Samuel James White, sometimes known as Mr. Shiro, is a young writer from Leeds, England. As a full-time freelance writer, he writes articles on subjects like medical procedures, insurance articles, and even producing interviews with such figures like Emmanuel Ray, who was named Britain's Fashion Icon of the Year 2011. In the middle of his relentless struggle to make the jump from professional writer to published author he spends a day of his week working for charity.
Yes, it’s true. We all beat the Americans and now we are officially the world’s biggest drinkers. Hurrah! Although, livers all across Europe will now be seeking counselling at some point in the near future.
The World Health Organisation led a report with the European Commission to ascertain the truth, and it emerged that people in Europe drink more alcohol per day than in any other region of the world. On average, Europeans drink the alcohol content equivalent to three glasses of wine per day every day.
Those who enjoy speculating on the future of science were once predicting that DNA sequencing will become so cheap and so easy to carry out that everyone would have their own little genome card which could tell their doctors everything they needed to know. This sounds pretty cool and very useful. But a new study has revealed that this probably won’t be of any use at all due to the considerable low genetic risk, even if it does sound incredibly cool.
Genetics were originally expected to play a role by acting as markers for serious diseases like cancer and diabetes, but, sadly, the risks associated with these diseases as being caused by genetics is very low. And this is because most of these diseases are caused by external factors under our control. However, scientists have still maintained that if they find all the markers then the benefits will warrant the creation of inspecting the genome.
The past few weeks have been pretty barren in certain areas, which doesn’t spell good things for this News in Briefs column, but this week we had failure, humiliation, and the sweet, sweet, taste of someone else’s utter disgrace. And that means good things for this column!
Political Oops of the Week
Good lord, where do we start with this section this week? There were multiple slips this week which have served to embarrass everyone from the Government, to the Opposition, and all the way to a guy who always seems to disappear for a few years and then randomly pops up again.
That’s right, now nobody should feel guilty when throwing a kilogram of chocolate down their necks because scientists have supposedly discovered that those who eat the most chocolate are actually the thinnest people in our society. Chocolate makes you thin? Huzzah!
This is something I was sceptical about at first because my first thought was that those who are thinnest will eat the most chocolate because they know it won’t make them fat. However, a fat person wouldn’t touch the stuff through fear of giving themselves a third butt cheek.
Not that chocolate!
The study was published in the journal of the Archives of Internal Medicine and outlined a study carried out by the University of California, in San Diego, and came to the conclusion that chocolate makes you thin.
As for the exact results, it showed that of a study involving just under 1,000 Americans, those who ate chocolate a few times a week were thinner, on average, than those who only ate chocolate on occasion. The study looked at a number of factors when putting together these results, including diet, Body Mass Index (BMI), and calorie intake.
Scientists are putting these results down to the fact chocolate doesn’t encourage the creation of fat, despite the fact that it has a lot of calories. Even though these results only prove that there might be a link, it could lead to a complete change in the way we view weight gain and weight loss when it comes to food.
Chocolate has also been demonstrated by scientists to have some other benefits for the body, other than the urge to eat more. One of these benefits comes from dark chocolate, which contains many antioxidants that can help fight disease and get rid of the harmful free radicals in our body that harm our cells.
But this shouldn’t be new for those who have looked into the subject at all because this was discovered long before this study came to light. The Raw Food Movement were the ones who first came up with this when a book called The China Study was released. They demonstrated that mass amounts of sugar in things like chocolate and fruit doesn’t have a negative effect on one’s weight at all.
This means that chocolate doesn’t contribute to weight gain – otherwise how could it be possible for people to live entirely off of sugary fruits and vegetables? Even though this is only just coming to light in mainstream science now, what we have to remember is that this has already been touched upon in the basement of global science many times before. Yes, chocolate makes you thin, but it will be a long time before it’s made official in the mainstream world.
If there’s a topic that makes people sigh it’s certainly global warming. On one side you have the ones who believe that it’s a conspiracy, and on the other side you have the ones who feel that it’s their duty to have a fight with all those who dare disagree with them. But regardless of whether you are on the side of the conspiracy theorists or have nothing better to do than have a fight for no reason, some scientists have claimed to have evidence which indicates that the world is actually heating up faster than anticipated.
To put this study into terms we all understand, it says that by 2050 the average temperature could have risen 3 degrees Celsius at the worst and 1.4 degrees Celsius at best. The shocking thing is that this is much higher than what previous studies have predicted. Obviously, we will never know whether these are stupid or smart figures until it actually happens, but it’s still a cause for concern.
This will happen to your children!
The University of Oxford team led by Daniel Rowlands carried out the study, but even they acknowledged the massive amount of factors associated with predicting climate change. To name just a few factors, we have to take into account the impact of greenhouse gases, and the growth or reduction of said gasses in the future, the activity of the sun, atmospheric pollutants that can scatter light, and general heat transfer across land, sea, and air.
However, what does all this mean for us? Well this depends on if these results are true. As already mentioned, the amount of factors means that there is a high margin for error so this study could be just utter tripe for all we know. But if it’s true, which we will assume it is for now, then it means that the average temperature around the world will rise, which won’t be good for our rapidly growing population.
Yes, it’s a good thing if you love the sun and you want to get a tan, but the problem is that there will be less rain. And less rain means less water for the planet. Less water for the planet means drought in certain areas and more deaths. So it means that areas of the United Kingdom, some of which are already in drought, could face increasingly strict restrictions on the usage of water, and that’s inconvenient for all of us.
