Home education Q and A

Tracy Culleton has published a well written and useful Q&A on home education.  Those interested in home education or expanding their engagment with their children may get some useful perspectives from it.  Here below are reproduced a few paragraphs.  Her site also has useful links to home education resources. Q: Why are you home-educating? A: …
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Depression risk ‘highest in 40s’

A study confirms that depression risk is the ‘highest in 40s’.  That shouldn’t be news.  It’s called a mid-life crisis.  But if you’re ready for it, the sagging needn’t be so painful.  I’ve still to pass the milestone 44, but it certainly seems that ageing accelerates as time passes.  And looking back at life spans …
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Stop making babies – Save the planet

When you take an interest in reducing humanity’s impact on the biosphere, it becomes apparent that there are simply too many humans. It is generally accepted that the planet can support only 2 billion people by natural means. The equation is simple: sun’s energy enters the biosphere and is converted to stored energy (by plants), …
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The world says NO to the death penalty

The United Nations General Assembly has at last voted for a global moratorium on the death penalty. While the resolution is nonbinding and its symbolic weight was hardly mentioned in US media, for those who have been trying to move the world away from lethal revenge as government policy, this was a milestone. The resolution …
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How to save the planet …

I had to post this because we decided to follow the three initial proposals about 10 years ago. We’re about 80% of the way there, but wish a few more of you would join in. 🙂 Carbon myths Recycling and banning plastic bags are all very well, but they won’t save the planet. Instead, we …
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Japan’s primitive view of capital punishment is slowly changing, in the face of death

Japan hanged 3 men, bringing the number of executions in the country this year to 9. Although most of the world is against capital punishment, Japan is one of the very few industrialised countries to retain the death penalty and a recent poll suggests that fewer than 10% of Japanese people oppose the death penalty. …
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More sex education needed for all

In the UK Children the Terrence Higgins Trust, the NSPCC and the National Union of Teachers have called for enhanced and extended education about sex. The authors of a letter ot the Times say that children should be taught about sex and relationships throughout their time in school because children needed to know about health …
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Humans not as smart as monkeys …

Well the headline is cheeky, but highlights the similarity between humans and other primates. Findings, published in Current Biology, suggest we may have under-estimated the intelligence of our closest living relatives. Research suggests chimpanzees have an extraordinary photographic memory that is far superior to ours. Young chimps outperformed university students in memory tests devised by …
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Another euthanasia for love

A 77-year-old Italian man shot dead his wife as she lay in hospital because he could not stand to see her suffer. The man shot his 82-year-old wife, who had Alzheimer’s disease, three times in full view of medical staff. His wife had been diagnosed eight years ago with the degenerative and irreversible brain disorder, …
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