Donie's news Ireland BLOG Wednesday

Families of Ireland cannot take any more punishing taxes

Martin Phelan expert says

    

Irish householders have now reached a point where they cannot bear more tax hikes in the Budget, experts warn.

A family with one income of €55,000 and two children is paying an extra €3,400 a year in taxes and levies since 2008.

A sixth austerity Budget next month will be too much for large numbers of people to cope with, the Irish Tax Institute said.

But next month’s Budget is expected to see the introduction of a property tax that is expected to cost a family with a €350,000 home €875 in tax in a full year. The charge is likely to be set at a rate of 0.25pc on the value of the home.

There are also expected to be changes in pay related social insurance (PRSI) and the universal social charge (USC).

President of the tax body

Martin Phelan said more taxes would mean people will spend less, some will work a lot less; while there will be a growth in the black economy.

“Small bases of people are contributing vast amounts of revenue for the Government. It is getting to a dangerous level with fewer people paying more and more taxes with less income,” Mr Phelan said.

Some €1.25bn in extra taxes is expected to be imposed by Finance Minister Michael Noonan in two weeks’ time.

Cuts

And an additional €2.25bn is expected in expenditure cuts. But the tax body said there should be an even greater emphasis on spending cuts, as it would be too damaging to the economy to tax income earners even more.

There is a limit to how much more can be imposed, the tax

Body said. Changes to income tax, the introduction of the universal social charge, the removal of tax reliefs and child benefit cuts have meant those still in a job are paying vastly more tax since the economic downturn hit in 2008.

There are now 1.8 million income taxpayers, down 300,000 from 2007, the tax institute said.

Plans to introduce water charges and a property tax will mean there will have been 10 new taxes imposed on households in the last four years.

These include the income levy and the health levy, which became the universal social charge.

Also included are carbon taxes, the second-homes tax, the household charge, the domicile levy on high earners, the pensions levy on private sector retirement funds and the insurance levy.

Savita Halappanaver death inquiry will go ahead without Praven the husband

HEALTH MINISTER JAMES REILLY SAYS

  

Health Minister James Reilly has said that the HSE inquiry into Savita Halappanavar’s death will proceed without her husband’s co-operation.

Minister Reilly said that it is regrettable that Praveen Halappanavar has decided not to engage with the investigation at this stage.

 The Minister also said that he has requested an interim report into the circumstances of the 31-year-old’s death be presented before Christmas.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny appealed in the Dáil earlier to Mr Halappanavar to meet with the chairperson of the HSE inquiry.

However speaking in an interview to be broadcast on RTÉ’s ‘Prime Time’ tonight, he rejected the call.

“With due respect to the head of the inquiry and the Taoiseach, we won’t partake in the inquiry by the HSE,” he said.

“We want a public inquiry.”

Minister Reilly, speaking at the North South Ministerial Council in Armagh, said that the investigation is going ahead, but he hoped that Mr Halappanavar reconsiders.

“There may come a point where obviously we won’t have the completeness of information without Mr Halappanavar’s input, and to me, that will be regrettable,

“But I want to get the investigation to that point at least, before we have any further public discourse on the matter.”

The inquiry chairperson will soon announce the three new members of the panel, replacing staff from University Hospital Galway.

It is expected that one of the new members will be from the UK.

Irish isolated and ignored protesters demand disability rights

 

People with disabilities are bearing an unfair brunt of economic cutbacks, campaigners claim

People with disabilities are being ignored and isolated, and bear an unfair brunt of economic cutbacks, campaigners have claimed.

About 2,000 protesters marched to the gates of the Dail to show Government a red card ahead of Budget 2013.

The members of the Disability Rights Coalition said they are demanding their rights, not charity, and called on politicians to stick with promises in the programme for government, including maintaining social welfare rates, a new law to replace the 1871 Lunacy Act.

Spokeswoman Siobhan Kane said: “Everybody talks about the big announcements on budget day, but for people with disabilities it is a gradual drip feed.

“Day by day and week by week, they are told a support or service is being taken away. James Reilly (health minister) doesn’t stand up in the Dail and say people have to organise their own transport or start paying for respite.

“People feel they have no control over any of it and it’s causing huge stress and worries for disabled people and their families.”

There are 600,000 people with disabilities across Ireland – 13% of the population – but Ms Kane warned many are ignored, isolated and bear an unfair brunt of cuts. The disability sector has already suffered budget cuts of 13.7% since 2008.

One woman left caring for her three elder brothers with intellectual disabilities has made a desperate plea for the men to be given residential care.

