If anyone thinks that we gave Meg Markle a hard time in critical posts this week, simply consider that her sister and dad are her harshest critics:
  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10775155/samantha-markle-meghan-harry-never-find-happiness/

“MY sister has ripped through the Royal Family like a tornado. With this historic institution close to collapse, we have to ask whether peace can really be found. Her Majesty’s words show great diplomacy but Meghan’s behaviour has so far not been diplomatic. A diplomat wouldn’t fall out with her own family. Her friends leaked negative comments about the “toxic” Royal Family. She also allowed damage to be done against our family via friends and PR advisers. She watched the media taunt and torture my dad, never springing to his defence like a true humanitarian would. Thomas was an incredible dad. He paid every penny of her education and cared greatly for her. He is now frail, with a heart condition. He doesn’t have a PR team to spin him a good story. The Queen, at 93, shouldn’t have had to face the stress of seeing her family torn apart. Meghan hasn’t stepped forward to minimise the damage. She knows how Harry leaving has affected them, but she hasn’t spoken up in their defence. Yet in her statement, the Queen says she is “particularly proud of how Meghan has so quickly become one of the family”. Her Majesty is building bridges there. It would be good if Meghan could do the same. She could have expressed her thanks for the kindness of the Queen and Prince Charles. She could have expressed gratitude to her own father or her first husband, Trevor, who gave her career opportunities. My sister has become a totally different person, choosing wealth and fortune over family.”

     The first case of the coronavirus outside of China has been reported:
  https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2020/01/21/cdc-confirms-first-us-case-of-china-coronavirus/

“An individual traveling from China has been diagnosed in Seattle with the coronavirus, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spokesman confirmed on Tuesday. The development comes after Chinese health officials announced that the virus has killed at least 6 people and sickened over 300. Four cases were confirmed in South Korea, Japan, and Thailand. Additionally, a Taiwanese national who recently visited Wuhan, tested positive for the virus. China’s Health Commission announced 291 confirmed cases of the virus, with 77 new cases reported on Monday alone. Municipal health commissions of Zhejiang, Tianjin, and Shanghai reported additional cases, pushing the number of infections up to 302. The number of confirmed cases in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, has risen to 270; Bejing has five, Guangdong province 14, Shanghai six, Zhejiang five and Tianjin two. Wuhan announced new measures Tuesday to contain the outbreak, including the cancellation of upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations. The new measures follow President Xi Jinping ordering increased efforts to stop the spread of the disease Monday, but there are fears efforts to contain the virus impeded by Chinese bureaucracy have come too late. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are expected to travel across the country in the coming days ahead of the Lunar New Year and raise concerns of a potential increase in cases. Presently, the virus appears to be less lethal than the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which resulted in 774 deaths. “Based on current information, an animal source seems the most likely primary source of this outbreak with limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts,” said World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. “Based on current data, some new cases seem to experience milder diseases which is within the milder end of the spectrum of symptoms caused by respiratory illnesses,” Jasarevic added.”

     Australian Fire-lighters come in six colours – yellow, black, white, blood red, dark green, and light green. All are relevant to bushfires and forest management. “Yellow” is the Fire-lighter that has been with us forever. It is the yellow flash of lightning which has always ignited the Australian bush. We’re dreaming to think we can lock yellow fire out of parks, forests and heritage areas. But good forest management can reduce the ferocity and destruction of lightning-strike fires. “Black” Fire-lighters came with the first Australians. Without matches or tinder boxes they probably captured the fire genie from a lightning fire. Or they carried it here on clay hearths on the floor of their canoes. They valued this magic tool for warmth, cooking, insect control, vegetation clearing, animal trapping and fighting enemies. Some also learned how to light fires using heat generated by friction, but this was a slow laborious process and it was far easier to preserve and carry fire in a burning fire-stick. To keep these sticks alight or to light a new one as they travelled, nomadic parties on the plains and deserts renewed them periodically by setting fire to a clump of dry vegetation. Then they moved on. They lit fires for many reasons, anywhere at any time. They tried to keep out of the way of fires, and were known to redirect mild grassland fires but never tried to put them out. This continual mosaic of small fires created the magnificent grasslands and open forests that Europeans admired when they first arrived. Aboriginal fire management followed no central plan, but it worked, making most lives and forests safer.

