A new take on psychoneuroimmunology: ‘Research pointing to a circuit linking the immune system and brain connects illness, stress, mood and thought in a whole new way.’ APA Monitor

Oxford historian Niall Ferguson: Was Sept. 11th far less of an historical turning point than generally accepted? NY Times Magazine

Thinking of relocating geographically? This page will rank the most hospitable metropolitan areas for you after you weight the importance of various economic, environmental, artistic, social and lifestyle variables.

From Fimoculous, an ever-growing collection of links to year-in-review pages.

Homo erectus ‘was never a teenager’ BBC

‘Big stink over a simple link’ Wired

KPMG.

“Sure, it’s not really The Lord of the Rings … but it could still be a pretty damn cool movie. ” — Peter Jackson. ‘The complete list of changes’ is one fan’s project to document all the films’ reported departures from Tolkien’s books. If you’re planning to see the film and haven’t read LoTR, you should probably steer clear of the spoilers you’ll find here. [thanks to Ghost in the Machine]

sylloge is back.

UK journalist Robert Fisk beaten by Afghan mob:

‘Veteran foreign correspondent Robert Fisk, 55, who writes for The Independent newspaper, was set upon after his car broke down as he drove near the border city of Quetta.
[…]
The Middle East correspondent was attacked when his car overheated and broke down close to a village housing refugees from Afghanistan.
[…]
He knocked a couple of his attackers to the ground but was then rescued by a Muslim religious leader, who forced the mob back and guided him to a police wagon.
[…]
But Mr Fisk said he could understand the refugees’ anger, as many had relatives who had been killed by the US bombing of Afghan city Kandahar last week.

“It doesn’t excuse them for beating me up so badly but there was a real reason why they should hate Westerners so much. I don’t want this to be seen as a Muslim mob attacking a Westerner for no reason. They had every reason to be angry – I’ve been an outspoken critic of the US actions myself. If I had been them, I would have attacked me.” ‘BBC

‘No sign of God, can’t have mass’ — CERN: “The legendary particle that physicists thought explained why matter has mass probably does not exist. So say researchers who have spent a year analysing data from the LEP accelerator at the CERN nuclear physics lab near Geneva.

The elusive Higgs boson is so central to the standard model – the theory on which physicists base their whole understanding of matter – that it has been dubbed the ‘God particle’. If there is no Higgs, they will be left totally unable to explain mass.” New Scientist

Automaker axes ad

after “slant-eyed” slipup:

A commercial for Daihatsu’s extremely successful Max compact car began airing on Japanese TV in the first week of November. It featured a Japanese woman driving the car through the streets of a typical European town.

Each person the woman drove past — from an elderly couple to a young woman to a policeman – greeted her by placing their index fingers on the edge of their eyes and pulling them back to show her a “slant-eyes” face,

which is of course a racist gesture used by whites to poke fun at East Asians. “We only ever wanted to use the gestures to emphasis the sleek design of the headlights on the Max,” a company spokesman says. “Nobody picked up on this in pre-screening tests we did with viewers. However, we are terribly sorry to have upset some viewers in a manner we never dreamed of.”

Mainichi Daily News

Automaker axes ad

after “slant-eyed” slipup:

A commercial for Daihatsu’s extremely successful Max compact car began airing on Japanese TV in the first week of November. It featured a Japanese woman driving the car through the streets of a typical European town.

Each person the woman drove past — from an elderly couple to a young woman to a policeman – greeted her by placing their index fingers on the edge of their eyes and pulling them back to show her a “slant-eyes” face,

which is of course a racist gesture used by whites to poke fun at East Asians. “We only ever wanted to use the gestures to emphasis the sleek design of the headlights on the Max,” a company spokesman says. “Nobody picked up on this in pre-screening tests we did with viewers. However, we are terribly sorry to have upset some viewers in a manner we never dreamed of.”

Mainichi Daily News