Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Today’s reading rabbit holes..

Today’s reading rabbit hole which I disappeared into was driven by these articles all appearing in my Feedly :

Cause of hardening of the arteries – and potential treatment – identified

A subject close to my heart ๐Ÿ™‚ with my elevated blood pressure and after my carotid-femoral pulse measurements from the last Quantified Self conference I went too where they measured mine and found a stiff aorta ๐Ÿ™ This sent me down the route of looking at other research papers eg here and here reminding me I’ve yet to find anyone in the UK who will measure it in a more controlled environment here in the UK rather than a conference hall in Copenhagen!

Interesting that they think that that theย  “antibiotic minocycline was highly effective in preventing hardening of the arteries”

the-spread-of-agriculture-in-europe-genebank-edition/

This article visualises the +5000 years it took barley to reach the UK ๐Ÿ™‚

neolithic barley expansion
neolithic barley

All very interesting particularly using the web site Map Warper to warp two maps together.

Pretty gloomy news

Mortality rates are still rising in the UK โ€“ and everyone is ignoring how many more people are dying.

Interestingly my age group is still doing OK as you can see from the above chart.

As the article says:

Warnings for the future

Something is going very wrong. And whatever is going on is unique to the UK because in no other European country have there been overall falls in life expectancy that look at all like this. The figures for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are almost certainly as bad as England, but no one has as yet bothered to study them in any detail โ€“ let alone tried to work out where they are heading.

Very interesting the full article is hereย 

A blast from my past!

Whilst searching on the AllTrails website I discovered this little blast from the past which I uploaded to EveryTrail in 2008.

The original post came about when I discovered my 1956 YHA card. I then did a plot connecting up the Youth Hostels as much I could remember from when I was 8 years old. Staggering to think I did over 80 miles and all that climbing on a single speed bike ๐Ÿ™‚ With my parents (late forties), brother (12) and sister (10)

Geoff Jones bike ride when I was 8
Rough Route connecting the Youth Hostels

Cluster analysis of my cycling speed versus distance

A very interesting, for me, cluster analysis of my cycling speed versus distance made using the Strava Wind Analysis website

As you can see the shorter the distance ridden the slower I ride ๐Ÿ™ Obviously when I’m touring on a loaded bike I ride much shorter distances.

Geoff Jones cycling speed versus distance
Cycling ride distance versus speed

Interesting that my speed on Audaxes is always between 20 kph to 23kph irrespective of distance, well upto 300km ๐Ÿ™‚ anyway.

The fastest ride is the 25.9kph ridden with Sally’s TTT group on my Fixie.
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