Word: sloth
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Based on some intriguing preliminary studies in animals, J. Timothy Lightfoot, a kinesiologist, and his team at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, suggest that genetics may indeed predispose some of us to sloth. Using mice specially bred and selected according to their activity levels, Lightfoot identified 20 different genomic locations that work in tandem to influence their activity levels - specifically, how far the animals will run. Lightfoot's team is the first to identify these genetic areas and the first to figure out that they function in concert. The researchers say the areas they found on the mouse genome...
...Most of the time, it doesn't help you very much, because there isn't much you can do about it," Drazen says. "If they do your test and say you are at a low risk for heart disease, does that mean you should be on a program of sloth and gluttony...
...Predictably, McEwan himself has come now under fire, with the Muslim Council of Britain scolding him for defending Amis. Amis himself has remained silent, having already weighed in last autumn with a less-than-collegial missive to Eagleton: "He has submitted to an unworthy combination of venom and sloth," Amis wrote. "Can I ask him, in a collegial spirit, to shut up about it?" Maybe he'll end up wishing he'd made the same request, perhaps more politely, to his friend McEwan...
There was a certain bracing beauty about the original seven deadly sins--pride, gluttony, melancholy (which was dropped in the 17th century in favor of sloth), lust, greed, envy and anger--which among them could account for virtually all the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind. Anger gives rise to violence; gluttony to waste; pride to every manner of tragedy and hurt. They were judged sufficient for the past 15 centuries, ever since they were cataloged by Pope Gregory the Great, with an assist from Thomas Aquinas and Dante...
...essential to self-esteem; a group of self-rising French chefs has petitioned the Vatican that being a gourmand is no sin. Envy is the engine of tabloid culture. Lust is an advertising strategy; anger, the righteous province of the aggrieved. Most days I'd give anything for some sloth. It was the moral philosopher Mae West who observed that "to err is human, but it feels divine." (She also advised, "When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I never tried before...