Author: Adam Clare

WHO Paves Way for Medicines for the Poor

The World Health Organization is actually going to try to make drugs more affordable for the majority of the world.

“The resolution approved by the Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), urges the 192 member states to make the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals a strategic sector, thus committing themselves to making R&D of medicines consistent with public interest needs a priority.

This was the response of health ministers at last week’s meeting in Geneva to the concerns of developing countries and humanitarian non-governmental organisations, which criticised the tendency of transnational pharmaceutical companies to concentrate their R&D efforts on diseases prevalent in affluent countries. “

UN World Food Programme is Blogging

After creating the fantastic and educational video game for kids, Food Force, the UN is providing a way for kids to talk to humanitarian workers on the front lines. From the UN press release:

“Fresh from the global success of the world’s first humanitarian video game designed to arouse children’s interests in the challenges of fighting hunger, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced the launch of a blog, an interactive internet chat site, that allows youngsters to talk directly to aid workers on the battle’s frontlines.

“In response to queries from Food Force players all over the world on how they could help, the new blog is a way to channel interest and a place to exchange ideas,” WFP said, referring to the educational video game which has now been played by at least 4 million people since its launch in April 2005 and is currently available in five languages.”

Mapping the Planet in Different Ways

We’ve all seen maps of the planet Earth, but have you seen maps that display the state of internet censorship or the levels of debt? A few organizations are organizing information that is hard to visualize with just numbers onto maps of the world.

The best collection of these information maps is found at MapleCroft where you can view almost anything – including invest risk, corporate governance, and the prevalence Malaria.

Mapping the majority is about mapping the places where most people live using various demographic information.

The Open Net Initiative has a map that shows how open the internet is in each country.

Portugal Gets a Tan

Portugal has started building their largest solar power facility yet!

“The 58m euro (£40m) plant near Serpa, 200km (125 miles) south of Lisbon, will produce enough electricity for 8,000 homes when it starts next January.

The 11-megawatt solar power plant, to be made up of 52,000 photovoltaic modules, will cover a 60-hectare (150-acre) southern-facing hillside.”

Drink it Black

Coffee makes you more open minded. The New Scientist is reporting that a study has found that coffee actually makes you think clearer.

“Moderate doses of caffeine can also make you more easily convinced by arguments that go against your beliefs, say Pearl Martin of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and her colleagues.

In 2005, her team published a paper suggesting that the compound primes people to agree with statements that go against their typical views because it improves their ability to understand the reasoning behind the statements.”

I think that politicians should be required to drink coffee before any debate.