Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

Mercury Safe Sushi

The Sierra Club has released a new smartphone app, Safe Sushi, for sushi lovers looking to control mercury consumption. In the ‘you need to know’ diversion provided by the New York Times, mercury is a neurotoxin in small doses.

In the 19th century, the use of mercury by haberdashers for treating felt for hats led to high levels of exposure and erratic behavior, inspiring the character of the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.”

Read earlier article on Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sustainable fish guide.

James Murdoch in Hot Seat

James Murdoch, News International’s executive chairman insists that he didn’t properly read the June 7, 2008 email from News of the World editor Colin Myler forwarding information about a hacking legal case eventually settled for about $1 million.

Murdoch received two warnings about the state of phone hacking at News Corporation, the second one even more damaging than the first and coming from outside council. It claimed that phone hacking was “rife” throughout News International. via The Guardian

More headlines:

From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model New York Times

The quest for the ‘God particle’: Tiny matter, big cliffhanger LA Times

Girls are no worse than boys at math: Study in 86 countries shows differences caused by attitudes to women Daily Mail

More DFR

Imag by Sally McCay at WSJPsychological Disorders Skyrocket on Campus

Universities and colleges say they see a rise in the number of students registering with their disability offices, claiming psychological problems. Pace University reports a tripling of reported psychological disorders in the last three years. Yes — 300% increase in three years.

At the University of Texas at Austin, 33% of the 1,687 students that registered with the disability services office during the spring 2011 semester listed psychological problems as their “primary” concern. In the spring of 2008, only 23% out of 1,175 did. (The increase was due, in part, to a procedural change that routed more students to the disability office.) Read on at Wall Street Journal

Your Backup Brain

Michael Gershon, professor and chair of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University is the father of the new field known as neurogastroenterology. The gut, explains Gershow can work totally apart from the brain in your head. It functions as a second brain, making it another independent center of integrative neural activity. Hopefully this intro has gotten your attention as it has ours. Read on at Psychology Today.