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Study a good excuse

A new study from Germany says old people don’t lose cognitive power over time, their brains simply slow down.

A new study from Germany says old people don’t lose cognitive power over time, their brains simply slow down because there is so much information stored in them. Researchers from Tübingen University in Germany used computers to replicate different stages of an adult’s memory recall, and as the computers were fed more information, their hard drives functioned slower.

Researchers concluded our brains don’t deteriorate over time due to aging, they simply slow down because they hold so much information it takes longer to “compute.”

I like this study.

It gives us oldies a good excuse when we don’t remember the name of someone we’ve known for 30 years or what happened  10 minutes  ago.

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The  City  of Williams Lake and Cariboo Regional District have a telephone survey underway which is, I believe, intended to get the community’s opinion on the proposed renovations to the Sam Ketcham Pool and the referendum planned for Nov. 15.

I received the call and it struck me as a preliminary referendum on the referendum (did I support the upgrade, was I likely to vote). I haven’t heard much talk about the  project yet, too many other things going on, but I did wonder — what will the city/CRD do if the majority of survey responders don’t  want  the renovation project?

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The Quebec senior’s facility that burned recently apparently met the provincial safety standards.

Those standards weren’t good enough to protect the lives of the 30 residents believed to have perished in the flames.

They were in the older part of the building that wasn’t required to, and didn’t have a sprinkling system. We grouse about government regulations that hamper economic progress, but the consequences of inadequate requirements can be horrific, as they were in this incident. There should be federal standards for some services, just in case the provincial governments drop the ball.

Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian, and book author.