     “White” Fire-lighters were introduced by the next wave of settlers – the British, bringing matches, flints and tinder boxes. They marvelled at the grasslands and open forests they found. Soon the sheep and cattle of the squatters were flourishing on the fresh nutritious pastures of frequently burned land. They soon learned about bushfires as the “Yellow” and “Black” Fire-lighters were still operating. The squatters soon learned two new skills to protect their pastures, flocks, herds, stock-yards, wool sheds and homesteads. Firstly, reduce fire loads and encourage new grass using cool season burning. And secondly, when faced with invading fires, fight fire with fire – back burn from station tracks, freshly burned bush or creeks towards the invading fire. We need to relearn these valuable lessons. “Blood-Red” Fire-lighters are carried by the fire vandals – the arsonists. And the greater the fire danger, and the more headlines it creates, the more active are these pyro-maniacs. “Light-Green” Fire-lighters were developed in the 1960’s and 1970’s for professional foresters to protect forests with prescribed burning. These marvellous tools were banned by political fools, and are hard to procure today.

     Yet another “joy’ of globalism and the rule of money, which reduces everything and everybody to money:
  https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50828386

“Top social media influencers are being propositioned daily by strangers with offers of thousands of pounds in return for sex, the Victoria Derbyshire programme has been told. One said social media had become "a catalogue" for men to select their next conquest. "It's high-end prostitution - it's just scary to think if they've messaged me, they've probably sent it to thousands of pretty girls on Instagram," says Tyne-Lexy Clarson. She says she was only 19 when she was first propositioned, with an offer of £20,000 for dinner and drinks. But after starring in series two of Love Island, an agency emailed, offering her £50,000 for five nights in Dubai. It contained a non-disclosure agreement, stating that the details of what she would be required to do would remain confidential. Tyne-Lexy says she refused the offer, but fears that struggling influencers who do not receive luxury items for free would feel pressure to "keep up appearances" and become vulnerable to these kinds of transactions. "It's a lot of money for some people, it's life-changing amounts of money." Rosie Williams, who starred in series three of Love Island, says she was offered £100,000 a year plus all her clothes and bags, to become a companion to a man in Dubai. She showed us one of the recent messages she had received, from a man purporting to be in Dubai. It says she may be surprised to hear from him but he has an "important transaction" he wishes to share - which she says is a common turn of phrase in these messages. And she says she would never be tempted, despite the large amount of money involved. Rosie says it is not an aspect of fame she anticipated: "You're warned about trolling, you're warned that your life will change dramatically, but you're never warned that you could get bought by men." And she says it is not spoken about in influencer circles: "We either aren't in a position where we need to do it so we don't speak about it, or we've done it and we're too ashamed."

     Even a crusty old cynic like myself never thought that the Vatican even under the present Third World Pope would descend to levels like this, well, not as quickly:
  https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-21-pope-francis-hosts-drag-queen-circus-vatican-hall.html

“It was a celebration of all things strange, sexual and satanic at the Roman Catholic religion’s Vatican Hall on January 8. Pope Francis reportedly invited a group known as “Aqua Circus,” Europe’s response to “Cirque du Soleil,” to dance around on stage and pay homage to the reptile “jesus” idol perched up in a display behind him. During this postlude to Rome’s General Audience event, Francis tossed a hula hoop to the “artists” in the performance troupe who were acting out a tale about a mermaid and a man under the sea trying to fight contamination of the ocean. In other words, the purpose of the show was to offer worship to Francis’ god of global warming and climate change. In the below video footage, watch as creepy Francis smirks with satisfaction at the pagan performance happening right in front of him. And keep in mind that Vatican Hall itself is shaped like a giant serpent, both inside and out (pictures of Vatican Hall are available at Now The End Begins)”:

     I am a lover of large fighting and survival knives, just the sort of things which men need in this world to keep their T-levels up. While I thought I knew a fair bit about the Bowie knife, this was mainly American knowledge.     Gustavus von Tempsky, born in East Prussia in 1828, one year after Jim Bowie’s famous Vidalia Sandbar fight, was an adventurer who moved to Australia during the gold rush period, but did not make much money, so he tried his hand in New Zealand. He wound up in the Forest Rangers, a type of special ops designed to fight the Maori uprising in the bush. Firearms in the 1860s were more reliable than in Jim Bowie’s day, but von Tempsky felt that men should be equipped with a Bowie knife, and the fighting techniques he had learnt while in America and Mexico. So, he introduced the Bowie knife to New Zealand. This is what a leading expert on the Bowie, Paul Kirchner, has to say about the  significance of this fine act of cultural exchange:
  http://bowieknifefightsfighters.blogspot.com/2011/04/bowie-knife-fighter-gustavus-von.html

