Poor Mojo's Newswire

Let’s get back to the proposition before the house: Does eating a plant-based diet (or “plant strong” as some people put it) improve erectile function in men? It’s a heavily loaded question, because it’s essentially the converse of the proposition that eating meat and dairy wrecks your boner. And if that’s true, there’s obviously a lot more men who would want to know about it, than currently do know about it.

Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact. . . . But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo". Even for someone not yet renowned for liberal reticence, this feels hard to write. This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies. But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. . . .

Four doctors in Wales rose to fame because of a man who pricked his finger and smelled putrid for five years. The doctors were hit nose-on with one of the most baffling medical mysteries on record. It all started with a chicken. The case ended happily – yet mysteriously – half a decade later, the stink having vanished. The Lancet published an account of this called, accurately, A Man Who Pricked His Finger and Smelled Putrid for 5 Years. The report, written by the relieved but puzzled physicians, ends with a plea: "We ask assistance from colleagues who may have encountered a similar case or for suggestions to relieve this patient's odour." Here's what happened. In September 1991, a 29-year-old man who dressed chickens for a living cut his finger with a chicken bone. This fateful prick cause his finger to soon become reddish and smelly. . . . As they put it: "Although the clinical appearance improved, the most disabling consequence of the infection was a putrid smell emanating from the affected arm, which could be detected across a large room, and when confined to a smaller examination room became almost intolerable." . . .