The latest issue of Mindfood magazine is out today and for the first time with a male on the front cover. Readers voted for the male celebrity most deserving of the honour. Editor-in-Chief Michael McHugh explains why this is only the first male on the cover and who the other contenders were. Did Barak Obama rate very well and would he sell magazines?
Listen/Download Michael McHugh on the Johnny Depp Issue
Russell Brown ponders Sarah Palin’s performance in recent prime time television interviews and assesses her potential in this weeks vice-presidential debate against Joe Biden. Can comparisons be drawn to the political debates between John Key and Helen Clark and does it matter if the other smaller parties are not there?
Russell Brown is chief blogger at publicaddress.net
Listen/Download Russell Brown on TV Debates
In the lead up to the US elections we are hearing all kinds of terms to describe voter groups and demographics. Are “heartland voters”, “white working class voters” and “Hockey Moms” just another way of saying redneck?
Proud redneck Joe Bageant says that rednecks represent many of the worst traits in American culture and a few of the best. He also says that every thinking person in the U.S. and the world should be very worried, everyone that is except John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Joe Bageant is the author of Deerhunting with Jesus
Listen/Download Joe Bageant on Rednecks
How are we to know whether politicians mean what they are saying? Software programs that can analyse a person’s speech, voice or facial expressions can now make it easier for us to distinguish straight talk from spin. One researcher has used his software to analyse speeches of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton – and found Obama’s speeches to contain higher spin than either McCain or Clinton. While another study which analysed the candidate’s voices, found that McCain’s voice profile “looked like that of someone who is clinically depressed”
and
While bird flu may have faded from the headlines, governments and scientists are as concerned as ever about the dangers it poses. This week, scientists are flocking to a conference in Portugal to discuss the problem. But H5N1 isn’t the only threat. The H9 flu virus common in poultry across Eurasia now carries several of the same genes that make H5N1 so deadly. A few more mutations and H9 could become a killer too. Meanwhile, one strain of ordinary human flu has developed near-total resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
Bianca Nogrady is a freelance science and medical writer and also a broadcaster for New Scientist magazine.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on Politicians and Bird Flu