Aideen Pollard, 46, moved in with brothers Jack, 64, Michael, 63, and Barra, 53, in north Dublin when their elderly mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and went into a nursing home almost three years ago.

The men, believed to have special needs due to the Fragile X syndrome, attend a day service with St Michael’s House (SMH) in Glasnevin, but their sister is fighting for long-term respite care.

‘Diabesity’ Obesity-Diabetes the new epidemic in Ireland & the World

   

One measure to prevent obesity is to encourage “walkability” of neighbourhoods, urging people to exercise daily. We are heading towards an epidemic of diabetes that threatens to bankrupt our healthcare systems

The incidence and prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing worldwide. In Ireland the latest figures by the Institute of Public Health showed that in 2010 more than 10 per cent of adults aged 55 and over have diabetes. More than 41,000 (2.7 per cent) adults aged 45 years and over have undiagnosed diabetes. Diabetes is also more common among older people.

The cause of this is very clear. We are becoming increasingly obese as a population, and the relationship between obesity and diabetes is well established. In fact, the term “diabesity” has been coined to link the relationship between increasing obesity and associated type 2 diabetes.

Some 90 per cent of the world’s 285 million people with diabetes have type 2 which is directly related to obesity. Richard Schulze of the Schulze Diabetes Institute in the US said “the increasing prevalence of obesity – fuelled by excessive calorie intake, suboptimum dietary quality and sedentary lifestyles – is driving this epidemic”.

Epidemic of diabetes

Thus we are sleepwalking our way as a society into an epidemic of diabetes. This epidemic is threatening to bankrupt our healthcare systems within a generation as increasing numbers of patients are managed with increasing numbers of more expensive drugs. The diabetes drugs bill in the British National Health Service, for example, is estimated to rise from the current £9.8 billion (€7.66 billion) to £16.9 billion by 2035.

The current obesity/diabetes crisis is similar to the typhoid epidemic which pervaded in America and Europe in the late 19th century. Public health measures won the day here. As a result of the introduction of clean water, the rate of death from typhoid fever fell from 80/100,000 of population in 1890 to 7/100,000 in 1918. This population-based preventive approach treated the disease far more effectively than individual patient management.

Public health

We need a similar bold approach to the prevention of obesity to stop the onward march of diabetes. This public health approach must take precedence over the so-called medical model which concentrates on individual patients but does not adopt a community approach. In other words, we need to adopt a similar approach to the “clean water” act of the late 19th century, only in this case it is an anti-obesity act. So what can be done?

Firstly, for our patients already diagnosed with type 2 diabetes there needs to be a much greater concentration on lifestyle measures to treat the condition. There is an abundance of evidence that this approach is effective. No drugs are involved. Lifestyle measures may arrest or even reverse the progress of type 2 diabetes. Many lifestyle measures have the added advantage of not costing any money and not having any unpleasant drug side effects such as nausea or low blood sugar.

A programme of exercise and diet can also have other benefits such as reducing blood pressure and achieving weight loss.

How can we prevent obesity from occurring? We need to look at measures such as:

   “Walkability” of neighbourhoods. Ensure that residential development takes place near shops, schools, churches and places of entertainment such as cinemas and theatres. This reduces reliance on cars and encourages people to walk and exercise daily as an integral part of their life.

Is it time to consider a “fat tax”? This would make high-energy, high-fat foods more expensive and would subsidise the cost of healthier foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables. The “plastic bag” tax is evident of the effect that such a judiciously placed tax can have on habits.

We need to educate our children on the benefits of a good balanced diet. This education is especially important in the lower socioeconomic groups where rates of obesity and diabetes are higher.

The alarming increase in the prevalence of obesity in children also needs to be addressed through education and urgent action in the schools.

Over 100 years ago Joseph Malines lamented this in his poem The Fence or the Ambulance: “Then an old man remarked, ‘it’s a marvel to me that people give far more attention, to repairing results than to stopping the cause, when they’d much better aim at prevention.”

Perhaps it’s time to start building a good fence and adopt a brave new radical approach to this largely preventable modern epidemic.

Two Irish universities get non-State funding of €14m to create 60 research jobs

  

Trinity College Dublin and NUI Galway separately have won non-exchequer funding worth a combined €14 million, money that will support the creation of almost 60 research jobs.

Trinity College Dublin announced €8 million in non-State funding had been acquired so far this year, about 35 per cent from European industry and 65 per cent from the EU. This is more than double the non-exchequer support achieved last year, the university said.

