Women have a variety of methods for contraception, but only two methods are commonly available to men: condoms and vasectomies. Both methods have their drawbacks.
(And let's just not mention the very PiV-centric model going on here.)
But that wasn't actually the main that struck me about this: Heating Up Testicles With Nanoparticles Can Work as ( Read more... )

You know, I would be a bit more convinced by this (article about The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes), if the author were not described as holding a post which does not exist - people are not Professors of 'the University of London' but of one or other of the constituent colleges federated to it. This may be a reporter's error, I suppose. There had also ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished The Library of the Dead and you know, I was really expecting rather more about the actual library? it doesn't really feature very much. My cavils of last week pretty much remain. Okay, there was a Brounie at one point (trad Scottish folklore), but....
Naomi Mitchison, To the Chapel Perilous (1955) - apparently this is at last ( Read more... )

Apparently - this fleeted past me on Twitter a week or so ago, and is writ up here in more detail and with historical context - there are still people who are not living in caves and unaware that the Napeolonic Wars are over, who believe in dangerous menstrual toxins:
Secretly Murdering Your Husband: The one weird trick that baffled researchers.
( Read more... )

I’m Bridget Christie, a comedian, but I don’t just see comedy. Last weekend I went to a spellbinding exhibition of British folk art called Ritual Britain, set perfectly in London’s atmospheric Crypt Gallery in the bowels of St Pancras New Church in London.
And one might feel a leeeetle boggled at all this rather pagan remnant stuff in the crypt of ( Read more... )

In the midst of everything, this is lovely: Turkey embarks on cultural mission to preserve its fairytales: Mammoth task to collate magical folklore of Anatolian plateau involves thousands of stories: '“In folk tales, the heroes are mostly outsiders who suffer the violence of powerful autocrats; for politicians, their defiant tone is dangerous.”'
** ( Read more... )

Because I don't think the motif of the Chosen One being someone reared in (relatively) humble circumstances but of actually elite birth is particularly British?
(Especially when the examples given are precisely 2 distantly separated in time, King Arthur and Harry Potter.)
This was claimed as being about the Dead Hand of British Classism by somebody ( Read more... )

Reverting once more to the issues I was thinking over in Tuesday's post -
- and there was definitely something for me about magic bullets and quick fixes and be careful what you wish for in that posited question.
I'm not saying precisely Monkey's Paw territory, but definitely maybe Unintended Consequences, and there are various versions of this ( Read more... )

I suppose a 'visionary historian' might find this out by, you know, having visions?* rather than being able to substantiate the claim from empirical evidence?
But really, when someone comes out with the following: [W]e have gained enormous power over the world and it doesn’t seem to make people significantly more satisfied than in the stone age.
my ( Read more... )

(Spent most of the afternoon going to see my father, who is currently in a respite care home while my sister and b-i-l go to a wedding.)
***
Long time readers will remember (???) that a couple of times before I have posted about CROCODILES IN THE UK CROCODILES I TELL YOU!!!: the one purported to be doing its reptilian thing in the Somerset Levels, ( Read more... )