“To equip his troops, Tempsky had about 30 bowie knives made to his specifications by a cutler in Auckland. They were crafted from wagon springs, one of the few sources of steel available to New Zealand blacksmiths in 1863. The blade was about nine inches long, 2½ inches wide near the handle, and ¼-inch thick. Tempsky taught his men to use the knife in close-quarters combat, holding the knife in the left hand to fend off an opponent's attacking blows while using a revolver with the right hand. Here's a brief mention of Tempsky in Britain's Roll of Glory; or the Victoria Cross: Its Heroes and Their Valor:

     Companies will get diverse, or else:
  https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/23/goldman-says-it-wont-take-companies-public-without-at-least-one-diverse-director-heres-what-it-should-have-said/

“Now Goldman Sachs  has made an announcement of its own that’s very much a part of the times: its CEO, David Solomon, today told CNBC that beginning this year, Goldman will no longer take companies public if they don’t have at least one “diverse” member on its board of directors. “Starting on July 1st in the U.S. and Europe, we’re not going to take a company public unless there’s at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women,” Solomon said specifically on the network’s “Squawk Box.” Some will, perhaps rightly, see the announcement as little more than marketing. After all, it’s already widely viewed as unacceptable for a company to go public without at least one female board member and preferably far more “diversity” than that. WeWork, for example, tried to go public last year with an all-male board, only to realize soon after that if it wanted to pursue an initial public offering, it had better mix it up a bit. (Of course, by the time it amended its S-1 to name Harvard professor Frances Frei as its first female board member, its offering was already starting to implode.) Adding one’s first female board member ahead of an IPO is such a cliche at this point that the more interesting question is how close to the filing a related announcement will be made.

     Here is another feminist telling white people not to have children to save the planet, or whatever.
  https://summit.news/2020/01/22/feminist-author-calls-on-germans-to-stop-having-babies-to-save-the-planet/

“Feminist author Verena Brunschweiger has called on Germans to stop having babies to save the planet, despite the fact that the country’s native fertility rate is already at just 1.4 children per woman. In an interview with Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, Brunschweiger warns “we are on the brink of ecological collapse” and that the only solution is “the renunciation of one’s own reproduction.” Claiming that this topic is being kept hidden in “pro-natalist Germany,” Brunschweiger, who herself is childless, remarked, “It is…above all because of the masses of people that we have such big environmental problems. We are just too many and hardly anyone wants to limit themselves. If we were fewer people and restricted ourselves, we could save something.” Brunschweiger claimed that she felt like she was “in Saudi Arabia in the 14th century” when trying to voice her message, but that she had received support from a lot of women. The feminist is directing her message to Germans despite the fact that the country’s native fertility rate is around 1.4 children per woman, well below the necessary 2.1 replacement rate. “Since 1972, Germany has not seen a single year in which the number of newborns has exceeded the number of deaths,” reports Arutz Sheva. Despite her passion for population reduction, Brunschweiger’s “virtue-signalling has not yet reached the continent of Africa,” reports Free West Media. “Africa’s child population will reach 1 billion by 2055, making it the largest child population among all continents.” Indeed, sub-Saharan Africa will produce the most births for the rest of the century, so if Brunschweiger really cared about lowering the global population to save the planet, she would be telling Africans to stop breeding, which would of course be racist. And after all, to progressives it’s better to be dead than called racist!”

     I found this one interesting: Bantu expansion in Africa in ancient times, marginalised the Pygmies. So much then for the exclusive guilt of the white colonialist, for dominance seems part and parcel of the human story, rightly or wrongly:
  https://www.amren.com/news/2020/01/the-old-weird-africa-ancient-pygmy-dna-uncovered-by-david-reich/

“With the New Bantu Expansion gearing up to be perhaps the most important global event of the 21st Century, it’s worth looking at the cost paid by Pygmies and other diverse groups during the Old Bantu Expansion of prehistory. Svante Paabo’s breakthrough in being able to sequence DNA from ancient skeletons drove much of the most interesting science of the decade now just closed. But, we’ve tended to be lacking in ancient DNA from sub-Saharan Africa because DNA breaks down faster in warm and wet climates. A variety of other evidence has been pointing towards some interesting weirdnesses in current sub-Saharan DNA, such as indications of a lost “ghost archaic” ancestral population. I wrote about the “The Ghosts of Africa” two years ago in Taki’s Magazine in my third review of geneticist David Reich’s Who We Are and How We Got Here.

