Articles of interest!

[grysar]

Ezra Klein has an interesting discussion of the American handling of terminal illness:

Stage IV metastatic breast cancer isn't something you recover from. So the question is not how to get better, it is how to live until you die.In other words, the question we're theoretically asking all the time. Reframe to the old cliché: If you were going to die tomorrow, or next year, what would you do? The answer is never go home. Some people say they'd steal a car, or go to Hawaii, or travel to Tibet. Running for president and spending your time advocating for what you believe to be a better world isn't a particularly strange choice.

Andrew Sullivan links to a Lancet study on the lethality of various types of drugs. Not shockingly, alcohol is among the worst and well past many illegal ones. I've skimmed the extended article, interesting stuff. I was rather surprised how low LSD rated.

The first private rocket reached orbit, although it only accomplished a half-orbit before it lost control. Seems like the company still has a ways to go, but good luck to them. (Linked from Slate's Human Nature column.)

Discussion of what stone-aged women were probably like and the major problems in the conventional wisdom. This actually reminds me a lot of discussions I had with bannoubunkacoby and capfox on Angel's question of whether a caveman could take an astronaut. This certainly supports the idea that even without weapon, the astronaut would kick ass. Massive mammoth hunts similarly seem to be a matter of collective imagination rather than historical fact.

Comments

[insheepsclothng.livejournal.com]

Yeah astronauts! I called it from the beginning - they are ATHLETES people, not just nerdy scientists. And certainly not malnourished huner-gatherer mostly-gatherers.

[capfox.livejournal.com]

Very interesting, about mortal illnesses. There are, of course, some people who just choose to live out their lives the way they've been doing it until they can't anymore. I actually kinda hope that I'll enjoy what I'm doing enough for that to be the case.

Yeah, astronauts all the way. I hope never to meet an astronaut; it might be too dangerous. =P

[korgmeister.livejournal.com]

NUTMEG?!

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

And caffeine didn't even end up on their list. Pity.