NUI Galway announced yesterday it was to lead a €6 million EU-funded project to examine the ability of stem cells to reduce the damage caused by complications of diabetes.

Together these two blocks of funding will led to 59 research positions for PhD students and postdoctoral research fellows. In both cases the funding also has a strong industrial component, with direct industrial partner involvement and funding support.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton was on hand for the Trinity announcement yesterday, made at a one-day “industry showcase” event organised by its Crann nanotechnology research institute.

Ireland’s future depended on creating employment in strong enterprises built on the back of research, said Mr Bruton. “We need to turn good ideas into good jobs. That is our challenge,” he added.

Crann has about 120 industrial partners. Having an international profile for research was a strong “attractant” for foreign direct investment, said Prof John Boland, director of Crann.

Prof Timothy O’Brien will coordinate the stem cell research project in Galway. He directs the Regenerative Medicine Institute (Remedi) and is a consultant endocrinologist at Galway University Hospital. Orbsen Therapeutics Ltd, an NUI Galway spinout company, is the lead industrial partner.

The research will include clinical trials using stem cells. The ultimate goal is to counter the diabetic complications that arise due to poor control of blood sugar levels. These conditions include kidney and retinal damage, impaired bone repair and wound ulceration among others.

“At the moment there are very few treatment options available,” said Prof O’Brien.

Life on Mars? NASA Teases ‘Historic’ Discovery by Curiosity

     

Some little green men? A Buffalo nickel? The body of Jimmy Hoffa? Whatever the Curiosity rover’s “historic discovery” on Mars turns out to be, NASA is once again stirring up a ton of buzz for one of its most popular missions in recent memory.

When Curiosity chief scientist John Grotzinger told NPR earlier this week that the Mars rover had found something that “is gonna be one for the history books,” most of the speculation centered around the possibility that the surface probe has discovered evidence of organic life on the Red Planet.

Perhaps, but we won’t know the answer until next month when NASA said it will spill the beans about the “historic” data from a recent Curiosity soil sample-collecting foray that the mission’s “science team is busily chewing away on,” as Grotzinger put it.

One thing’s for sure—the space agency that seemed on the verge of irrelevance in the public mind just a couple of years ago is back to playing the public relations game like nobody’s business.

NASA has been on a PR tear of late. The end of the storied space shuttle program was supposed to be depressing—for the first time in decades, the United States has no direct means for putting humans in space—but NASA turned lemons into lemonade with a series of triumphant final flybys for the members of its shuttle fleet on the way to their final homes in aerospace exhibits around the country.

While NASA currently relies on the Russian space agency to transport its astronauts to the International Space Station, it’s also taken the first steps in partnering with private space enterprises like SpaceX to usher in a new era of space travel where government and commercial ventures join forces to explore the stars together.

The agency’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has identified dozens of worlds orbiting distant stars that might have liquid water—and possibly life. NASA extended Kepler’s mission by another four years last week.

NASA is also reportedly on the verge of announcing an ambitious plan to build an orbiting Moon base that would serve as a launching pad for manned missions to near-Earth asteroids and Mars in the next decade.

Then there’s Curiosity. From the “seven minutes of terror” during the rover’s final descent to the Martian surface in August, as witnessed by millions on television through the eyes of the control team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., to the sudden memetic fame of team member “Mohawk Guy,” the Curiosity mission has inspired a new wave of geeky fascination with the mechanics and technologies of space exploration.

Of course, it hasn’t all been a garden of roses for NASA. The future James Webb Space Telescope has become a bit of a boondoggle, going drastically over budget, with those cost overruns leading NASA to pull funding from the European Space Agency’s upcoming ExoMars missions. The revelation this year of numerous computer security breaches over the past several years has been a black eye for an agency supposedly at the forefront of technology.

Despite a few setbacks, today’s NASA is no longer defined by the tragic Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters or the dwindling prestige of the Apollo program. Rather than the bureaucratic, legacy dinosaur the space agency appeared destined to become after putting the shuttle program to bed, NASA is showing that it’s as relevant and important to humankind’s exploration of the stars as ever, if in a different way than before.

To make an analogy with Star Trek, if the original Mercury and Apollo astronauts had all the sexiness and swagger of Captain Kirk, the JPL team is comprised of a bunch of even-keeled Jean-Luc Picards. You don’t get to Picard without Kirk to blaze that trail into the “final frontier,” but at the end of the day, it was the next generation that had the staying power.

