Because the importance of cholesterol as a risk factor for heart disease had been accepted as dogma, it was pretty well impossible to challenge it. For example, one of the outstanding nutrition scientists, David Kritchevsky, suggested in the 1980s that there should be a weakening of the recommendation on dietary fat and encountered hysterical opposition. Here is what he told the author:
“People would spit on us! It’s hard to imagine now, the heat of the passion. It was just like we had desecrated the American flag. They were so angry that we were going against the suggestions of the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health.”
This meant that anyone who had the temerity to challenge the official line was committing professional suicide. Applications for funds to support research, which might question the prevailing views on fat, were unlikely to be supported. Even if funds were obtained (eg from independent foundations) the researchers would find difficulty in publishing their results in scientific journals and they were rarely invited to serve on expert panels. By stifling opposition, the public was presented with what appeared to be a uniform scientific consensus.
Technically we don’t need water in space for drinking because we can recycle our pee. If you’re not really fond of that idea, then you must be very fond of space mining, because otherwise recycled pee is on the menu. It’s really not so bad to drink recycled pee. Here on Earth you do it all the time. It’s just not as easy on a tiny spaceship where the proximity of the recycling equipment forces you to remember where your beverage came from. And recycling on such a small scale as a spaceship is expensive and tricky. Giant spaceships like Earth are better at that stuff. Anyhow, without space mining, you’ll be drinking lots of pee. If on the other hand you have lots of water from mining in space, then your pee can be dumped overboard to make miniature yellow comets in orbit around the sun. Consider it a form of art. So it’s your choice: making space art, or drinking pee.
News you can use.
By the way, I’ve added Phil’s blog to the blogroll.
Kyle Smith asked today on Twitter, if you put a check for a hundred bucks in the middle of Hillary’s new book, how many of them would get cashed? I’d say the same thing about Piketty’s book. It’s a “classic.” That is, a book that everyone wants to display and have read, but no one wants to actually read. Fortunately, some people who understand math did slog through it.
When I first bought it, I was unhappy with the battery life, so I bought a spare, for thirty bucks. Last week I bought two for $2.41 apiece. I’ll never be without Droid juice again.
Jeff Foust reports on the NRC report, and reactions to it.
As I tweeted last week, as both a space enthusiast and a taxpayer, I don’t want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to send a few civil servants to Mars decades from now. Call me completely uninspired.
I wish more states would do this. As I wrote in comments there, for decades, I’ve been saying that when I am king, all those stupid signs that say “Slower Drivers Keep Right” will be replaced with “Left Lane For Passing Only.” Because no one thinks that they are a “slower driver.” I’d also put in sensors so that you get an automatic ticket if you’re passed on the right five consecutive times without passing anyone.