     Anyone who was following the immigration and multiculturalism debate in the 1980s and 1990s, would remember that the key argument of the Growths was that none of this would change the Australian way of life, but that diversity would enrich it, with all the metaphors of meals, dinners, salads and things that the decadent chattering class, liked. It was a lie for the time, just like populate or perish was for the World War II era. Here is Ross Gittins, still going at it, God bless him:
  https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/high-immigration-is-changing-the-aussie-way-of-life-20191126-p53e5e.html

“The nation’s economic elite – politicians of all colours, businesspeople and economists – long ago decided we need to grow our population as fast as we can. To them, their reasons for believing this are so blindingly obvious they don’t need to be discussed. Unfortunately, however, it’s doubtful most ordinary Australians agree. A survey last year by researchers at the Australian National University found that more than 69 per cent of respondents felt we didn’t need more people, well up on a similar poll in 2010. This may explain why Scott Morrison announced before this year’s election a big cut in our permanent migrant intake – while failing to mention that our booming temporary migrant intake wouldn’t be constrained. He also foreshadowed measures to encourage more migrants to settle in regional cities. What he didn’t say is what he’d be doing differently this time, given the many times such efforts had failed in the past. In between scandalising over the invading hordes of boat people, John Howard greatly increased the immigration intake after the turn of the century, and this has been continued by the later Labor and Coalition governments. “Net overseas migration” accounts for about 60 per cent of our population growth. In 2000, the Australian Bureau of Statistics projected that our population wouldn’t reach 25.4 million until 2051. We got there this year. Our population is growing much faster than other developed countries are. The growth in our economy has been so weak over the past year that they’ve had to stop saying it, but for years our politicians boasted about how much faster our economy was growing than the other economies. What they invariably failed to mention was that most of our faster growth was explained by our faster-growing population, not our increasing prosperity. Over the year to June, for instance, real gross domestic product grew by (a pathetic) 1.4 per cent, whereas GDP per person actually fell by 0.2 per cent. That’s telling us that, despite the growth in the economy, on average our material standard of living is stagnant. All that immigration isn’t making the rest of us any better off in monetary terms.”

     Can it be that all of those rockets scientists-to-be, who will be paying for Swedish boomer pensions, are abusing the welfare system? That must be some kind of racist prank, surely?
  https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/10/former-insurance-directors-warn-migrants-can-abuse-welfare-system-easily/

“Three former Swedish insurance fund directors have claimed that since 2015, accounting for migrants in the Swedish national social insurance system has practically collapsed, leading to a high potential for abuse. Stig Orustfjord, Gunnar Johansson, and Erik Kärnekull have claimed that the large number of migrants received by Sweden at the height of the migrant crisis has overwhelmed the bureaucracy and accounting for migrants has “almost collapsed”. “The system got its final crack in 2015 when the integrity of the public records could no longer be guaranteed. Today, the bookkeeping and control of immigrants have almost collapsed. We no longer have control over who lives and resides in the country,” the three said in a debate article in Nyheter Idag. “We have a large number of co-ordination numbers, which give the right to social security’s residence-based contributions, to persons whose identity is not confirmed. Swedish citizenship has been assigned to people whose identities we have not been able to establish and who have in many cases been assigned parallel Swedish identities,” they explained.”

     Here is a problem, at least prima facie, for the abortion argument; unborn babies before 24-weeks can feel pain:
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7903507/Unborn-babies-feel-pain-24-week-abortion-limit-scientists-say.html

“Unborn babies may be able to feel pain before reaching 24 weeks, say scientists – meaning they could suffer as they are being aborted. Until now, the consensus of medical opinion has been that foetuses cannot feel pain before 24 weeks' gestation, after which abortion is illegal in Britain except in special cases. But two medical researchers, including a 'pro-choice' British pain expert who used to think there was no chance foetuses could feel pain that early, say recent studies strongly suggest the assumption is incorrect. The studies indicate unborn babies might be able to feel 'something like pain' as early as 13 weeks, they say. Women going for abortions who have reached this stage of pregnancy should be told the foetus could experience pain while being terminated, they argue. And medical staff should ask if the woman wants it to be given pain relief. To carry on regardless of new evidence 'flirts with moral recklessness', they write in the influential Journal of Medical Ethics. Last night, anti-abortionists said the scientists' claims should change attitudes towards abortion and the practice of it – suggestions that were swiftly rejected by the country's biggest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. The lead author of the controversial article is British professor Stuart Derbyshire, who has acted as a consultant to the Pro-Choice Forum in the UK and Planned Parenthood, a leading American pro-choice organisation. In 2006, he wrote in the British Medical Journal that avoiding talking to women seeking abortions about foetal pain was 'sound policy based on good evidence that foetuses cannot experience pain'.”

