‘Ageing is not a destructive force’: How defying ageism can help you live longer – BBC

Serenity Strull / BBC

By Molly Gorman, 3 days ago

Research shows a positive attitude towards ageing can make people feel younger and live longer. Here’s how to fight ageism in your own life.

“Ageism can change how we view ourselves.”

That’s according to The World Health Organization’s global report on ageism. And addressing this bias – how we harmfully think, feel or act towards people, or ourselves, on the basis of age – is critical for creating a more equal world, it argues.

There are health benefits of defying ageism too – as research suggests that it can make people feel younger and live longer. More on that later.

It’s true that you can be any age and experience ageism. Take Gen-Z for example, those born between 1997 and 2012, who are often branded as “lazy” by older generations. It does mostly affects older adults though, and most of the research on ageism has focused on this demographic.

In the UK, one in three people experience age-based prejudice or discrimination. In a US study, 93% of 2,000 adults aged between 50 and 80 years old said they experienced some form of everyday ageism. Internalised ageism was the most common, followed by exposure to ageist messaging.

“The interesting part of this whole phenomenon is the person who is ageist is going to be aged at some point in time,” says Parminder Raina, scientific director at the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging in Canada. By 2030, one in six adults in the world will be aged 60 or over. “Ageism is a very personal issue. But people don’t recognise it as a personal issue.”

Negative attitudes towards ageing are often inherited in the early years of life, from our parents, the media or biased memories, even as early as three, according to one study. As a result, one researcher suggests that children must be educated on ageing from a young age to ensure their effective understanding of the life cycle, and to better prepare them for their own ageing process.

Ageing is not a destructive force. It is actually a remarkable achievement of the modern public health system – Parminder Raina

After all, the way we talk about ageing can affect how we feel about it, and in turn the way we live. Consider the language used in popular media – which undoubtedly can shape our views. Raina gives the example of the phrase “grey tsunami“, a metaphor which infers that our rapidly ageing population is a problem.

“Tsunami is a very destructive force. Ageing is not a destructive force. It is actually a remarkable achievement of the modern public health system,” he says.

A self-fulfilling prophecy

Ageism can cause older adults to internalise and confine themselves to negative stereotypes. For example, they may become less willing to accept new learning opportunities when they are perfectly capable of doing so, which can lead to low levels of self-esteem and self-confidence. This is referred to as the stereotype embodiment theory – where stereotypes are unconsciously assimilated, internalised and then influence day-to-day functioning and health.

In other words, it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘Ageing is not a destructive force’: How defying ageism can help you live longer

#Ageing #Aging #BBC #BBCCom #Defying #Learning #LiveLonger #OlderAdults #Perspective #Stereotypes

‘There’s nothing like boredom to make you write’: A rare interview with the elusive Agatha Christie – BBC.com

‘There’s nothing like boredom to make you write’: A rare interview with the elusive Agatha Christie

3 days ago

By Greg McKevitt

Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries have captivated audiences for more than a century, but, 50 years after her death, she remains an enigma. A rarely heard BBC interview from 1955 reveals some of the secrets of a writer who was as complex as her plots.

Dame Agatha Christie was brilliant at hiding in plain sight. She presented herself as a genial older lady in a fur coat who loved gardening, good food, family and dogs, but behind that cosy exterior she delighted in plotting best-selling stories of poisonings, betrayals and blood. And she offered few clues to the inner workings of her ingenious mind.

Christie was chronically shy, but in 1955 she was persuaded to give a rare interview in her London flat for a BBC radio profile. In it she revealed how an unconventional childhood fired her imagination, why writing plays was easier than writing novels, and how she could finish a book in three months.  

Born Agatha Miller into a prosperous family in 1890, she was mostly home-schooled. When asked why she took up writing, Christie said: “I put it all down to the fact that I never had any education. Perhaps I’d better qualify that by admitting I did eventually go to school in Paris when I was 16 or thereabouts. But until then, apart from being taught a little arithmetic, I’d had no lessons to speak of at all.”

WATCH: ‘Three months seems to be quite a reasonable time to complete a book’.

