Computer says...die!

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Artificial brain predicts death-row executions
Which inmates on death row will eventually be executed? Many never make the final journey from prison cell to execution chamber - but nobody really understands who will be spared.

Until now. A new computer system can predict which death row prisoners will live and which will be killed - with chilling accuracy. And its dispassionate analysis has confirmed suspicions that the people most likely to be executed are those who have had the least schooling, rather than those who have committed the most heinous crimes.



SearchMe Stacks Embed

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The visual search site SearchMe has a cool new feature called stacks. Rather than try and explain it in detail here is a quickly pulled together example ‘Stack’ on the subject of ‘podcasting’ which can be viewed on SeachMe, emailed to a friend or colleague or embedded in a blog or website, as I’ve done here. Check out the SearchMe video below for a fuller description of the service.



Hat's off to Charlie

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Charlie Brooker on hats at Royal Ascot
Every year it's the same thing: a 200-year-old countess you've never heard of, who closely resembles a Cruella De Vil mannequin assembled entirely from heavily wrinkled scrotal tissue that's been soaked in tea for the past eight decades, attempts to draw attention away from her sagging neck - a droopy curtain of skin that hangs so low she has to repeatedly kick it out of her path as she crosses the royal compound - by balancing the millinery equivalent of Bilbao's Guggenheim museum on her head, and winds up forming the centrepiece of a light-hearted photomontage in the centre of whatever newspaper you happen to be reading that day, accompanied by a picture of Princess Eugenie in a headdress, and some milky underfed heiress with the physique of a violin-playing mantis, wearing nothing but a diamante cornflake on each nipple and a hat made out of second-hand dentures or something equally avant-garde.

Adam's ale

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How care home keeps elderly healthy
A year ago, 88-year-old Jean Lavender used to find walking any distance a struggle. Now she is keen to get outside for a walk most days. And she puts the transformation down to the most simple of medicines - water. She is one of a group of residents at a care home in Suffolk who have been encouraged to increase their intake of water. And they have all reported dramatic results. Jean says she feels 20 years younger.
People assume that if you don't feel thirsty you don't need to drink but this is not the case. In fact in extreme conditions you could well end up dead before you feel an overwhelming desire to drink. Water is also one of the best and least known treatments for anxiety as well as being good for your bowels and your skin. So drink up.

I'm lucky up here in Scotland. The water from my tap is pure, sweet and very cold. Stuff Perrier.