     There was a group of young Chinese girls handing out leaflets on a city street here in Melbourne, and I naturally took one, which read: “Falun Gong Meditators Killed in China for Their Organs.” Naturally I was interested. But before I could speak, this large Chinese guy rushed over to me, telling me not to read the leaflet. Maybe he was a Kung Fu expert, which John Steele tells me, quoting Mixed Martial Artist Ramsey Dewey (himself based in Shanghai China) would make me relatively safe, given how bad Kung Fu is as a fighting system:
  https://www.youtube.com/user/balletman/videos

     Anyway, I told the lad to rack off, or words to that effect, that this is still Australia, land of the free, and if he wanted my leaflet, he would have to take it from me, prying it from my cold, dead fingers. At this point, he simply snatched the leaflet from me, as easy as his country men are harvesting, with their combine harvesters, Australia’s water, and he viciously tore it up. But, then I got another leaflet, and ran, or did what I thought was a close approximation to running, zig zagging to make it hard for him to follow me, maybe even see my aged form. At times I stopped running, gasping for breath, and went in reverse, then did a few circles. People looked on in amazement, as he had long ago stopped following me. For your reference on organ harvesting:
  www.EndTransplantAbuse.org
  https://endtransplantabuse.org/organ-transplants-crimes-against-humanity-in-china-an-australian-issue-maria-a-fiatarone-singh/
  www.dafoh.org
  www.fofg.org

To The Age         Brian Edgar is surely right (21/1) that there is only one race on our planet - the human race. However, this is divided into various ethnic groups and loyalty to one's own ethnic group appears to be natural and should not be condemned as "racist". That word should be carefully reserved for unjust behaviour based on ethnic identity. It was surely inevitable that, as a global culture developed during recent centuries, more and more mixing would occur between ethnic groups and that, while very welcome to some, this would be unwelcome to others. Caution, patience and consideration for those of different ethnicity and different views about ethnicity should be encouraged. This includes care to avoid misuse of the word "racist".
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

To The Age        There is self-interest behind Dvir Abramovich's commentary on the Holocaust ("We have to fight anti-Semitism at every turn", 23/1). Is this not really a case of a Jew demanding special treatment for his own group at the expense of others? And is this in fact another example of that promotion of Jewish supremacism which rightly worries many decent commentators around the world? Abramovich uses excessive language several times ("hisses with diabolical resonance", "This earthbound place of limitless hell", "acts of unspeakable cruelty", "a crime against all humankind" and "this demonic factory"). This is typical of those who wish to establish the Holocaust as being beyond criticism, the centrepiece of a new quasi-religious cult. What really is a crime against humankind is the ongoing demonisation of Holocaust revisionists. To stop that an evil taboo has to be lifted. This does not mean approval of Nazi crimes against Jews or others. It does mean genuine commitment to intellectual freedom.
  Nigel Jackson, Belgrave, Vic

     Not everything is going swimmingly for China. First, there are demographic woes, even given the country’s pro-natalist policies:
  https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202001/18/WS5e22494fa310128217271d58.html

“The birthrate on the Chinese mainland reached a record low last year, figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Friday showed. The total number of babies born last year was 14.65 million, a decrease of 580,000 from the previous year, while the birthrate stood at 10.48 per 1,000 population－the lowest over the past seven decades, according to the bureau. Meanwhile, total population on the mainland narrowly exceeded 1.4 billion by the end of last year, an increase of 4.7 million year-on-year. Last year marked the third consecutive year of falling births on the mainland despite the universal second-child policy having been adopted at the beginning of 2016. The policy, which encourages all couples to have two children, was designed to boost births to cope with rapid population aging. Births reached 17.86 million in 2016, the highest since 2000, according to the National Health Commission, but they fell to 17.23 million in 2017 and to 15.23 million in 2018. Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, said at a news conference on Friday that despite the decrease, the total number of births last year on the mainland was still very big, and the universal second-child policy has played a very important role in encouraging births. The decrease last year was the smallest, he said. Births fell by 630,000 in 2017 and by 2 million in 2018. "Of all babies born last year, 59.5 percent were the second or more child, with the percentage rising over the past few years," Ning said. The percentage has remained at about 50 percent since the universal second-child policy was enacted, according to the National Health Commission. Despite the policy, many couples in China were not willing to have a second baby, for reasons such as the high cost of raising children and a lack of nursery facilities, according to a survey organized by the commission.”

