Europeans tallest, North Americans smallest brains?

Recently, according to a study Europeans, The Dutch in particular, are now the tallest people in the World.

North Americans were always the tallest, but haven't grown since the last 25 years and are 2 inches shorter than their Dutch counterparts.

We're used to the notion of the United States as the world's dominant power, a land of untold resources, wealth and consumption.

And one reflection of this abundance is the fact that for most of the past 2 1/2 centuries, Americans have been literally the tallest people on the planet.
Feeding off the abundant wild game and rich agriculture of their vast new land, colonial Americans measured a full three inches taller than Europeans.

Not so any more.
Compared to Europeans, Americans have effectively shrunk.
Indeed, among all advanced industrial nations, Americans are now at the bottom end of the height scale.

And, no, it's not the influx of short Hispanics. The height pattern is the same for Americans even when the sample is limited to non-Hispanic, native-born Americans.

It seems to be a reflection of something more basic.
According to an influential paper in Social Science Quarterly last June by economic historians John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale, "height is indicative of how well the human organism thrives in its socioeconomic environment."

The relative shrinking of Americans on the world scene is perhaps then an indicator of something Americans are doing badly, not in Iraq, but right at home.

And that something should be of more than passing interest to Canadians as we continue, consciously and unconsciously, to shape our economic and social systems with the U.S. in mind.

Actually, Canada has traditionally been a blend of the U.S. and European approaches.
But in the last couple of decades, as we have focused increasingly on cutting taxes and have adopted the attitude that individuals must make it on their own in society, we've veered more closely to the U.S. model.

We tend to view the low-tax, low-spending U.S. model as simply the norm in the era of globalization. But in fact it is only the U.S. norm.

Europeans, particularly northern Europeans, have traditionally done things differently.
They have been imposing much higher taxes and delivering much more generous social programs that provide a striking array of benefits to every member of society.

Contrary to our impressions here in the West that globalization has fundamentally redesigned the world, the Europeans have stuck with their high-tax, high-spending model in the globalized era.

Read the full story here

Deathly virus starts like an innocent cold

By Guy Derla

Last Tuesday, my eye fell on an article in the Washington Post who reported that an apparently common cold virus (adenovirus) has mutated into a killer strain quite unexpectedly.

In the State Oregon in the U.S. it recently caused a death rate as high as 23%!

The American government run Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, has been tracking the virus over the past year and has recorded outbreaks in Oregon, Texas, Washington State and New York.
The virus, first discovered in 1955 in The Netherlands as the adenovirus 14, has recently mutated into a more severe virulent form.

The Frightening thing about this virus is that it's so strong that it can kill strong, young and otherwise healthy people, rather than the usual "at risk" populations of the very young and the very old. There's no way to know if this virus will spark an epidemic, or whether it will die down and disappear for momentarily.

Those who have survived the virus, say that it came on like a usual cold.
But then, instead of getting better at the usual 4-7 day point, their symptoms got worse and turned into high fevers, coughs, and difficult breathing.
Some people have even required mechanical ventilation in Intensive Care to help them breathe.

Could this be, like the in my earlier post mentioned acinetobacter baumannii, next avian flu (bird flu) or SARS -like outbreak and turn into a real pandemic? Will it come our way?

It makes you think when you have a stuffy nose next time!

Source: RevolutionHealth