thunder fever noun [U]
UK /ˈθʌn.də ˌfiː.vəʳ/ US /ˈθʌn.dɚ ˌfiː.vɚ/
a more serious form of hay fever that people can experience when there is a high pollen count and thundery weather at the same time
A high pollen count mixed with thunderstorms will trigger a weather phenomenon called “thunder fever” this week, causing problems for allergy sufferers, forecasters have warned. The combination of warm weather, strong winds and thundery downpours brought to the UK as a result of the now-downgraded tropical storm Alex are to blame for the conditions expected to affect the country in the coming days.
[independent.co.uk, 9 June 2022]
digital amnesia noun [U]
UK /ˌdɪdʒ.ɪ.tᵊl æmˈniː.zi.ə/ US /ˌdɪdʒ.ə.t̬ᵊl æmˈniː.ʒə/
a condition where people become less able to remember things because they are used to looking everything up on the internet
Experts say smartphone addiction could impair the brain’s ability to retain new information and form new memories. This leads to ‘digital amnesia’. What is ‘digital amnesia’? It is basically a phenomenon where brains are losing their ability to remember quickly as people are becoming increasingly reliant on technology.
[news18.com, 5 January 2022]
dental desert noun [C]
UK /ˌden.tᵊl ˈdez.ət/ US /ˌden.t̬ᵊl ˈdez.ɚt/
an area where there are not enough dentists to give everyone who lives there dental care, or where it is very difficult to get affordable or state-funded dental care
Parts of England, including Suffolk, are becoming “dental deserts”, with no access to NHS dentistry for residents, an MP has told Westminster. Mr Aldous said the lack of available NHS dental appointments was a “national crisis”, although the issue in his own constituency was “acute”. “There are now parts of the country, particularly in rural and coastal areas, though not confined there, that are dental deserts.”
[bbc.co.uk, 10 February 2022]
nice~
In Melbourne there was a case of thunderstorm asthma a decade ago.
Why did I think of ‘right to be forgotten’ when I saw digital amnesia?
Because it’s an European Court of Human Rights precept.
It preserves the right to forget as well as to be forgotten.
And if we talk about concepts of digital slavery…
[which so many people may feel when they rely on their devices especially if they’re digital immigrants – which would be most people born before 1989 – the mainstreaming of the World Wide Web].
The ECHR has been all about “forgetting” your data and signing into things when you are blogging or tweeting or facebooking.
Perhaps a quick memory is not as important as a deep and wide memory.
Our memories do take milliseconds to process after all.