Pity the poor sheep.

A businessman who has smoked 30-a-day for decades is to maroon himself on a remote Scottish island in an effort to quit the habit.

Former merchant banker Geoff Spice is due to land on the small isle of Sgarabhaigh, off Harris in the Outer Hebrides, over the weekend.

Mr Spice, 56, will spend four weeks in solitude with only some books and the island’s sheep for company.

BBC

National newspapers, particularly The Sun, report that a wind turbine in Conisholme, Lincolnshire, has been damaged – according to some eyewitnesses – by a low-flying UFO. Various potential explanations are offered including military or extraterrestrial activity.

The MOD examines UFO reports solely to establish whether UK airspace may have been compromised by hostile or unauthorised military activity. Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, there is no attempt to identify the nature of each sighting reported. The Ministry of Defence has no other interest or role regarding UFO matters, nor does the Department consider questions regarding the existence or otherwise of extraterrestrial life-forms.

The Ministry of Defence routinely publishes UFO sighting information, and has released large amounts of historical UFO information via the National Archives.

To report a sighting call the Ministry of Defence UFO hotline on 01494 496 254.

Copyright UK Ministry of Defence

The New England Journal of Medicine presents the findings of an Iraqi study of the number of civilian deaths due to violence since the Liberation. It’s not 601,027 as the Lancet study proposed. It’s not 500,000. Or 400,000. Or… well, you get the idea.

ABSTRACT

Background Estimates of the death toll in Iraq from the time of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 until June 2006 have ranged from 47,668 (from the Iraq Body Count) to 601,027 (from a national survey). Results from the Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS), which was conducted in 2006 and 2007, provide new evidence on mortality in Iraq.

Methods The IFHS is a nationally representative survey of 9345 households that collected information on deaths in the household since June 2001. We used multiple methods for estimating the level of underreporting and compared reported rates of death with those from other sources.

Results Interviewers visited 89.4% of 1086 household clusters during the study period; the household response rate was 96.2%. From January 2002 through June 2006, there were 1325 reported deaths. After adjustment for missing clusters, the overall rate of death per 1000 person-years was 5.31 (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.89 to 5.77); the estimated rate of violence-related death was 1.09 (95% CI, 0.81 to 1.50). When underreporting was taken into account, the rate of violence-related death was estimated to be 1.67 (95% uncertainty range, 1.24 to 2.30). This rate translates into an estimated number of violent deaths of 151,000 (95% uncertainty range, 104,000 to 223,000) from March 2003 through June 2006.

Conclusions Violence is a leading cause of death for Iraqi adults and was the main cause of death in men between the ages of 15 and 59 years during the first 3 years after the 2003 invasion. Although the estimated range is substantially lower than a recent survey-based estimate, it nonetheless points to a massive death toll, only one of the many health and human consequences of an ongoing humanitarian crisis.

OK, so I’m turning loose the wonks to determine if this study has any validity. One thing I note from Table 2 is that there were no reported murders in the pre-invasion period. Seems odd.

The Congress has spoken. That light bulb you climb on a chair to change every so often? Banned within a few years.

Instead, you’ll be forced to buy compact fluorescent lights, CFL’s, those squiggly blubs.

Here’s what GE says, and remember they WANT you to buy CFL’s.

Because the wattage of a CFL bulb is much lower than that of an incandescent, you can use higher wattage CFL giving you the equivalent light of a higher wattage incandescent. For example: If your fixture says not to exceed 60 watts, you can use a 15 watt CFL to get the same amount of light as an incandescent bulb or use up to a 42 watt CFL and increase the amount of light.

CFLs are safe to use in your home. CFLs contain a very small amount of mercury sealed within the glass tubing – an average of 5 milligrams (roughly equivalent to the tip of a ball-point pen). No mercury is released when the bulbs are in use and they pose no danger to you or your family when used properly.