Ireland's daily news BLOG Monday

Enda Kenny phone call to Angela Merkel leads to joint statement on bank debt deal

    

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel have issued a joint communiqué saying that Ireland’s banking crisis was “unique” and that Ireland was to be considered a special case in the forthcoming negotiations over the role of the new bailout fund the European Stability Mechanism in

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel have issued a joint communiqué saying that Ireland’s banking crisis was “unique” and that Ireland was to be considered a special case in the forthcoming negotiations over the role of the new bailout fund the European Stability Mechanism in supported troubled banks.

The statement followed a phone call between the two leaders this afternoon.

It comes after two days of opposition attacks over Ms Merkel’s apparent rejection on Friday of the ESM being used for so-called legacy debt.

As the EU summit was winding up at the end of last week, Ms Merkel, in response to a question about Spanish banks, said there would be no retroactive recapitalisation of banks by the ESM.

Her remarks triggered a barrage of opposition attacks against Mr Kenny, who had hailed the summit as a success.

While Berlin confirmed that the chancellor meant that only future debts would be covered, over the next 12 hours the Chancellery issued two apparently mollifying statements supporting Ireland’s reform efforts and a return to the bond markets.

This evening, following a half hour phone call, the two leaders issued the joint statement reaffirming the commitment of 29 June, which said that Ireland’s bank debt situation would be looked at.

Encouragingly from the Government’s point of view, the statement described Ireland as a special case and the circumstances surrounding the banking crisis as “unique”.

This would be taken into account by eurozone finance ministers, the statement concluded, as they begin negotiations on how the ESM will work, once a banking supervision system is in place.

The statement did not spell out that legacy debt will be covered but it will provide the coalition with some badly needed cover following the criticism it has taken since Friday lunchtime.

Meanwhile later today:

Francois Hollande the French president supports Irish bid for a banking-debt agreement

   

French president Francois Hollande (L) welcomes Taoiseach Enda Kenny before a meeting in Paris today.

French president François Hollande today said he supports Ireland’s campaign to have old bank debt covered by recapitalisations through the euro zone’s new rescue fund.

Mr Hollande said Ireland was “a special case” and must be treated as such when euro group finance ministers negotiate a deal on how to break the link between sovereign and bank debt over the coming months.

German chancellor Angela Merkel caused consternation in Dublin last Friday when she said “legacy” debt would not be covered by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) bailout fund, echoing remarks made last month by her finance minister and apparently threatening Ireland’s long-running efforts to secure an EU deal to ease its multibillion-euro bank debt burden.

However, she and Taoiseach Enda Kenny issued a joint statement yesterday affirming that Ireland’s bank rescue was a “special case” and that euro zone leaders would examine ways of improving it.

After a 50-minute meeting with Mr Kenny at the Élysée Palace in Paris this afternoon, Mr Hollande pledged his support for Ireland’s position.

“The Irish specificity is that for several months there had already been a recapitalisation of banks through the budget, which further exacerbated Ireland’s debt and forced it to impose a tough austerity program,” Mr Hollande remarked.

“I said Ireland was a special case and should be treated as such.”

Asked by The Irish Times if this meant he agreed with the Irish position that bank recapitalisations through the ESM should be retroactive, the French president said: “Yes. Ireland is asking that its specific situation should be taken into account – that it had to recapitalise its banks with its own means. The Eurogroup will take this specificity into account.”

Mr Kenny said that what made Ireland a special case was the fact that it had a European position “imposed upon it” when the banking sector collapsed.

“Ireland was the first and only country which had a European position imposed upon it, in the sense that there wasn’t the opportunity if the Government wished to do it their way by burning bondholders.

“The Irish public and Irish taxpayer were required to service the full extent of the debt, which was a situation which we’re trying to reduce by the negotiations which are going on.”

Mr Kenny’s visit to Paris was his first as Taoiseach, reflecting an improvement in relations between France and Ireland since Mr Hollande came to power in May. He is also attending a major food fair in Villepinte, near Paris, underlining France’s importance as one of Ireland’s main export markets.

Mr Hollande confirmed that he would receive President Michael D Higgins in Paris next February.

This afternoon, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said if a bank-debt deal can be reached, it would not affect this year’s budget.

He said it was made clear during the June euro zone meeting that any move on bank recapitalisation would only happen after an EU-wide banking supervisory body was in place. “We are looking well into next year, quite clearly after the budget….[but] If we get a resolution which makes the debt more sustainable obviously that improves budgets in the future,” Mr Noonan added.

