FEATURES

Sunday, 07 March 2021 05:34

How your sense of smell predicts your overall health

Barrie Smith was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in his 50s, but 18 years before he was given his diagnosis, he developed a very strange and permanent symptom. One day he detected "a strong smoky smell, like burning wires", he says. Since then, he has never smelt anything again. At the time, flummoxed, Smith's doctor attributed the loss of his sense of smell to his scuba diving, as deep diving is known to sometimes cause smell impairments. If only the doctor was right. Smell loss can have sinister origins beyond scuba diving, and in Smith's case, that proved to be true.…

Saturday, 06 March 2021 05:18

The city that wakes up to eat at 4 am

In this southern Thai city, people wake up before 04:00 and flock to dim sum halls, vintage cafes and street food vendors for their early morning fix. It was almost midnight in the southern Thai city of Trang, and I was staring into an oven the size of a tuk-tuk. Flames and smoke were shooting out of the top, and men were carefully lowering two full-grown, slaughtered pigs into the fiery abyss. An hour later, they would be pulled out, smoking, crimson, crispy and fragrant. When cool enough to handle, the pigs would be portioned, chopped up and displayed for…

Friday, 05 March 2021 03:49

Wait long enough and almost anything (bananas, pelotons) shows up on Facebook’s buy nothing groups

A Brooklyn woman was making banana bread. She had one rotten banana and needed another, so she posted an “ask” on the Buy Nothing Fort Greene–Clinton Hill–Downtown Brooklyn Facebook group. Within three minutes, she had seven rotten banana offers. Such is the power of Buy Nothing, a constellation of hyperlocal Facebook groups in which members ask for what they need, offer up unused miscellany, and get to know their neighbors through the unique bond of exchanging stuff. Buy Nothing is like Facebook Marketplace’s “Kumbaya” cousin. During the pandemic, as we’re all sitting at home amid our clutter, membership in these…

Thursday, 04 March 2021 16:36

Life expectancy in Nigeria now 54 years - AGMPN

… bemoan medical tourism by elites …rate infant, maternal mortality high … launch N10bn project implementation funds to improve healthcare delivery system Harsh living conditions in Nigeria have now put life expectancy at 54 years, the Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (AGMPN) has said. The association rated countries like Togo, Ghana and South Africa ahead of Nigeria in the expectancy. Address a press conference in Abuja yesterday, the President of the association, Dr Iyke Do said anyone who beats the age would have broken the jinx. He however said that respite was underway if the government…

Wednesday, 03 March 2021 03:29

Your words can keep you small or inspire growth. Where do you fall?

Few people get the power of their words, both for the good and for the bad. Do you have any notion of just how many languages are spoken throughout the world today? Seven thousand. That's 7,000. Notice the subtle nuance I just utilized in that simple response? Most of us, though, don't differentiate between "seven thousand" and "7,000." It's the same either way. That's not the case for everyone, though. For those not quite as familiar with numerical values, they could miss some important details the rest of us take for granted. That's an obvious use case where language shapes…

Tuesday, 02 March 2021 05:33

School abductions: Why children are being targeted

Since December, more than 600 students have been abducted from schools in north-west Nigeria, highlighting a worrying development in the country's kidnap-for-ransom crisis. Friday's kidnapping of 317 students from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara state, was the second mass kidnap from schools in less than 10 days. Twenty-seven boys and their teachers who were taken from a school in Kagara, Niger state on 17 February were released on Saturday. The authorities say recent attacks on schools in the north-west have been carried out by "bandits", a loose term for kidnappers, armed robbers, cattle rustlers, Fulani herdsmen…

Monday, 01 March 2021 03:26

What hostage negotiators can teach you about arguing productively

Want to actually change minds? The ultimate experts in productive disagreement explain how. Why are people always screaming at one another unproductively online? Part of the answer is certainly the tech tools we use for these conversations. Facebook and the like reward outrage because it drives more engagement and makes them more money. Part of the explanation is also cultural. Issues like growing wealth inequality mean we are more divided than before, and thanks to greater physical and virtual mobility we interact more with those who are different from us. But part of the problem, according to a recent Guardian…

