The best of what we read, watched and listened to this week

The best of what we read, watched and listened to this week

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Even though getting old is generally better than the alternative, we’ve probably all experienced occasions when we wonder if our brain is losing abilities that it once had.  Fortunately there are things that we can do to maintain it and (unsurprisingly) they don’t require us to download apps onto our electronic devices.  [6 min read]

You probably didn’t want telling but the appearance of Easter eggs in the shops reminds us that to there are apparently 71 shopping days until Christmas.  Still, you’d be even less happy to fall victim to one of the new tradition, Christmas scams.  Here’s a selection of the most common ones but no doubt there will be more, so be careful out there…. [6 min read]

I used to work with a nice chap who was a devotee of chartism, also known rather grandly as technical analysis.  It seemed to me about as valid a way to predict the market as a witch doctor using chicken entrails but seeing patterns in things is something that humans love to do.  Even where they aren’t really there.  [4 min read]

A friend recently mentioned this article about a newly developed cargo ship driven by wind turbines, which could reduce its carbon emissions by 90%.  Wind-powered ships; what will we come up with next?   [6  min read]

Offshore wind farms sound like a perfect way of generating power from renewable sources (as long as ships manage to avoid colliding with them) but it seems that there is an unexpected impact on the populations of brown crabs, who are attracted by the cables’ magnetic field.  [2 min read]

We might not think that a sea otter would have much need for a pocket but evolution thinks differently.  [0:40 video]

We hope you have a good weekend.

Charles and Rob