The modern world can get messy. Fortunately, Swiss artist Ursus Wehrli is a man of obsessive order, as he demonstrates with eye-catching surprise in The Art of Clean Up. Already a bestseller in Germany, this compulsive title has sold more than 100,000 copies in less than a year, and the fastidiously arranged images have garnered blog love from NPR, Brain Pickings, swissmiss, and more. Tapping into the desire for organization and the insanity of über-order, Wehrli humorously categorizes everyday objects and situations by color, size, and shape. He arranges alphabet soup into alphabetical order, sorts the night sky by star size, and aligns sunbathers’ accoutrements—all captured in bright photographs sure to astonish even the pickiest of neat freaks.
Month: August 2016
You know you’re being a dick when the pharma bro says whoa…
A growing chorus is calling on the Mylan pharmaceutical company to justify its price hikes on EpiPens, a potentially life-saving medication for children and others facing fatal allergies that has little real competition.
In 2007, a two-pack of the epinephrine-filled devices went for $56.64 wholesale, according to data gathered by Connecture, a health insurance technology and data analytics company. Now it’s jumped to $365.16, an increase of 544.77 percent. Since the end of 2013, the price has gone up by 15 percent every other quarter. (That’s about $600, retail price!)
“Amazing that Epipen prices in CA & EU with prescription are about $85. No govt negotiated buy in US,” said another tweet.
Even Martin Shkreli, the disgraced former chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC, has weighed in. “These guys are really vultures. What drives this company’s moral compass?” he said in a phone interview.
A backlash over Mylan’s pricing tactics is shedding light on its grasp of the market. After politicians, physicians and lawmakers criticized the price of EpiPen, Mylan offered to provide more financial help to patients, saying it would cover their insurance out-of-pocket costs up to $300, from $100 previously. It also said it would expand the number of low-income patients eligible to receive company subsidies. But the company didn’t roll back EpiPen’s high list price.
Mylan’s CEO acknowledged that high retail prices of EpiPens in the United States effectively subsidize the cost of the devices when they are sold in Europe, at just $100 or $150. Many of the countries there have government-run health-care systems that limit drug prices charged by manufacturers, unlike the U.S.
The Tao of Dog, second koan
Researchers find stoned rats just can’t be bothered
THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, makes rats less willing to exert cognitive effort – lazy – but, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
The new research, published on Tuesday in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, looked at the effects of both THC and the non-psychoactive compound cannabidiol, or CBD, on the male lab rats’ willingness to exert cognitive effort.
Researchers trained 29 rats on two different challenges: rats which successfully carried out the more difficult task earned two sugar pellets; those which carried out the easier task earned just one. Rats usually preferred the harder, but more rewarding, task. But after being dosed with THC, the same rats picked the easier task.
CBD, which does not cause a high and is believed to have medicinal benefits such as relieving pain and the symptoms of epilepsy, had no impact on the rats’ cognitive behaviour. It also did not mitigate the cognitive impact of THC in the rats.
The THC did not make the rats less intelligent – just lazier, said the study’s lead author, Mason Silveira, a PhD candidate in psychology at the University of British Columbia. “What’s particularly interesting is though they were less likely to do these more difficult tasks they were still able to. There’s this distinction between THC’s ability to affect your cognition versus your willingness to actually use your cognitive abilities.”
Deep thought of the day
Ugly Star Wars Christmas jumpers
臨 兵 闘 者 皆 陣 列 在 前
Following my recent romp through ninja-themed memory lane, I give you this iconic scene from Enter the Ninja, the 1981 Golan/Globus action film that is often credited with starting the “Ninja Movie” craze of the 1980s.
The essence of the meaning of the ku-ji can be roughly translated as,
Taoist: “May all those who preside over warriors be my vanguard.”
Japanese: “Come warriors, fight as one, ready in formation, line up and take position in front. Destroy/victory!”
Rin (臨), Pyō (兵), Tō (闘), Sha (者), Kai (皆), Jin (陣), Retsu (列), Zai (在), Zen (前)
Rat is my spirit animal
Most Canadian photo ev4r!
It’s hard to imagine anything more Canadian — or more adorable — than a photo of a Mountie cuddling a baby beaver. Sure enough, it happened recently at Regina’s Salthaven West wildlife rehabilitation centre. The centre helps injured and abandoned birds and wild animals, and in May received four beaver kits whose mother had been killed near Fort Qu’Appelle.
Jason Pinder, who has volunteered his time with Salthaven for the past five years, works a day job as an RCMP corporal. When he stopped by the centre a few days ago wearing his red serge uniform, staff couldn’t resist getting a shot with him and one of the furry critters. The result: an iconic shot for the ages that delighted Salthaven’s Facebook followers.
The only thing missing is a hockey stick and a Tim Horton’s double-double.
The mome raths outgrabe