Editor’s Note: The audio file from BBC is in the article online. If you wish to hear. Below is the same audio file as loaded January 14, 2026, onto YouTube. –DrWeb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF8X9fVeigI

Christie described her childhood as “gloriously idle”, but she had a voracious appetite for reading. “I found myself making up stories and acting the different parts, and there’s nothing like boredom to make you write. So by the time I was 16 or 17, I’d written quite a number of short stories and one long, dreary novel.” She said she finished writing her first published novel at the age of 21. After several rejections, The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920, introducing her most famous creation, Hercule Poirot. 

The poisoning murder method that she chose for the story came straight from her personal experience during World War One. While her first husband Archie Christie was deployed in France, she worked on the home front as a volunteer nurse in a hospital for wounded soldiers. She became an assistant in the hospital pharmacy, which gave her an understanding of medicines and toxins. In her stories, poison is used in 41 murders, attempted murders and suicides.

The real work is done in thinking out the development of your story – Agatha Christie

Christie’s typical formula begins with a closed circle of suspects from the same social world, and a murder that generates clues leading to a climactic confrontation. At the centre is a private detective, such as Poirot or Miss Marple, who unravels the mystery and reveals the truth to the group in a dramatic final scene. This structure, familiar yet endlessly adaptable, is part of what makes Christie’s work so enduring.

In 1926, she published The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a book that cemented her professional reputation even as her personal life unravelled that year. Her beloved mother died, and Archie confessed he had fallen in love with another woman. He asked for a divorce. Struggling with grief and writer’s block, Christie herself became the subject of a mystery. On a cold December night, her crashed car was found at a desolate Surrey beauty spot, balanced precariously over a chalk quarry. Police found her fur coat and driving licence in the car, but there was no sign of her.

Agatha Christie said that writing plays was ‘much more fun than writing books’ (Credit: Getty Images)

One of Britain’s biggest ever missing-person searches was launched. The story had all the makings of a tabloid sensation: the celebrated crime novelist who had disappeared leaving a trail of tantalising clues, the seven-year-old daughter left behind, and the handsome husband entangled with a younger lover. Even Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got involved, hiring a psychic to connect with Agatha via one of her gloves.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘There’s nothing like boredom to make you write’: A rare interview with the elusive Agatha Christie

#1955 #AgathaChristie #Audio #BBCCom #Biographical #Boredom #Culture #Mysteries #Novels #ShortStories #Writing

Google Willow: The secrets of the world’s most powerful quantum computer

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Inside the sub-zero lair of the world’s most powerful computer

By Faisal Islam, Economics editor

Inside the secretive lab which stores the world’s most powerful computer

It looks like a golden chandelier and contains the coldest place in the known universe.

What I am looking at is not just the most powerful computer in the world, but technology pivotal to financial security, Bitcoin, government secrets, the world economy and more.

Quantum computing holds the key to which companies and countries win – and lose – the rest of the 21st Century.

In front of me suspended a metre in the air, in a Google facility in Santa Barbara California, is Willow. Frankly, it was not what I expected.

There are no screens or keyboards, let alone holographic head cams or brain-reading chips.

Willow is an oil barrel-sized series of round discs connected by hundreds of black control wires descending into a bronze liquid helium bath refrigerator keeping the quantum microchip a thousandth of a degree above absolute zero.

It looks, and feels, very eighties, but if quantum’s potential is realised, the metal and wire jellyfish structure in front of me will transform the world, in many ways.

“Welcome to our Quantum AI lab,” says Hartmut Neven, Google’s Quantum AI chief, as we go through the high security door.

Neven is something of a legendary figure, part technological genius, part techno music enthusiast, who dresses like he has snowboarded here straight from the Burning Man music festival – for which he designs art. Perhaps he has, in a parallel universe – more on that later.

His mission is to turn theoretical physics into functional quantum computers “to solve otherwise unsolvable problems” and he admits he’s biased but says these chandeliers are the best performing in the world.

Faisal Islam was shown around a Google facility in Santa Barbara

Secret temple of high science

Much of our conversation is about what we are not allowed to film in this restricted lab. This critical technology is subject to export controls, secrecy and is at the heart of a race for commercial and economic supremacy. Any small advantage, from the shape of new components to the companies in global supply chains, is a source of potential leverage.

