Do bullets make this easier to read, or are they merely irksome?

• One in 10 young women polled by Grazia magazine have taken illicit drugs to lose weight.

• A study by the AMP and the University of Canberra cheers the closing of the wage gap for Australian women in their 20s and 30s, but lists the many reasons for the huge differences in lifetime earnings, from child-rearing to the glass ceiling. Of interest to Miranda Devine may be their findings that:

"Women with children employed full-time spend on average 78 hours a week in paid and unpaid work, while full-time working men with children spend only 74 hours a week working. These women are spending on average 15 hours a week cooking and cleaning while the men are spending only six hours a week. A part-time working mother spends 23 hours a week with the kids and 20 hours on the housework while a part-time working father spends 14 hours with the kids and nine hours on housework."

• The John Barrowman episode of The Making of Me was broadcast on BBC America with some very suspicious edits.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

UN wants urgent action on asylum seekers: "The UN Human Rights Committee says it's concerned by reports Australia has not fully respected the principle of non-refoulement, which states asylum seekers shouldn't be returned to a country if their lives or freedoms are threatened. It's been suggested that up to 20 Afghans were killed by the Taliban after having their claims for asylum rejected by Australia."

All asylum seekers should be given the right to work, rather than relying on charity, sez the International Detention Coalition's submission to a federal inquiry into immigration detention. "If there are no health, character or public interest concerns, then bridging visa release options with community support should be made available as the priority option. Individuals released from detention should be granted the right to work, in order to self-sustain where possible, and which has the connected right to Medicare as a taxpayer."

Despite policy changes, 143 people are currently in detention on Christmas Island, but Australia will no longer be the country in the world which charges them for the privilege.

(no subject)

• Vegan French toast, made with bananas instead of eggs and milk.

• British placenames rendered literally, from The Atlas of True Names.

• "A rock painting that has been hidden for almost 200 years of an early Australian explorer believed to be Ludwig Leichhardt will be shown to non-Aboriginal people for the first time."

• The Australian Federal Police Web site explains Citizens' powers of arrest.

Just trying to stay awake long enough to have dinner

PhD student works out exactly what it is insulin does.

The Tree of Life as a Tube Map