Sunday, 28 February 2021 05:42

By targeting schools, Nigerian kidnappers put country at risk - Report

Jihadists in northeastern Nigeria have long outraged the world with mass abductions of schoolchildren but now armed gangs in search of income are using the same tactic in other parts of the country, sparking warnings that no school is safe. More than 300 schoolgirls were snatched from dormitories by gunmen in the middle of the night in northwestern Zamfara state on Friday, in the third known mass kidnapping of students since December. Until lately, such attacks were the hallmark of jihadists who have waged a decade-long insurgency in the northeast, and where the kidnap of 276 girls in Chibok in…

Sunday, 28 February 2021 05:39

Inside the 9 forests linking Northern Nigeria where Boko Haram, bandits operate

Nine forests linking almost the entire northern part of Nigeria and some neighbouring countries are being governed by bandits, thus worsening the insecurity challenges bedevilling the region. Bandits, terrorists and kidnappers have taken over many forests from where they are reportedly launching attacks and subsequently keep kidnapped victims hostage. While civilians see the forests as ‘dead zones’, such places have remained mysterious for security personnel. The nine forests include Sambisa, Alagarno, Kamuku, Kuduru, Kuyambana, Burwaye, Ajja, Dajin Rugu and Sububu have become the hotbeds of insurgency and banditry, and therefore a no-go area. Analysts say unless the forests are ransacked,…

Sunday, 28 February 2021 05:30

Mars is a hellhole

Shannon Stirone Colonizing the red planet is a ridiculous way to help humanity. There’s no place like home—unless you’re Elon Musk. A prototype of SpaceX’s Starship, which may someday send humans to Mars, is, according to Musk, likely to launch soon, possibly within the coming days. But what motivates Musk? Why bother with Mars? A video clip from an interview Musk gave in 2019 seems to sum up Musk’s vision—and everything that’s wrong with it. In the video, Musk is seen reading a passage from Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot. The book, published in 1994, was Sagan’s response to…

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Thursday, 25 February 2021 05:19

How to avoid emotional outbursts and losing control under stress

How to stay cool under pressure, still be a top performer, and maintain you own health. One of the most valuable attributes of a good business professional and leader is to be able to control emotional outbursts, to maximize your credibility and respect, and to maintain your own health. The best of you train yourselves to show emotions sparingly and strategically, while the rest are convinced that emotions cannot be controlled, and are a function of culture and genetics. Based on my own many years as a business executive and advisor, I have seen many professionals "mature" from hotheads to…

Sunday, 21 February 2021 05:12

The heart-rending story of Nigeria-born UK health worker who died before starting his dream job

A "bubbly" NHS worker has died with Covid-19 before he was able to achieve his dream of working as a registered mental health nurse. Oronsaye Okhomina, 56, from Manchester, who was also known as Jeff or Orons, died on 11 February. His final exam results were released in January while he was in a coma so he was never able to use his qualification. His wife Esther said "he had worked so hard" but his life was "snatched away". "He was my everything," she said, adding: "Without him I felt breathless, my solid rock, always standing by through thick and…

Sunday, 21 February 2021 05:04

What you gain when you give things up

Arthur C. Brooks Voluntarily sacrificing pleasurable things resets your senses and makes you master of yourself. We have just entered the season of Lent, a time to pray and fast to commemorate Jesus’s 40-day sojourn into the desert at the beginning of his public ministry. About a quarter of Americans—including 61 percent of Catholics—typically observe Lent through voluntary sacrifice, fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Many religions have similar ascetic traditions, such as Yom Kippur in Judaism and Ramadan in Islam, in which believers repent and reflect on their need for improvement. Lent is intended as a somber period, not one typically…

Saturday, 20 February 2021 05:28

Decisions that almost ended humanity

In the late 1960s, Nasa faced a decision that could have shaped the fate of our species. Following the Apollo 11 Moon landings, the three astronauts were waiting to be picked up inside their capsule floating in the Pacific Ocean – and they were hot and uncomfortable. Nasa officials decided to make things more pleasant for their three national heroes. The downside? There was a small possibility of unleashing deadly alien microbes on Earth. A couple of decades beforehand, a group of scientists and military officials stood at a similar turning point. As they waited to watch the first atomic…

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