Gavrilo Princip: hero or villain?

January 21, 2015

“As Balkan countries prepare to mark the start of the first world war, history books show widely different interpretations.

“As the centenary approaches, there is little hope that rival ethnic and political groups in the Balkans will find a shared view, said history professor Zijad Sehic. ‘We will never have agreement on this issue. The views are too far apart. There will never be a common truth.'”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/06/gavrilo-princip-hero-villain-first-world-war-balkan-history

I have used this article in class. Here is the adapted handout I’ve used in class.

Princip Article Short

Princip WS

Princip WS notes

History Article Princip w Notes

You can’t detox your body. It’s a myth.

January 21, 2015

“Whether it’s cucumbers splashing into water or models sitting smugly next to a pile of vegetables, it’s tough not to be sucked in by the detox industry. The idea that you can wash away your calorific sins is the perfect antidote to our fast-food lifestyles and alcohol-lubricated social lives. But before you dust off that juicer or take the first tentative steps towards a colonic irrigation clinic, there’s something you should know: detoxing – the idea that you can flush your system of impurities and leave your organs squeaky clean and raring to go – is a scam. It’s a pseudo-medical concept designed to sell you things.”

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/05/detox-myth-health-diet-science-ignorance

A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

January 21, 2015

“But with the G.M.O. bill, he often despaired of assembling the information he needed to definitively decide. Every time he answered one question, it seemed, new ones arose. Popular opinion masqueraded convincingly as science, and the science itself was hard to grasp. People who spoke as experts lacked credentials, and G.M.O. critics discounted those with credentials as being pawns of biotechnology companies.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/us/on-hawaii-a-lonely-quest-for-facts-about-gmos.html

Is the placebo effect just a myth?

January 21, 2015

“Instead, the researchers theorize, patients seem to improve after taking placebos because most diseases have uneven courses in which their severity waxes and wanes. In studies in which treatments are compared not just with placebos but also with no treatment at all, they said, participants given no treatment improve at about the same rate as participants given placebos.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/24/us/placebo-effect-is-more-myth-than-science-study-says.html

How culture shapes our senses

January 21, 2015

“The team also found that some of these differences could change over time. They taught the Dutch speakers to think about pitch as thin or thick, and soon these participants, too, found that their memory of a tone was affected by being shown a bar that was too thick or too thin. They found that younger Cantonese speakers had fewer words for tastes and smells than older ones, a shift attributed to rapid socioeconomic development and Western-style schooling.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/opinion/sunday/how-culture-shapes-our-senses.html?_r=1