush toilets, wash cars and water gardens. Drinking water supply could then remain unmetered as a basic human right.
This article titled “‘Water poverty’ to rise in the UK as scarcity pushes up bills” was written by Jamie Doward, for The Observer on Sunday 20th February 2011 00.06 UTC “Water poverty” will become the new fuel poverty for an increasing number of households as scarcity of supply pushes up bills, according to an influential thinktank that says Britain must deal urgently with climate change. A report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, one of the largest social policy research-and-development charities, says that low-income households are at particular risk because of new methods being introduced to increase the efficient use and distribution of water. It defines “water poverty” as when households spend 3% or more of their income on water bills. The report, Vulnerability to Heat Waves and Drought: Adaptation to Climate Change, by the environmental consultancy AEA and a team from the University of Surrey, warns that water is becoming scarce as a result of climate change and increased consumer demand. An estimated four million households in the UK are already “water poor”, according to the report, and the situation is likely to worsen, with bills predicted to rise by 5% a year for some customers. Water companies are moving away from flat-rate fees to new charging models that bill customers with steadily higher prices according to how much water they use. The report warns that this could create affordability problems for some low-income households and lead to “water poverty”. “The issue of water poverty – just like fuel poverty – is extremely important, especially as we start to look into the future and consider how climate change is going to impact society,” said the report’s lead author, Magnus Benzie. The south-west of England, where bills are on average 43% higher than in the rest of the country, is set to be particularly affected as the UK becomes significantly drier in coming decades, according to the report. It suggests that any influx of people into the region, coupled with increases in tourism, will exacerbate the problem. The region has tried a new pricing system, using three tariffs that ratchet up with increased water use, but there are concerns that this may see some households hit disproportionately. “We currently waste a lot of water, so on one level it makes sense to encourage greater efficiency by charging people depending on how much water they use,” Benzie said. “But some tariffs can put unfair pressure on households that cannot reduce their water consumption, either because of household size, medical needs or an inability to invest in water-efficient appliances.” Water poverty is expected to be acute in “urban heat islands” – built-up environments that retain heat more than surrounding areas. Failures to anticipate the threat posed by climate change can be fatal. The authors point to the heatwave across Europe in 2003 that led to more than 30,000 premature deaths. “Climate change and how we adapt to it will impact upon disadvantaged groups in different ways,” said Josh Stott, research manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. “This report highlights the need for policy-makers and agencies to consider these social justice issues when preparing and building resilience to climate change, to improve the outcomes for vulnerable people.”
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February 20 2011, 3:43am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
How to beat technology addiction
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/14/how-to-beat-technology-addiction
I don’t suffer from technology addiction, I could give it up any time i – oh, hang on, new facebook comments! This article titled “How to beat technology addiction” was written by Lucy Tobin, for The Guardian on Monday 14th February 2011 17.00 UTC You’re in the middle of reading a long, important document, but suddenly find you can’t concentrate. It’s not because the topic is snore-inducing or because it’s chocolate o’clock, but due to a tiny, red light, flashing insistently in the corner of your eye. A BlackBerry silently screaming for attention forces you to stop reading to see what the messagesays. Two minutes later, you do the same again. Whether it’s an iPhone or a trilling landline or a pinging email, the latest technology interrupts us all the time. But if you’ve ever wondered exactly what effect the myriad interruptions have on your working day, research by academics at the University of Kent is a worthy interruption. The faculty of psychology at Kent set up a “reading laboratory” with an eyeball-tracking camera to monitor eye movements. It then linked up just over 100 testers and asked them to read a passage of text on a computer screen, before interrupting the participants with one-minute messages – like phone calls. They were then told to return to the original reading, while the eye-tracking camera analysed how they did so. The researchers, led by Ulrich Weger, a senior lecturer in psychology at Kent, found that participants re-read a substantial portion of text before reaching the point where they left the original task – so much so, that each interruption caused an average 17% increase in the total time it took to read the whole passage. Weger was inspired to carry out the research by his own procrastination. “I noticed how easily I was distracted when working on my computer,” he explains. “I wasted time by reading emails whenever they came into my inbox. I noticed that once I had started reading the name of the sender, I read the first line of the text. Once I mastered that, I continued reading the entire message, and once I got to that point, I felt compelled to respond because there was no point in leaving an already half-finished task. Then sometimes I needed extra information to answer the message, so had to add other tasks.” Weger says his many disruptions meant he “often wasn’t making any progress with what I was originally working on – and in the end felt quite breathless and exhausted. I thought I couldn’t be the only person struggling with this.” Talking to colleagues confirmed the scale of the problem, and Weger secured funding from the Economic and Social Research Council to start investigating. He believes the Kent research is important because our modern working environment is “full of tempting – and sometimes not so tempting – sources of interruptions”, but admits it’s tough to find ways to deal with them. “The best thing to do is to try and avoid interruptions in the first place – often people don’t really need to respond to an interruption, but do so because it’s tempting,” he says. Weger’s research showed that simply leaving a mark on the page before responding to an interruption can allow you to resume reading much more efficiently afterwards, cutting 10% from the time it takes to return to the same point in the text. The academics also looked at the impact of background speech and music, and found that when participants were exposed to simultaneous background speech while reading a text, it took them significantly longer to get through it. Some workers might seize upon those findings as a reason to kill off open-plan offices. But Weger says there will always be other distractions. He advises turning off attention-sappers such as automatic email notifications, and arranging desks so they don’t point towards anything interesting – like people walking around outside, but admits: “Sometimes these strategies come with their own costs – turning off your iPod or mobile, for example, can trigger a yearning or even pressure that can get quite distracting in itself. “The best way to overcome our addiction to new information is to learn to control yourself: you can do exercises to help … using thought-control exercises like concentrating on a simple imagined object for a few minutes every day,” he explains. Weger says a concentration exercise he found in a book written by Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago is still useful. “As soon as you notice that you have diverted to another thought, pull yourself away from the intrusive thought and turn back to the image straight away. After practice, you get more competent at shielding yourself against the countless tempting stimuli in our world of information overload.” It sounds very virtuous, but Weger admits he still gets lured into the trap of time-wasting procrastination – even while writing up his research into it. “I still struggle with distractions all the time,” he says. And as for BlackBerrys and their smartphone cousins, Weger says they’re not all bad, and have a “mixed effect”. He explains: “The upside of these devices is that you don’t have to go home to get the information you need. But the downside is that if you allow yourself to become dependent, they will haunt you. As with all things: if you can make use of something that makes your life easier while maintaining enough inner strength and freedom to avoid dependence, you are the master. If you do not cultivate this inner strength and freedom, you become the slave.”
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February 14 2011, 11:32am | Comments »
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