Skin Cancer Trial Results Exciting
That is the headline on this story on the BBC web site. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
The results of two international trials against advanced skin cancer have been hailed as “exciting and striking”.
Both treatments, for advanced melanoma, are designed to enable the immune system to recognise and target tumours.
The last statement is key. After all one of ourposes of your immune system is to fight infections and any other dangerous things it finds in your body.
Research has shown that coeliacs on a gluten free diet, have a reduced cancer rate compared to the general population.
So should everybody avoid obesity, too much drink, smoking and gluten, if they want to reduce their cancer risk?
I don’t have the data, so I won’t make a prediction. But the man, who helped to identify the link between smoking and lung cancer, Richard Doll, was a coeliac and was obviously on a gluten-free diet.
He lived until he was 92.
He obviously looked at the data and probably massaged his immune system.
I Can’t Bear To Look At The Times Website Today
The headline story is of the poor woman sentenced to death in Sudan for a love of a man of the wrong religion, giving birth on the floor of a prison cell in chains.
What has all this got to do with religion?
A Statistical Provocateur
Not by words, but they are used in this thought-provoking article on the BBC web site.
It shows how the divorce rate mirrors margarine consumption, according to a web site called Spurious Correlations.
The trouble is that people tend to believe these relationships or not, as it suits them.
Perhaps the most famous statistical correlation is that smoking causes lunch cancer. But people still smoke! Or should that be idiots still smoke?
One correlation used by the Police, may have been found using my software called Daisy. Analysis by the Metropolitan Police showed that if they found a car, had no valid excise duty, insurance or MOT, then there was a fifty percent chance that if they stopped the car, they’d find evidence of a non-motoring offence. The logic behind this, is if you are say a burglar, drug-dealer or other crimnal, you are less likely to make sure that your car is legal.
BBC Breakfast’s Pointless Move To Manchester
It may be a day of a minor political tremor, but today is illustrating how pointless it was to move BBC Breakfast and probably many other programs to Manchester.
All of the major politicians are of course in Westminster, so Bill Turnbull is in London with Louise Minchin sitting almost by herself in the North, with a few lightweight guests. It is showing, it is a bad recipe for a good programme.
The sooner the BBC does the right thing and moves BBC Breakfast back to London the better.
May Puts The Boot In
One of the lead stories on the BBC is about Theresa May’s speech to the Police Federation. This is the first paragraph.
Theresa May has urged the Police Federation of England and Wales to reform, or she will enforce change.
But the extraordinary thing about the report in The Times, is not the report itself, but the number of comments entered by readers.
As these comments do not seem to favour one side or another, surely the large number, indicates that many Times readers are very interested in what happens to the Police Federation.
The Queen Starts An Inter Union Row
Her Majesty doesn’t often get involved in trade union disputes, but according to this report in the Standard, she’s very much involved in this one on the London Ungerground.
What puzzles me about this dispute is why we still have so many unions involved in the rail industry.
Over the many years, I’ve been watching industrial relations, it strikes me, that companies with a single union, seem to have better industrial relations, than those with more.
Why We Shouldn’t Mine Coal
I’m sixty-seven this year and all my life, every year or so, I’ve heard reports of the deaths of coal miners.
Now today, there are reports of a serious mine disaster in Turkey.
When I was in Poland, I shared a train compartment with a lady going to Katowice. I remember the city for a mining disaster in the 1950s, which was nearby.
Isn’t it about time, we stopped mining the filthy stuff, as it just creates grief for the miners and their families? And of course there’s always the issue of global warming.
Open Wide For Gladys
They announced on BBC London local news that Tower Bridge will open twice today at 11:15 and 13:00. So I looked it up on the Internet here.
It’s a sailing barge called Gladys going in and out.
Mary Whitehouse Would Have Been Pleased
According to this story, Russian media and the arts will become a swearword free zone.
Putin really is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube and go back to a state where thoughts and dissent in any form is illegal.
Rats And Sinking Ships Come To Mind
This story on the BBC today, that the Labour party is cutting its links with the Co-op Bank made me think of the headline of this post.
On the other hand, perhaps the owners of the other 70% of the bank, that the Co-operative Group doesn’t own, aren’t those who wear red underwear?
On the other hsand moving to a bank controlled by the Trade Unions, might not bode well for those who want the Labour party to think pragmatically and outside the box.
The Anonymous Widower 