Shades of colonial civil service live on

Taro Aso, Japan's Finance Minister who had a serious problem with foot-in-mouth disease says Let Elderly People 'Hurry Up and Die' Taro Aso said on Monday that the elderly should be allowed to "hurry up and die" to relieve pressure on the state to pay for their medical care.

David Wolf submits: As we all take in the latest wrinkle in the Google (GOOG) vs. China story, a few thoughts.

A consortium led by Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing said Monday that it has completed a 9.28 billion-dollar takeover of the British power distribution network of French electricity giant EDF.The acquisition of EDF Energy was completed on October 29 and is the largest deal by a Hong Kong entity in Britain, Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) and Hongkong Electric Holdings said in a joint statement posted to Hong Kong's stock exchange.

A consortium led by Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing said Monday that it has completed a 9.28 billion-dollar takeover of the British power distribution network of French electricity giant EDF.The acquisition of EDF Energy was completed on October 29 and is the largest deal by a Hong Kong entity in Britain, Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings (CKI) and Hongkong Electric Holdings said in a joint statement posted to Hong Kong's stock exchange.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Sir Terry Leahy said he would issue a “severe telling-off” if he found products from Waitrose in the family’s fridge, reports The Telegraph. “I actually bribed my children to sort of inform on my wife Alison if she popped into Waitrose when she picked up the kids from school,” he added.

Four in 10 girls born today is expected to live to 100, according to a respected health economist writing in the online edition of the British Medical Journal. John Appleby, chief economist at the King’s Fund, said just 13 per cent of girls born in 1951 were expected to reach their centenary.

On Thursday evening, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) physicist Jacob Taylor received a Samual J. Heyman Service to America Medal (Sammies) for his advanced scientific research, which has potential for advances in health care, communications, computing, and technology. Presented the award by Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank, Taylor was one of just nine winners chosen from nearly 400 nominees for awards honoring excellence in public service.A fellow at the Joint Quantum Institute, Taylor has already developed a number of original theories on the cutting-edge of theoretical physics. One such idea is a way to allow magnetic resonance imaging to more effectively be utilized on the molecular level. This holds the promise of providing more detailed health information, better diagnoses, more targeted medical treatments, and more rapid discoveries of new drugs.Taylor also has a pending patent on a process that would increase the quantity of data that could be sent through the Internet while using less energy, and his theory on computing has the potential to advance scientists much closer to the goal of achieving quantum computing—an extraordinary development in the field of physics that would allow for unprecedented increases to calculation speed.