Unlocking the truth about diabetes: ‘The science has been pretty awful’ - The Guardian   

More than 400m people around the world have diabetes, and many control the condition using insulin. But science writer Gary Taubes believes it's this very treatment that is behind the current epidemic. Does his controversial case for a diet-based alternative to medicine have any bite?

Since 2007, Taubes has published five books on sugar, fat and carbohydrate, including his latest, Rethinking Diabetes, in which he posits that low-carb diets have been under-used as a way to manage blood glucose in type 1 and type 2 diabetes, in favour of drug-heavy treatment regimes which, he suspects, may do more harm than good.

His writing on nutrition has won several awards, notably from the US National Association of Science Writers, but it has also been sharply criticised, mainly for his almost evangelical attachment to the keto diet, in which you eat so little carbohydrate (50g or less per day) that the body goes into a state called ketosis, meaning you stop burning stored glucose and start burning fat instead. In 2021, he published The Case for Keto, a self-help book, after which, as he says, he went "from being a respected source of information to somebody who may indeed be a crank after all". Taubes, who follows the diet himself, is now proposing it should be offered to people living with diabetes. (Keto diets were originally developed as a way to treat certain types of childhood epilepsy.) For Taubes, keto means he doesn't "eat starches, grains or sweets, and I don't eat breakfast because I think better in the morning without it. When I snack, it's nuts or good cheese. If we were to go to dinner together, I'd order a piece of fish or half a roast chicken and ask the waiter to hold the rice or potatoes and give me a green salad or green vegetables instead."

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Whoever rules the waves rules the world... The Red Sea crisis will show us if that’s true | Kim Darroch - The Guardian   

The case for action was strong. But previous interventions have stark warnings for the US and Britain

We all woke on Friday to the news of US/UK airstrikes on Yemen. Our TV screens were filled with images of RAF bombers taking off into a Mediterranean night sky, and seemingly random explosions briefly illuminating nameless, darkened landscapes, as in some slow-motion video game. But real strategic objectives are involved here, and real people: British and American pilots risking their lives, Yemenis on the ground beneath the bombs.

It is a disconcertingly familiar set of images, evoking the US/UK/France bombing of Syria in 2018, the British-French bombing of Muammar Gaddafi's forces in Libya in 2011, and the "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003. How did these end? Not so well. But nor did the one that didn't happen: the proposed Obama-led US/UK/France airstrikes on Bashar al-Assad's forces after they used chemical weapons against their own population in 2013.

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‘An experiment in ritual humiliation’: would a month of rejection therapy make me fearless? - The Guardian   

In theory, approaching strangers with bizarre requests, destined to be refused, makes you a better person. But can soul-crushing embarrassment really strengthen your character?

My heart is hammering, my head is humming with tension and there's a real possibility I may vomit. No, I haven't been set up on a blind date with Piers Morgan. Instead, I'm about to approach a stranger in a packed King's Cross station and ask to borrow £100.

I choose a middle-aged man with a kind face and a red scarf, and quietly make my request so as not to be overheard by commuters grabbing their lunch. He studies my face for the longest three seconds of my life before deciding, not unreasonably, that he "can't really say yes without knowing what it's for". That's fine: I've already succeeded. The whole point of the exercise was to experience the soul-crushing embarrassment of being rejected by a total stranger - something I have committed to doing every day for a month.

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Volcano erupts near Icelandic town, forcing evacuation of residents - The Guardian   

Seismic activity intensified overnight near Grindavík, the fifth eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula in two years

A volcano has erupted near the fishing town of Grindavík in south-west Iceland – spewing fountains of molten rock, less than a month after another eruption in the area.

The latest eruption began early on Sunday morning, hours after authorities warned of an imminent event and evacuated the town following seismic activity on Saturday.

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