Prevent Scammers Faking Facebook Accounts Under Your name

It is a good idea to make your Facebook friends list private.

If someone tries to spoof or fake an account using your name, they will look at your public list of friends and will contact them to say you have got a new account, or they got deleted by accident and can you re-add them.

They can then carry out various scams under your name.

To stop this, do the following.

1. Log into your Facebook account (PC or laptop rather than phone or tablet).
2. Navigate to your timeline and select the 'Friends' option under your cover photograph.
3. You should then see a pencil icon to the right OR a down arrow and you can click on that and select 'Edit Privacy'.
4. Choose either 'Only Me' or 'Friends Only' options.

Source: Phil Bradley column in CILIP Update, Nov. 2017

How to Bridge the Brexit Divide

The Brexit vote exposed the deep division between leavers and remainers, but the status quo is not an option.

On the eve of the referendum, Britain was running a record current account deficit, growth was being pumped up by an overheating housing market, factories were still producing less than before the start of the financial crisis, and people in the poorest parts of the country were being targeted with depp cuts to welfare benefits. There was a growing north-south divide: there is a 44% gap between the south-east and the less productive cities in the rest of the country.

Old industrial Britain is still suffering the consequences of the closure of factories and pits three or four decades ago. These communities have higher levels of unemployment and of people on disability benefit. Brexit was about dead-end jobs and run-down communities talked down and bossed around by London.

If a second referendum was held and reversed the decision, the leavers would feel betrayed - and might opt for more violent protest than the ballot box - unless changes were made.

The leave camp faces the same challenge - only empty promises so far by the politicians.

The writer of this piece proposes the following:

• The north is not short of homes, but its housing stock is often run down and energy inefficient, so there should be a nation-wide programme to improve insulation, starting with cities in the north. This would cut fuel bills, reduce carbon emissions and provide well-paid jobs for local people.
• Start a new national investment bank, to channel funds into traditional manufacturing sectors, such as engineering, and food and drink, where they need modernizing, and to identify the growth sectors of the future.
• Britain should focus on excelling in developments in artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, 3D printing and quantum computing, which will transform the global economy. 
• However there is a danger that the benefits will go overwhelmingly to London, Oxford and Cambridge, a university in each of the big northern cities needs to be identified to take the lead in specific areas, and academic funding, tax breaks, state aid and public procurement should be used to establish industrial clusters and develop domestic supply chains.
• Substantial improvement in northern infrastructure is needed. Money earmarked for the HS2 rail link should be spent instead on HS3 - linking Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull. As currently planned, HS2 would suck talented people out of the north, while HS3 would encourage them to stay.
• Address the skills gap in the north - companies are currently unsure they can get the people they want. Levels of adult literacy and numeracy are poor. There is a mismatch in further education between the courses on offer and the skills employers need.
• Allow local governments to raise and keep more of their own money. Ensure a new investment bank is based on the banks of the Mersey or the Humber.
• be bold and move parliament to Leeds or Manchester.

Source: Larry Elliott: No wonder the north is angry. Here's a plan to bridge the bitter Brexit divide: in The Guardian, 16 Nov. 2017

Humans Are Still Evolving

A survey of the human genetic code has shown that our resistance to malaria, diabetes and other diseases is changing in response to our environment.

We already know that in the past, people developed lighter skins when living in parts of the world with less sunlight.

We now also know that several traits are sometimes linked to a single gene. For instance, when people in the Far East evolved a different version of the EDAR gene to sweat differently, the same gene gave them much denser hair and changed their teeth too; the effect has been called "hitchhiking".

Genes that protect against disease are also evolving. The CR1 gene helps cut the severity of malaria attacks and is now present in 8 out of 10 Africans, but is absent elsewhere.

Several genes, such as ENPP1, are involved in the regulation of insulin and in metabolic syndrome (a combination of diabetes and obesity). These genes are present in 9 out of 10 non-Africans but fewer in Africans (suggesting they have not yet adapted to an American lifestyle), which might explain why African Americans are especially at risk of obesity and high blood pressure.

Source: Roger Highfield: Humans are evolving to resist disease. The Telegraph 5 Feb. 2008

Tax Avoidance

All types of people try to avoid paying tax or to pay less tax, but the public judges them differently.

• The British public assume around one third of taxpayers have exploited a tax loophole.
• Just under half (48%) thought tax avoidance was "usually or always wrong".
• But more than 60% believe it is "usually or always wrong" for poorer people to use legal loopholes to obtain more benefits.

So people are far more concerned by the idea of low-income groups exploiting the system than about high-income groups doing the same. This discrepancy is reflected in government priorities - speedy changes to welfare legislation and little done to address widespread tax avoidance by the wealthy.

Why? People are bad at dealing with numbers in the millions and billions. Simply listing the vast sums of money going offshore that could be spent on public services in the UK means little emotionally to people.

We need to link the numbers to their consequences.

• The money lost because someone does not pay tax on their private jet means thousands more visits to food banks.
• Fewer people might have killed themselves after a work-capability assessment if big companies had not registered their offices in offshore tax havens, and the pressure to reduce benefits payments was not so intense.

Source: Robert de Vries and Aaron Reeves: Why do people care more about benefit 'scroungers' than billions lost to the rich? in The Guardian, 15 Nov. 2017

Perception Versus Fact

People's perception of facts is often wrong. News media focus on the bad news, with the result that we think things are worse than they really are. And if we allow the gloom to bring us down, it can affect our health. Remember that 5 positive, encouraging remarks are needed to offset the negative impact of just one piece of bad news.

In the UK

Murder: people think that the murder rate is getting higher or staying the same - wrong. In reality the murder rate is plunging and dropped by almost a third since 2000.

Terrorism: we think deaths from terrorism has got worse in the last 15 years - wrong. In fact they are significantly lower, down from over 300 to just 62.

Prisoners: people guess that 34% of prisoners are foreign born - wrong. The actual figure is 11.8% (much the same as the proportion of the overall population.)

Teenage pregnancy: people guess that 20% (or 1 in 5) babies are born to teenage mums - wrong. The real teenage pregnancy rate is 1.4% (just 1 in 70).

Diabetes: people think that about a quarter (25%) of British adults have diabetes - wrong. In fact the actual number is just 5% (5 in 100).

Vaccines: more than half of Britons are unsure or believe there is a link between vaccines and autism - wrong. The claim is widely discredited but only 45% of people know that it is false.

Health: people guess that only just over half of us are in good health - wrong. Actually the majority (75%) of Britons say their health is good or very good.

Technology: we estimate Facebook membership guessing that 74% of Britons aged 13+ have a Facebook account - wrong. In fact 58% are members.

Source: IPSO MORI Perils of Perception 2017 report