There is a notable Californian vibe in this temple of high science, in its art and colour. Each quantum computer is given a name such as Yakushima or Mendocino, they are each wrapped in a piece of contemporary art, and various graffiti-style murals adorn the walls illuminated by the bright winter sun.

Neven holds up Willow, Google’s latest quantum chip, which has delivered two important milestones. He said it settled “once and for all” the discussion about whether quantum computers can do tasks that classical computers can’t.

Willow also solved a benchmark problem in minutes that would have taken the best computer in the world 10 septillion years, so more than a trillion trillion, or one with 25 zeros on the end, more than the age of the universe.

This theoretical result was recently applied to the Quantum Echoes algorithm, impossible for conventional computers, which helps learn the structure of molecules from the same technology used in MRI machines.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Google Willow: The secrets of the world’s most powerful quantum computer

#BBC #BBCNews #BBCCom #Google #QuantumComputer #QuantumPhysics #Willow #WorldSMostPowerful

The Lord of the Rings to Terminator 2 -10 of the most terrifying moments in film

(Credit: Alamy) (Credit: Alamy)

The Lord of the Rings to Terminator 2: 10 of the most terrifying moments in film

2 days ago, By BBC Features team

As people around the world mark Halloween, our editors pick the frightening scenes that have truly stayed with them.

(Credit: Universal Pictures)

The diner sequence in Mulholland Drive (2001)

David Lynch’s film was named the best film of the 21st Century in a BBC critics’ poll. It’s also one of the scariest films of the 21st Century, largely because of a five-minute scene that shouldn’t be scary at all. The deceptively simple sequence consists of nothing more than two friends in a Los Angeles diner talking about a dream one of them had, and then walking outside into the broad daylight – and yet, thanks to Lynch’s mastery of pacing and atmosphere, it’s almost unbearable. The classic jump scare is a factor, of course, but it’s the dread that builds beforehand that really chills the blood, as the protagonist realises that he is trapped in his own worst nightmare. And, like anyone in a nightmare, he has no control over what happens next… (Nicholas Barber)

(Credit: Alamy)

Sadako goes in for the kill in Ringu (1998)

Scarier than many more bombastic horrors, Ringu is a quiet but deeply uneasy film. Set in 1990s Japan, it tells the tale of Sadako, a girl murdered for her supernatural powers, whose vengeful spirit is trapped inside a cursed videotape. The climax comes when a lead character, Ryuji, is killed by the curse. He is alone when the tape spontaneously begins to play on his television, showing Sadako crawling towards the front of the screen. You can’t help but recoil. Jaws-esque music builds and she jerks unnaturally forwards. Her iconic long black hair covers all but one manic eye – which is looking directly at you. Then she climbs right out of the TV. The ghost pierces the fourth wall and breaks into the real world. At least, that’s what it feels like. Ringu was revolutionary in its depiction of viral media and its dangers – and promises to haunt those who watch it forever. (Katherine Latham)

(Credit: New Line Cinema)

Bilbo goes feral in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 

There are plenty of scary moments in Peter Jackson’s thrilling Lord of the Rings trilogy, but Shelob, Orcs and Ringwraiths aside, there’s one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scary moment to rule them all. In the series’ first instalment, an injured Frodo (Elijah Wood) is reunited in a cosy Rivendell setting with Bilbo Baggins (played by the twinkly Ian Holm), who briefly loses his senses in the presence of the Ring. Using a mixture of animatronics, makeup and digital effects, Jackson (who had a background in horror) transforms Holm’s face momentarily into a grotesque vision of greed and desire. Acting as a chilling harbinger of doomy events to come, it’s the unexpected nature of this genuine jump scare that made it so terrifying – to this day, I still have to watch it through my fingers. (Rebecca Laurence)

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Lord of the Rings to Terminator 2: 10 of the most terrifying moments in film

#BBC #BBCCom #Bilbo #Halloween #MulhollandDrive #Ringu #Sadako #Scary #ScaryMovies #Terminator2 #TerrifyingMoments #TheFellowshipOfTheRing #TheLordOfTheRings