From his power deprived hotel room in central Wellington Russell Brown deconstructs Barack Obama’s Inauguration speech and highlights some of the main messages America and the world can take from it. In particular the passage that reaches out to the “non believers”. Russell Brown is chief blogger at publicaddress.net.
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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”
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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
