28 Sep 2009
Nation's parents prepare to be vetted

If you think the US is the world champion nanny state, think again.

Ofted has blown a hole in Home Office claims that deciding who needs to be vetted is a simple matter, after the education quango tarred parents who share childcare arrangements as "illegal childminders" and potential criminals.

(link) [The Register]

Update: On second thought, maybe we are - State to mom: Stop baby-sitting neighbors' kids

21:27 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Mad genius: Study suggests link between psychosis and creativity

Crazy? I used to be crazy once. They put me in a cell. It had rats. They ran across my feet. It drove me crazy.

Crazy? I used to be crazy once. They put me in a cell. It had rats. They ran across my feet. It drove me crazy...

Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in the oven. History teems with examples of great artists acting in very peculiar ways. Were these artists simply mad or brilliant? According to new research, maybe both: volunteers with the specific variant of neuregulin 1 were more likely to have higher scores on the creativity assessment and also greater lifetime creative achievements than volunteers with a different form of neuregulin 1.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

21:21 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link