     Albert Einstein once complained in a letter about how pushed around American men were by their women, and he did it in tones that would be howled down today; but he was right. I can’t quickly find the letter on the net, but Einstein has been in hot water for realistic portrayal of various nations in his travels at the time.
  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/einsteins-travel-diaries-reveal-shocking-xenophobia

     Now the tide turns, and the claim of his wife Mileva Maric Einstein, to his intellectual contribution is being made:
  https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-forgotten-life-of-einsteins-first-wife/

     The annual Women’s March has occurred in the US, basically a Leftist, feminist, anti-Trump event, with a mast song in Spanish, America’s soon to be national language, titled, “A Rapist in Your Path”:
  https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/17/womens-march-promotes-2020-rallies-spanish-language-song-titled-rapist-your-path/

“The anti-Trump inspired Women’s March is taking place on Saturday in Washington, DC, with “patriarchy” and “rape” as themes, according to the event’s website. “Three years of marching, training, organizing, and building power – it’s all been leading up to this. In 2020, we have the chance to strengthen the movement we started three years, and to unite together in the face of continued attacks on our bodies, our rights, our immigrant communities, and our planet,” the website states. “This year, we aren’t just marching. We’re putting our bodies on the line hand in hand with other mass movements.”

     I have always felt uneasy about X-rays, I mean, it is quite unnatural to be able to see inside one’s body. Surely if God wanted this, He would have made us with zippers, or transparent! 
And, now that we, well, maybe not me, but scientists, know about DNA and mutations, there are other questions to ask:
  https://www.studyfinds.org/radiation-levels-comparable-to-x-rays-cause-mutations-in-lab-grown-human-cells/

“X-rays have been a staple of modern medicine for a long time, and any doctor or radiologist is quick to tell their patients that there are absolutely no risks or harmful side effects associated with the radiation necessary to perform an X-ray. Now, researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center and Oncode Institute in the Netherlands have discovered that low doses of radiation, long believed to be safe, did in fact create breaks in lab grown human cells that allowed additional DNA to enter the chromosome. In more simplistic terms, the radiation caused mutations on the cellular level. To be clear, these findings do not mean that going to have an X-ray is going to harm you, and extensive further research is necessary involving actual living animals, and eventually humans, before any real conclusions can be drawn. Still, the results of this study at the very least are concerning, and seem to indicate that there are still some aspects of how radiation interacts with our bodies, on a cellular level, that science has yet to fully understand.

This is just a light-hearted piece, that occurred to me when reading about men who have their backs to the wall, and facing losing everything, requested by the court, trial by combat. And, of course, such a request is thought, wrongly, to be incompatible with modern law, but not all law.
  https://nypost.com/2020/01/15/kansas-man-wants-to-settle-ugly-custody-battle-with-trial-by-combat-with-japanese-swords/
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_combat

“Unlike trial by ordeal in general, which is known to many cultures worldwide, trial by combat is known primarily from the customs of the Germanic peoples. It was in use among the ancient Burgundians, Ripuarian Franks, Alamans, Lombards, and Swedes. It was unknown in Anglo-Saxon law, Roman law and Irish Brehon Law and it does not figure in the traditions of Middle Eastern antiquity such as the code of Hammurabi or the Torah.
The practice is regulated in various Germanic legal codes. Being rooted in Germanic tribal law, the various regional laws of the Frankish Empire (and the later Holy Roman Empire) prescribed different particulars, such as equipment and rules of combat. The Lex Alamannorum (recension Lantfridana 81, dated to 712–730 AD) prescribes a trial by combat in the event of two families disputing the boundary between their lands. A handful of earth taken from the disputed piece of land is put between the contestants and they are required to touch it with their swords, each swearing that their claim is lawful. The losing party besides forfeiting their claim to the land is required to pay a fine. Capitularies governing its use appear from the year 803 onwards. Louis the Pious prescribed combat between witnesses of each side, rather than between the accuser and the accused, and briefly allowed for the Ordeal of the Cross in cases involving clerics. In medieval Scandinavia, the practice survived throughout the Viking Age in the form of the Holmgang. An unusual variant, the marital duel, involved combat between a husband and wife, with the former physically handicapped in some way. The loser was killed.”