Earlier, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said the joint statement made it clear that Ireland is being treated as a “special case” in Europe. He said the deal on Ireland’s bank debt “was never off track” although he conceded there was “concern” at Government level on Friday after Dr Merkel dismissed retrospective recapitalisation of banks in response to a question about the Spanish situation.

“The issuing of a joint communiqué . . . puts the issue beyond any doubt that Ireland’s case being treated as special,” he said.

He said contacts between Berlin and Dublin began immediately after Dr Merkel’s comments on Friday and continued at very senior diplomatic level over the weekend, culminating in a telephone discussion between Dr Merkel and Mr Kenny and the issuing of the communiqué.

Mr Gilmore was speaking at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, where he was attending the Africa Ireland Economic Forum. He said the statement issued last night was perfectly consistent with what was agreed in June by European heads of State. He said there was political support for efforts to work through Ireland’s debt problem in European capitals, including Berlin.

He stressed the statement was clear that Ireland’s case was special. “There’s a very strong view that Europe needs a winner and needs a country to come out of the programme and Ireland is the best-placed country to do that.”

Irish League of credit unions says it will lobby for changes to Credit Union Bill

   

The Irish League of Credit Unions has stated it will continue to lobby for changes to the Credit Union Bill after former senator Joe O’Toole accused it of having “learned nothing and forgotten nothing” about financial governance and probity.

The league, which represents 3.1 million members, called for changes to a number of aspects of the Credit Union Bill, including those which it feels would prevent it from sharing electronic lodgement and withdrawal services between branches.

It is also concerned about restrictions on officers serving in more than one branch.

The league said a further issue is that while the Bill provides for an appeal process to the Irish Financial Services Appeal Tribunal, a concurrent Bill regarding the Central Bank directs appeals to the High and Supreme Courts.

Mr O’Toole said it appeared “internal ILCU matters are taking precedence over a Government commitment to make the guts of €1 billion available to solve the credit union difficulties…in short to create a viable and safe Irish Credit Union movement”.

Mr O’Toole and ILCU chief executive Kieran Brennan both served on the Government’s Commission on Credit Unions which Mr O’Toole claims agreed a report which is the basis for the current legislation “unanimously and [it] was acclaimed and welcomed by every significant group including the ILCU”.

He says no group had more representation on that commission than the ILCU.

The two men have subsequently served on an implementation group to monitor the progress of action on the commission’s recommendations, Mr O’Toole said. It had been pleased with progress and there were no disagreements within the group.

“Then two weeks after we had sat around a table together impressing on the department the importance of keeping to the implementation schedule Kieran launches a campaign to delete some and dilute other key recommendations,” he said.

The league said it believes directions issued to it from the Central Bank under the Central Bank Bill would negate its ability to appeal to the financial services tribunal.

Mr Brennan says the application of the Central Bank Acts 1942-2011 to credit unions was neither discussed nor agreed at the commission and would be onerous for a voluntary organisation.

While the league welcomed most reforms in the Credit Union Bill, the “discrepancies” between the recommendations of the Commission on Credit Unions and the Credit Union Bill itself needed to be addressed, he said.

He said the league was “fully supportive of the need to assist the restructuring of the credit union sector” but he believed restructuring would need to be in done “in a manner that does not ignore the voluntary nature and ethos of the movement”.

Eamon Gilmore backs gay marriage

  

Ireland’s journey toward creating a society fully tolerant of the gay community is still not complete, the Tánaiste has claimed.

Eamon Gilmore said attitudes in the country were almost unrecognisable to those that prevailed a generation ago but insisted more progress was needed.

Addressing the European region’s annual International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) conference in Dublin, Mr Gilmore reaffirmed his support for the acknowledgment of gay marriage by the state.

“That ILGA Europe should choose our capital city, Dublin, for this conference is a source of pride for us,” he said.

“This city, and this Republic, have been on their own remarkable journey in relation to the rights of LGBTI persons.

“There is a generation of young Irish people, for whom the Ireland of twenty or thirty years ago would be almost unrecognisable.

“Thousands of young LGBTI persons, who in the past would have felt the need to live elsewhere, have opted to stay in Ireland.

“And by doing so, they have enriched the country and made it a more tolerant place. Many in public life have emerged as role models for young LGBTI people and, in recent years, civil partnership ceremonies have been occasions of great celebration around the country.

“That journey is still incomplete. As I have stated elsewhere, the right of same-sex couples to marry is not a gay rights issue, it is a civil rights issue, and one that I support.

