Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts

Apparently, more teachers were promoted this year after the enhanced career structure was introduced. There is a bumper crop of 10,861 promotees in the Education Service in 2007 (compared with 4,257 in 2006) due to the introduction of an enhanced career structure for teachers and the larger teaching force. However, the workload and the quality of students have not changed.

Australia will send a medical team and more relief supplies to affected areas of the Solomon Islands following the earthquake and tsunami that left dozens dead and thousands homeless. Looks like it may be good to avoid where the fellows down under congregate. They seem to be disaster magnets recently, starting with the Garuda incident in Yogjakarta and the tsunami in Solomons. Who knows what's next?

The American College of Physicians has just added another element to the confusion and debate concerning mammograms for women in their 40s. The American College of Physicians has issued a new set of guidelines today that offer some unexpected advice to women in their 40s. While until now they have been warned to undergo mammograms in order to identify breast cancer at its very beginning, the ACP says there are risks attached to this routine. Undoubtedly, some women would be cheering the news - the mammogram procedure has been described as squeezing the breasts hard between the refrigerator and its door. Some doctors, however, would probably be decrying the loss of income.

Researchers have created a cheap and simple way to convert all donated blood into group O, the universal group that can be given safely to anyone. While they are at it, can they find a cheap and simple way to make all blood repulsive to mosquitoes and other blood sucking organisms so that we can keep devastating illnesses such as malaria and dengue at bay?

Older men may show less interest in sex because they don't get enough testosterone-producing sleep. A new study, published in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP, measured the quantity of the primary male sex hormone in 12 healthy men, ages 64 to 74, following a night of sleep in a laboratory environment. Diminished sleep was the best independent predictor of declines in testosterone, the researchers found. Testosterone levels are highest in the morning. Duh, less sleep means less sex, but of course. I'm going to bed.