Follow these guidelines to dispose your CFL properly:

* Like paint, batteries, thermostats, and other hazardous household items, CFLs should be disposed of properly. Do not throw CFLs away in your household garbage if better disposal options exist. To find out what to do first check www.earth911.org (where you can find disposal options by using your zip code) or call 1-877-EARTH911 for local disposal options. Another option is to check directly with your local waste management agency for recycling options and disposal guidelines in your community. Additional information is available at www.lamprecycle.org. Finally, IKEA stores take back used CFLs, and other retailers are currently exploring take back programs.
* If your local waste management agency offers no other disposal options except your household garbage, place the CFL in a plastic bag and seal it before putting it in the trash. If your waste agency incinerates its garbage, you should search a wider geographic area for proper disposal options. Never send a CFL or other mercury containing product to an incinerator.
* ENERGY STAR qualified CFLs have a two-year warranty. If the bulb fails within the warranty period, return it to your retailer.

Because there is such a small amount of mercury in CFLs, your greatest risk if a bulb breaks is getting cut from glass shards. Research indicates that there is no immediate health risk to you or your family should a bulb break and it’s cleaned up properly. You can minimize any risks by following these proper clean-up and disposal guidelines:

* Sweep up—don’t vacuum—all of the glass fragments and fine particles.
* Place broken pieces in a sealed plastic bag and wipe the area with a damp paper towel to pick up any stray shards of glass or fine particles. Put the used towel in the plastic bag as well.
* If weather permits, open windows to allow the room to ventilate.

Mercury is an element (Hg on the periodic table) found naturally in the environment. Mercury emissions in the air can come from both natural and man-made sources. Utility power plants (mainly coal-fired) are the primary man-made source, as mercury that naturally exists in coal is released into the air when coal is burned to make electricity. Coal-fired power generation accounts for roughly 40% of the mercury emissions in the U.S. EPA is implementing policies to reduce airborne mercury emissions. Under regulations issued in 2005, coal-fired power plants will need to reduce their emissions by 70 percent by 2018.

CFLs present an opportunity to prevent mercury emissions from entering the environment because they help to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants. A coal-fired power plant will emit 13.6 milligrams of mercury to produce electricity required to use an incandescent light bulb, compared to 3.3 milligrams for a CFL.

Even in areas without significant coal-fired power generation as part of the electricity mix (e.g., Alaska and the Pacific Northwest), there are other, equally positive environmental impacts from saving energy through the use of CFLs: reduction of nitrogen oxides (which cause smog), and prevention of substantial quantities of CO2, a greenhouse gas (which is linked to global warming), as well as other air pollutants.

Airborne mercury poses a very low risk of exposure. However, when mercury emissions deposit into lakes and oceans, they can transform into methyl mercury that builds up in fish. Fish consumption is the most common pathway for human exposure to mercury. Pregnant women and young children are most vulnerable to the effects of this type of mercury exposure. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that most people are not exposed to harmful levels of mercury through fish consumption. However, the FDA and state agencies do issue public health advisories.

EPA offers additional information and resources on all sources of mercury at www.epa.gov/mercury.

Mercury???? Panic time. Run about, scream and shout!

I’m in favor of radioactive mercury in CFL’s. Come on, Congress, poison us some more! [/sarcasm]

The answer is to be found in Lapland, it seems.

Or was that Lapdanceland?

Telegraph

Now Dr Samuli Helle, University of Turku, has found the answer with the help of a study of the nomadic Sami, the “reindeer people” of Finland.

Finnish parish records from the 17th to 19th century on three Sami populations, who depended on reindeer herding, fishing and hunting for their livelihood, make it possible for researchers to disentangle the effects of medical progress on the number and life span of Sami men who married only once.

What they found was that the men maximized their “evolutionary fitness” – ability to pass on their genes to future generations – by marrying women who were 14.6 years younger, and vice versa.

“Those men had the highest number of offspring surviving to adulthood,” said Dr Helle, who did his study with Drs Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield and Jukka Jokela of the ETH in Zurich.

“Young Sami women were the most fertile and had the highest reproductive value, whereas older Sami men had acquired enough skills needed for successful hunting, fishing and reindeer herding and, most importantly, wealth to be good providers for the progeny and thus desirable mates,” they conclude.

Yeah, that’s the answer. [/sarcasm]