Walked home on air last night, my shoe a definite half size too big, my feet pink and shiny and soft. I had a Chinese pedicure and foot massage.

You’ll think I’m some kind of retard, reaching well into middle age and remaining a pedicure virgin, but there it is. Can’t go into all the details, most...

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Tangled Bank 50 turned up some nice reads, not least the self-selected “carnival of the vanities” post by James Hrynyshyn, this edition’s editor.

In Getting our act together ... not he wittily conjoins two separate ideas.

Exhibit A is the never-ending argument among scientists over the rol...

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Thrilled, on returning from hospital, by this bud on my Lithops, I had been waiting for it to open fully. Morning, before work, and evening, after, I checked it; no change. But this afternoon, before my nap, there it was, fully open.

I should have known (or guessed) there might be a circadian e...

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I’m shocked.

Prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery, a large and long-awaited study has found.

And patients who knew they were being prayed for had a higher rate of post-operative complications like abnormal heart rhythms, perha...

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I believe in Darwinism and evolution and biology. I believe in atheism. I believe you get one shot; the rest is dust. That’s my creed, and I’ve decided not to even bother defending it any more.

A lot of ideas have been simmering away under this one.

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