Archive for December 2024

Cars are filled with ever more communication and entertainment tech, but our minds are stuck with the same limitations…. As the cognitive neuroscientist Dr. David Strayer at the University of Utah explains: ‘If you have people who are multitasking a lot, you might come to the conclusion they are good at multitasking. In fact, the more likely they are to [multitask], the more likely they are to be bad at it.’ The issue is the drain on our attention that occurs when we do too many complex tasks at the same time. It is known as ‘cognitive distraction’

Over 30 leaders from community, health, Aboriginal and research organisations are calling on the NSW Government to prioritise prevention and early intervention on the agenda at next week’s Drug Summit in Sydney.

SOAR volunteers test clients for infections spread through injection drug use, like HIV, and offer other medical advice.

There’s a huge difference between the way Zoomers “find themselves” and the way those who came of age before them did it: they’re doing it online, anonymously and in secret.

That is no excuse, however, for what the historian Timothy D. Snyder, in On Tyranny, calls anticipatory obedience. Snyder argues that a key lesson from 20th-century authoritarianism is “don’t hand over the power you have before you have to.” UNT’s overcompliance feels precisely like we are conceding our power — our academic authority over teaching and research — in advance to aspiring authoritarians in Austin, Tex. Our administration cheerfully assures us that we are not abandoning our values as an institution of higher education. The necessity of such assurances, though, should alarm any faculty who hear them. As we creep into self-censorship, that is precisely what we are doing: not speaking truth to power, but letting power tell us what truths we can pursue.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, centre, and Rebecca Wilcox, right, daughter of Esther Rantzen, among supporters of Dignity in Dying as they celebrate the result of the vote on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill, outside parliament on Friday.

Dr. Ken Barter — one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s leading experts on child protection for decades — says the child and youth advocate should have rejected the premier’s request for a review related to a high-profile sexual exploitation case. The retired Memorial University social work professor said the advocate’s review won’t turn up anything that hasn’t already been flagged by numerous reports in the past.

Dignity in Dying campaigners react to the passing of the assisted dying bill in Parliament Square.