The use of touch for promoting health, wellness and disease prevention is an ancient approach to medicine that was introduced over 2,000 years ago in China. According to Eisenberg (1993), “Millions of Americans are already using massage, meditation, acupuncture, and herbal remedies of all kinds, without their doctors’ recommendations.” These alternative health practices are used not only for stress reduction but also for relief of pain, heart disease, anxiety, and inability to sleep. Furthermore, in his dialogue with Bill Moyers in Healing and the Mind, Eisenberg suggested that in the Chinese culture, it is believed that how you live ultimately influences your health: “It’s not just diet or exercise; it’s also a spiritual or emotional balance that comes from the way you treat people and the way you treat yourself. And, since that’s the basis of their culture, it spills over into their medicine.” (Eisenberg, D. (1993), “Another way of seeing;” B.S. Flowers & D.Grubin (Eds.), Healing and the mind: Bill Moyers, NY: Doubleday.)

The world population is growing, and it's also growing older. Researchers say birth and death rates are gradually falling worldwide, increasing the number and overall proportion of older people. For many societies, caring for all those aging citizens could be difficult.

The United Nations estimates that about one out of every 10 people on the planet today is at least 60 years old. By 2050, it's projected to be one out of five which means that not only will there be more old people, there will be relatively fewer young people to support them. (“Aging World Population Presents Challenge for Future Young,” Barry Newhouse)

Some governments see family support systems as a way to avoid the financial problems that industrial nations face with their publicly-funded safety nets. But he says history has shown that familial support systems are generally weakened when nations become more prosperous -- as fewer children live with and care for their parents. And he says if the nations wait too long, it may be too late.

The languages of the senses, in which all of us can be socialized, are capable of enlarging our appreciation and of deepening our understanding of each other and the world in which we live. Chief among these languages is touching. [Touch is] “The powerful means of establishing human relationships, the foundation of experience. (Ashley Montague, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin),

WELCOME to Cold War City (population: 4). It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown.

The most underpopulated town in Britain is being put on the market. But there will be no estate agent’s blurb extolling the marvellous views of the town for sale: true, it has a Wiltshire address, but it is 120ft underground.

The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being thrown open to commercial use. Just four maintenance men are left.

Property developers looking for the ultimate place to get away from it all need not apply. The site has a notional value of £5m but there is a catch. It is available only as part of a private finance initiative that involves investing in the military base on the surface above.