IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. What it’s like to give birth in your 50s
Joanna Moorhead talks to women who gave birth in their 50s about what it entailed – the egg donation, the tiredness, and the funds needed.
(The Guardian, approx 14 mins reading time)
For Barnes, a single mother who lives in London, a baby was always on the horizon but by the end of her 40s several attempts at IVF had failed and the relationship she was in had ended. “I thought, I don’t have time to find someone else, I’m going to have to do it on my own,” she says.
2. Vitamin D – shadowy sunshine vitamin?
Dr Michael Holick is a Boston University endocrinologist who’s very passionate about the need for people to take vitamin D. But this New York Times article looks at how his passion has also sent a lot of money his way.
(The New York Times, approx 11 mins reading time)
But few of the Americans swept up in the vitamin D craze are likely aware that the industry has sent a lot of money Dr. Holick’s way. A Kaiser Health News investigation for The New York Times found that he has used his prominent position in the medical community to promote practices that financially benefit corporations that have given him hundreds of thousands of dollars — including drug makers, the indoor tanning industry and one of the country’s largest commercial labs.
This article looks at the online groups that track down suspected paedophiles, and then film their ambushes.
(Gizmodo, approx 16 mins reading time)
Hunted and Confronted is not affiliated with any police department. Their tactics are relatively mild-tempered. In most videos, founder Jesse Weeks confronts the suspected child sex offender at a public location. He approaches them, asking them what they’re doing there before admitting he is running a sting operation and has all of their chat logs, then launching into an interrogation and streaming the interaction live to Facebook using his phone. But the confrontations are hardly low-profile—Weeks encourages viewers to take screenshots and share, focusing the camera on the confronted individual’s face, license plate, and the moment of arrest.
4. Natural wines – with top notes of poo
This article is ostensibly about natural wines, but it’s about so much more – from the fact that some of the wines have top notes of poo, to what it’s like to buck the mainstream, hipsterism, changing tastes, and what it really means to be ‘into’ food and drink.
(Grub Street, approx 23 mins reading time)
But there’s still some culture clash. According to Lepeltier, significant natural-wine excitement comes from “cool people” who “were not talking to the three-Michelin star restaurant or the top wine shop. They were talking to the new crowd that was buying the wine.” She added: “If you are not, like, tattooed, beard, dirty wine, you are not ‘natural enough.’ ”
Have you ever heard of the NotPetya cyber attack? Wired describes it as “the most devastating cyberattack in history”, and details how it affected government agencies, crippled ports, and paralysed corporations.
(Wired, approx 33 mins reading time)
Around 3 pm, a Maersk executive walked into the room where Jensen and a dozen or so of his colleagues were anxiously awaiting news and told them to go home. Maersk’s network was so deeply corrupted that even IT staffers were helpless. A few of the company’s more old-school managers told their teams to remain at the office. But many employees—rendered entirely idle without computers, servers, routers, or desk phones—simply left.
6. The hydrogen peroxide exploitation
Some people online claim that hydrogen peroxide can cure serious illnesses – even cancer. But why do people get sucked into such claims, and how can it affect people’s health?
(Undark, approx 54 mins reading time)
Khan was an easy target for internet marketers who promise health benefits from drinking just a few drops of hydrogen peroxide diluted in a glass of water. It’s a folk remedy that reaches back decades, and one that continues to flourish at the margins of alternative medicine, and in those corridors of the internet frequented by people who are desperate for a cure. Scientifically, there is no evidence supporting the practice as a remedy for anything — and ample evidence suggests that it can even be dangerous.
...AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch had another name: Dr Death. This article from 2016 looks at the shocking cases he was involved in.
(The D, approx 34 mins reading time)
There was a dissection of one patient’s esophagus, and screws that an indictment labeled “far too long” that caused significant blood loss in another patient. One surgeon described these as “never events.” They shouldn’t ever happen in someone’s entire career. And yet they occurred in Duntsch’s operating rooms over a period of just two years.
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