“The question of same-sex marriage is one that will be considered by our forthcoming Constitutional Convention. This is an innovation in Irish democracy, where citizens and public representatives will come together to consider what changes might be made to our Constitution, so that it better reflects not just the society we are now, but the society we aspire to.”

The conference was attended by delegates from 42 countries across Europe who work for LGBTI rights.

Tiernan Brady, chair of the Dublin conference, welcomed Mr Gilmore’s attendance.

“The Tánaiste’s presence at the conference is remarkable symbol of the progress that has taken place in Ireland,” he said.

“The Tánaiste’s presence sent a powerful message of hope to those delegates coming from countries where LGBTI people are under daily threat, and where opportunities for progress are very limited.

“Many of these delegates face considerable challenges in their own countries in achieving basic human rights for LGBTI people.”

He added: “The Tánaiste’s commitment to continue Ireland’s strong track record of the promotion of human rights for LGBTI people across Europe and the world was enthusiastically welcomed by the delegates.”

Yesterday members of Ireland’s transgender community held a rally in Dublin to demand greater recognition in law.

They were joined at the gates of Leinster House by supporters from elsewhere in Europe at the protest calling for new legislation to have their changed gender acknowledged legally.

Organisers claim transgender people in Ireland and elsewhere in the world are treated as if they have a mental disorder.

They said the time had come for the introduction of “inclusive and respectful” gender recognition legislation and criticised progress made by the current Irish government on the issue.

Some 75% of people ‘cannot name the body’s biggest organ’

 

It may be basic biology but the majority of British people cannot name the largest organ in the body, according to a survey.

A total of 75% of people revealed they did not know it was the skin, while almost half (47%) of people admitted to wrongly self-diagnosing an illness.

Perhaps in a sign of the times, findings also revealed more than half (58%) of people prefer to check the internet about symptoms before consulting a doctor.

The survey of 2,000 people, commissioned to coincide with the release of the eighth series of medical drama House on DVD, showed that just under half of people believed their lungs were the largest organ in their bodies.

Demonstrating further confusion, 64% and 43% were unable able to correctly place their spleen and liver respectively.

Meanwhile, the research also revealed that nearly one in 10 people turn to television shows such as Embarrassing Bodies,Casualty, Doctors and House to self-diagnose medical conditions.

One in 20 people have overheard someone talking about an illness and used this information to self-diagnose, while one in 50 people have heard of a celebrity’s illness, such as Lady Gaga‘s lupus or Jade Goody’s cervical cancer, and again applied the symptoms to themselves.

Jane Druker, editor of Healthy magazine, said: “Increasingly, TV shows such as House are making people more aware of looking after their own health; however, it’s really worrying that so many Brits are self-medicating an illness rather than consulting with a GP or seeking the advice of a qualified high street health professional.

“With nearly half of people wrongly self-diagnosing an illness, this can lead to a great deal of unnecessary additional stress that could be avoided by simply asking a professional.”

House: Season 8 is available today on DVD, legal download and via video-on demand from Universal Playback.

Beluga whale ‘makes human-like sounds’

    

Beluga whales are known as “canaries of the sea” because of their frequent, high-pitched calls

Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalisations were remarkably close to human speech.

While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry.

But researchers heard a nine-year-old whale named NOC make sounds octaves below normal, in clipped bursts.

The researchers outline in Current Biology just how NOC did it.

But the first mystery was figuring out where the sound was coming from. The whales are known as “canaries of the sea” for their high-pitched chirps, and while a number of anecdotal reports of whales making human-like speech, none had ever been recorded.

When a diver at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in California surfaced saying, “Who told me to get out?” the researchers there knew they had another example on their hands.

Once they identified NOC as the culprit, they made the first-ever recordings of the behaviour.

They found that vocal bursts averaged about three per second, with pauses reminiscent of human speech. Analysis of the recordings showed that the frequencies within them were spread out into “harmonics” in a way very unlike whales’ normal vocalisations and more like those of humans.

They then rewarded NOC for the speech-like sounds to teach him to make them on command and fitted him with a pressure transducer within his nasal cavity, where sounds are produced, to monitor just what was going on.

They found that he was able to rapidly change the pressure within his nasal cavity to produce the sounds.

To amplify the comparatively low-frequency parts of the vocalisations, he over-inflated what is known at the vestibular sac in his blowhole – which normally acts to stop water entering the lungs.

In short, the mimicry was no easy task for NOC.

“Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds,” said Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation and lead author on the paper.

“The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale.”