Furthermore, there will no doubt be an increase in taxes because we may be left with no option but to start purifying the water of the sea. This can be done and the salt can be removed to make sea water safe to drink, but the problem is that it’s quite an expensive process which is just not viable in the modern world economy. If it was then we would be pumping out sea water and sending it off to the third world, would we not?
Many of you may respond to all this information by saying that it doesn’t matter because we will all be dead or just too old to care. But the fact is that if all of these unfortunate things occur then our world will be changed forever. And if those figures are true then what’s to stop our laissez-faire attitude from speeding up the process again in the next few years? That’s the question, and even if there is a high margin of error when predicting these things, I wouldn’t like to take any chances.
This week’s News in Briefs is reporting on a very eventful week of news as the Government’s annual budget was released and something just seemed to be happening on all fronts. But does this necessarily mean that it was interesting news? Well that’s completely up to you to judge.
Political Oops of the Week
George Osborne must have thought that he had pulled a fast one when he announced his budget as most things were relatively positive with the increase of the personal allowance and the announcement that the country’s borrowing had been cut drastically, but then he announced his attack on the pensioners.
Within 24 hours his face was pasted on the front page of every major newspaper in the country with various combinations of the words “Granny Tax”, “Muggers”, and “You Bastard” (Ok, I may have made that last one up, but the sentiments remain the same). But why did Mr. Osborne make such a catastrophic political error?
If history has taught us anything there are two things you don’t touch in British politics. One of these is the NHS and the other is the pensioners. This is for two reasons: firstly, pensioners are old and have no shame so they will attack you mercilessly, and secondly, we all have a special place in our hearts for the pensioners who are now trying to enjoy a quiet retirement.
Wanna throw down, rich boy?
You can touch the single mothers, you can kick the poor, you can even kiss the behinds of the richest people in the country, but you never touch the pensioners. In my personal opinion, the chancellor presented a fairly good budget this year, but his mistake was amateurish and it practically wiped out all of his good work. So whatever possessed him to do this only he can know for sure.
The Painful…
Although I didn’t really delve into this subject last week, Fabrice Muamba has to appear on this list due to the sheer manner in which the incident occurred.
For those of you who don’t know, Fabrice Muamba collapsed in the middle of the game against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend and was practically dead for 80 minutes as he was unresponsive to CPR and the use of electric shocks. The good news is that he’s recovering well and will surely survive now, but the bad news is the impact it would have had on people around the country.
What we have to remember is that children will have been watching at that time and the cameras did capture Muamba having a cardiac arrest as he went into a type of fit. Judging from the reaction of the crowd and the deathly silence in the stadium, I believe that many people must have thought that they had just witnessed a 23-year-old man die in front of their eyes.
It was certainly quite painful to watch, but at least he’s recovering well. Get well soon, Fabrice.
…And the Pointless
As we can all imagine, Team GB have been training hard and working with more fire in their bellies than ever before for the summer Olympics in London. Wait, what? They haven’t? Well what have they been doing then? Oh, yes, I remember now, they’ve been spending their time modelling one of the worst outfits ever created by the hands of humanity.
Team GB really managed to embarrass themselves this week as they unveiled an ugly smudge of blue, indigo, sapphire, and whatever else was in there with a splodge of white stuck in the middle of it. Apparently the white is supposed to symbolise the flag of Great Britain in some parallel universe, but I’ll be damned if I can see it.
My question is what was wrong with the other outfits? And shouldn’t Team GB be getting someone else to mess around for the media when they are this close to the Olympics? I’m not going to argue over why they shouldn’t be wasting time on this, but I’ll leave the criticism to the entire nation who will no doubt be baying for blood when they fail to win a medal.
The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious
This golden nugget of news appeared in the dying embers of this week as the shooting championships in Kuwait ended and the winners were honoured with their medals and national anthems, at least that’s how it should have happened.
All the athletes were honoured, and now it was time for the winner from Kazakhstan to be honoured with her national anthem. But Maria Dmitrienko stood dumbfounded as the anthem of her native country was actually that which the film Borat used during their mockumentary produced a few years ago.
But give the girl some credit because the Borat anthem didn’t stop Maria Dmitrienko from standing there with her hand on her heart without moving a muscle. The athlete didn’t seem to mind the Borat anthem too much, but her team were furious as they demanded an apology. Luckily, all was well as the medal ceremony was rerun and the organisers apologised.
However, from a personal point of view, I think they should have played the Borat anthem again for a second time just because it would have been utterly hilarious. What are they going to do shoot….ah never mind, they did the right thing. Rule #1 of real life trolling, never troll the winner of the international shooting championships more than once.
A Positive Outlook for the Week
This week’s positive outlook for the week is a little sparse because I’m not feeling all that positive at the moment. However, I will provide a couple of predictions for next week. The Labour Party will attack every single thing the Coalition has done in the last few weeks than more venom than ever before. And I’m going to be bold and say that Ed Miliband may come out of his shell and elevate himself in the eyes of many with his upcoming performance this week.
One area of world affairs I’m enjoying at the moment is North Korea and there rocket-powered satellite they intend on firing in honour of their Eternal President. As the launch date grows closer tensions are rising and it makes for very interesting reading as the most powerful nations in the world are essentially fighting with nothing more than an overweight child.
So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…
