Is dumping faeces in rivers UN policy?
What is depression? The ancient Greeks believed it resulted from an imbalance in the body's four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile (from the Greek word melas or "dark" and khole, meaning "bile"), with too much of the latter resulting in a melancholic state of mind. Early Christianity blamed the devil and God's anger for man's suffering, with depression the result of the struggle against worldly temptations and sins of the flesh. In the Renaissance it was viewed as a disease of scholars, such as Robert Burton, author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy", who were given to abstract and intense speculation.
The very notion of imposing a levy on calorific foods is very illiberal. What is the rationale? People who have sex without a condom also impose a burden on health services if they subsequently catch AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases. Should the condomless also be taxed?
Not quite old enough for Medicare (which typically kicks in at 65) and not quite poor enough for Medicaid.
In 2001 the Singapore-based WTO — that is, the World Toilet Organisation — chose a day to mark the plight of the world's loo-less 2.5 billion (its slogan this year was "I give a shit, do you?"). At least 19 countries mark it. But not the UN, which is perhaps "scared of using the word 'toilet'," a WTO spokesman muses.
In most countries it is illegal to buy or sell a kidney. If you need a transplant you join a waiting list until a matching organ becomes available. This drives economists nuts. Why not allow willing donors to sell spare kidneys and let patients (or the government, acting on their behalf) bid for them? The waiting list would disappear overnight. If John and Mary love each other but are married to other people, they will be tempted to leave their current partner and marry each other. But if John loves Mary, while Mary loves her husband more than John, both will stay put.
The birth and death phases of stars are associated with heavy dust clouds that give off an infra-red signal which might resemble the swarm of artificial satellites constituting a Dyson sphere.
In China a strong taboo hangs over discussing death.
Only 8% of South Africans opt for cremation, compared with a third in America, half in China, three-quarters in Britain and 95% in Japan. To many South Africans, cremation is taboo, not least because of ancestor-worship and a propensity to commune with the dead. Many prefer a burial in the countryside where they were born.
Patrolling a rough neighbourhood is a health hazard.
Breast cancer is rare in men. And prostate cancer is obviously absent from women.
The Puente Hills landfill, an artificial mountain near Los Angeles is the biggest dump in America, 30 years old, 150 metres high and containing 130m tonnes of rubbish within a 700-acre footprint. If it were a building, it would be among the 20 tallest in the city. Building a rubbish pile is, it turns out, surprisingly high-tech.
If only we had been born clowns, nothing bad would happen to us except a few bruises and a smear of whitewash.
Fiat came round after a near-death experience.
As anyone who has been to Japan knows, there are strict rules about bathing in onsen, or hot springs. Bodies must be scrubbed beforehand, swimming trunks are banned and tattoos are taboo.
Sun, sea and alcohol, for at least two weeks a year, is now one of the unwritten rights of the British people.
A rising tide lifts all boats, but not all spirits.
One has always choose between cholera and plague in Kinshasa.
To celebrate falling fertility is like congratulating the captain of the Titanic on heading towards the iceberg more slowly.
One suggested that driving damages the ovaries.
Mr Richards laid down the riffs and Mr Jagger provided the vocal pyrotechnics. But time took its toll. Mr Richards's decision to give up heroin destroyed the delicate division of labour in which Mr Jagger took care of the details while Mr Richards took the drugs. Mr Jagger started to refer to the Stones as "his" band. He even performed the group's songs on solo tourse.
To live in Havana was to live in a factory that turned out human beauty on a conveyor-belt. He didn't want beauty.
GM spends more on health than it does on steel.
Many women still have no choice but to use dried leaves as sanitary towels: a Korean-American missionary says the greatest gift you can give to a North Korean woman is a washable one made of fabric. "They cry with joy."
Over half the world's female suicides are Chinese. He has a brain-bank of 200 experts.
Humans have an uncontrollable urge to be precise, for better or (all too often) worse. That is a fine quality in a watch-repair man or a brain surgeon, but counter-productive when dealing with uncertainty.
Most British towns have a Victorian pool or two, thanks to the 1846 Public Baths and Wash Houses Act, which gave local authorities the power to raise funds to keep the working classes clean and healthy. Since then demand has ebbed: the poor have their own facilities these days and the rich slope off to private clubs.
As every actuary knows, the best way to live for a long time is to pick up your parents carefully.
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Who could paint an apple after Cezanne?
Viewers would decide in seven seconds whether or not to watch.
Michelangelo Merisi was omnisexual and died of sunstroke and syphilis, aggravated by lead poisoning from the paints he mixed.
Before the first world war the most exciting artists were French; in the 1990s they were Chinese. Now the hot new place for contemporary art is Africa.
All you need for a movie is a girl, a gun, lots of singing, melodrama and never-ending dance sequences. Or so a big chunk of the Indian audience believes. Pre-screening rituals include burning camphor inside a sliced pumpkin before smashing it near the big screen to bring good luck.
Vincent Van Gogh died in obscurity, having sold only one painting.
BP will hope that having a new partner will work out better than it did for Anna Karenina, who flung herself in front of a train after the disintegration of her relationship with her replacement Russian lover.
Pablo Picasso: "Good artists copy, great artists steal."
No one has ever bothered to explain what "good" or "bad" jazz really is. When you see a live performance, you may be watching a 60-year-old musician playing a 100-year-old piece.
Of Nabokov's 19 fictions, no fewer than six wholly or partly concern themselves with the sexuality of prepubescent girls.
The painter was also a shrewd businessman; he mixed indigo and madder to replicate the effect of the period's most expensive pigment, Tyrian purple, which was extracted from sea snails and worth more than its weight in gold.
CNN's challenge is to attract more viewers when no one is shooting anyone or blowing anything up.
Back when newspapers were king, Charles Brownson, an American congressman, used to say that one should never quarrel with anyone who buys ink by the barrel.
Artists came to paint and sculpt, writers to write, deadbeats to die, and a large share to drink and misbehave.
Only twice did George Martin, the Beatles record producer impose himself: at the start, insisting that they replace Pete Best as their drummer, and at the end, when he agreed to record "Abbey Road" if they stopped fighting.