If a low-income earner in Germany were to buy a new car, they would be committing to spending around 40% of their lifetime earnings on its upkeep. It’s as expensive as (or more expensive than) the average cost of single-person housing in the country. It’s so high because, aside from the monetary cost of driving, there are a variety of hidden expenses; for instance, “households that drive less than average bear more costs than they impose, and tend to subsidise the transportation costs of households that drive more than average.” Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
