Notices by HebrideanHecate (hebrideanhecate@spinster.xyz)

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/therapists-urged-to-warn-that-memory-can-be-manipulated-66n2c9tqh

He added: “In these experiments, we slightly nudged people’s appraisals of their mothers. But this may happen in a bigger way in the real world. “Talking to a therapist for years in a way that reconstructs a client’s childhood, and then linking this to their problems, could cause more significant reappraisals of their parents.” He concluded: “I believe that clients should be aware of the side effects of therapy, and there should be a line or two on the malleability of memory on the forms people sign before therapy begins. “It would also help if all therapists were taught in their training about the ways memory can be distorted.” While the authors said that negative evaluations of parents could be useful in cases of abuse, it might cause “rifts” over time. “In many other types of clients, therapists making negative comments could have a powerful effect that far exceeds our experimental nudges,” Patihis said. “For example, ‘Wow, your mother sounds like a controlling type,’ if repeated enough by therapists, might cause reappraisals and family rifts over time.”

https://archive.ph/rhjWA

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/02/06/can-science-journalism-get-over-its-trump-derangement-syndrome/

Fans of Scientific American might have hoped that this kind of activist journalism would leave the magazine along with former editor Laura Helmuth, who finished her nearly five-year tenure in November. Instead, it appears that little has changed. Other articles published since her departure include a defence of puberty blockers (which makes the striking claim that ‘the underlying principles of trans [healthcare] could make everyone healthier’) and a first-person perspective of a Just Stop Oil campaigner’s arrest.

Under Helmuth, the magazine broke with its 175-year-old tradition of impartiality when it endorsed the candidacy of Joe Biden in 2020, followed by Kamala Harris in 2024. Fittingly, Helmuth’s resignation followed one of the most severe cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome witnessed during November’s election, which she shared with the world on Bluesky. ‘I apologise to younger voters that my Gen X is so full of fucking fascists’, Helmuth wrote after Trump’s re-election. She then added, for good measure:

‘Every four years I remember why I left Indiana (where I grew up) and remember why I respect the people who stayed and are trying to make it less racist and sexist. The moral arc of the universe is not going to bend itself… Solidarity to everybody whose meanest, dumbest, most bigoted classmates are celebrating early results because fuck them to the Moon and back.’

Helmuth’s intemperate remarks raise several questions. First, what was she thinking? Presumably, to avoid charges of bias, you’d think the editor of a major scientific magazine would at least try to maintain a modicum of discretion in their public comments. Did she not realise that her comments might put some people off Scientific American who didn’t happen to share her politics?

@Chronic-Yonic

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c247lz36e59o

@Ladyfat Eeeeewwww, these men are just plain nasty.

Of course it is, got to keep the perverts happy 😑

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqj3py2y8jo

Applications for a major Scottish arts fund will re-open after the Scottish government said resources would be made "available" to ensure it could continue.

Last month, Creative Scotland announced its Open Fund for Individuals would have to close to new applications indefinitely, due to uncertainty over government budgets.

However, the First Minister John Swinney annoucned in his Programme for Government that the funding stream would be able to resume.

Mr Swinney also said that a review of arts body Creative Scotland will take place, following a year in which the organisation was criticised for funding an explicit sex show.

https://archive.ph/UReg5

Ministers must begin paying compensation to the families of children disabled by the epilepsy drug sodium valproate by next year, a report will say this week. The report’s author, Dr Henrietta Hughes, England’s patient safety commissioner, says valproate is “a bigger scandal than thalidomide, in terms of the numbers of people affected”. She will back calls for financial redress for the thousands of children left physically and mentally disabled. Every month, three babies are still being born who have been exposed to the drug.

As many as 20,000 babies in the UK may have been harmed by valproate since it was licensed in the 1970s. Risks about its effect on babies were intentionally withheld from women by regulators. Many were told it was safe, when about 40 per cent of babies who were exposed were left disabled.

@ArtistBristol And then there's this

https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1436#:~:text=Some%20of%20the%20women%20had,outcome%20of%20mesh%20revision%20surgery.

Women in Scotland who underwent vaginal mesh procedures for stress urinary incontinence were given inaccurate information and were not told of the risks of the surgery, a case review ordered by the Scottish government has concluded.1

The Transvaginal Mesh Case Record Review, moderated by Alison Britton, professor of healthcare and medical law at Glasgow Caledonian University, analysed in depth more than 40 000 pages of records from 18 women who suffered life changing effects from the surgery. One patient said, “My pain never goes. I’ve always got pain in my groin, my back, and nerve damage in my legs.”

@ArtistBristol Absolutely! These fuckers are guilty of soooooo much, but it is all about the money and damn all else.

Remember now, you need to vote Labour 🙄

😂 the bugger!

Random cat of the day

@Flick @thatguyoverthere Absolute clowns.

This is the same government that is urging us to buy electric vehicles whilst limiting future sales of ICE and hybrid vehicles. You will need more than a torch if your EV is stranded in your drive or parked in the road outside your house

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/stock-up-on-batteries-in-case-of-grid-meltdown-britons-told-hpdwhlfql

@Flick @thatguyoverthere Ahem…my celebrated great aunt Agnes once sat down upon a beret full of eggs. She, like many of the other old ladies of her generation back home, had a tendency to go around with a black beret rammed on their head, this day she collected the eggs, sat them on her favourite chair when came in due to the post being behind her, went back out to collect letter, came in and promptly sat down on the chair, where the eggs still were.

@Flick @ArtistBristol Despite calls from the Jewish community to stop his appearance, library staff worried that cancelling Zahr could insult the city’s Muslim community. So, to counteract this possible offence, the library’s operations director contacted Zahr’s manager and asked: ‘Is there a rebuttal statement […] that we can use to address the concerns listed below?’. It seems they colluded to combat criticism and actively sought out support for the comedian’s appearance. So there we have it. Support women’s rights and you’ll be branded ‘far-right’, accused of spreading hate speech and stopped from speaking. But spend your time denouncing Israel and your appearance will be welcomed and your platform secured. Canada: you’ve lost the plot.

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life Their camouflage is incredible.

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life Aren’t they just darling.

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life They can be very determined when they do it, we used to have Muscovy ducks when I was a child too.

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life My cousin’s pullets are all doing nicely, they littlest one loves her food! They had 2 runaway hens who came back with huge families, they have given some of them away and kept the rest, “baby” as this one is called is, by the sounds of it, going to be what we always called the “petty” hen, she comes into the house and sits preening on the floor.

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life Now that is odd! As said, once they start etc, one of ours when I was a kid was at it, nothing made any difference, Granny made a pie…