Slow it down by seeking novelty? Maybe, but the fact that when a year is ten percent of your life to date, as opposed to on sixtieth of it, it’s going to seem to go by faster.
Category Archives: General Science
A Basement Discovery
…undermines decades of crap dietary advice:
Analyzing the reams of old records, Ramsden and his team found, in line with the “diet-heart hypothesis,” that substituting vegetable oils lowered total blood cholesterol levels, by an average of 14 percent.
But that lowered cholesterol did not help people live longer. Instead, the lower cholesterol fell, the higher the risk of dying: 22 percent higher for every 30-point fall. Nor did the corn-oil group have less atherosclerosis or fewer heart attacks.
I’m scheduling a follow up with my cardiologist. I’m guessing that he’ll probably want to put me on statins, despite my clean bill of health from my angio scan, because my total cholesterol is a little over 240. I’ll tell him to take a hike.
“Born That Way”
This study does not prove that people aren’t born that way. Of course there is no “gay gene.” That would make no evolutionary sense. It has to be a complex of them that, combined, cause it. Plus this seems to ignore pre-natal environment. There’s some evidence that this is a cause as well.
[Friday-morning update]
And then there’s this: “Genetics may explain up to 25% of same-sex behavior.”
The Multi-Verse
Is it science, or religion?
I’d say that an undisprovable hypothesis would fall into the religious category. Though, of course, CAGW is that way, too.
Space Policy Follies
Bob Zimmerman has three case studies, and he’s not happy.
Consensus Enforcement In Climate
Judith Curry, on the latest travesty.
Science is not science without “contrarians.” It is religion.
[Thursday-morning update]
Related: Enlisting peer-reviewed science in the climate crusade.
Tardigrades
…were probably already on the moon. I had a discussion about this on Twitter yesterday. I think people are making too big a deal over it.
Climate
Forbes: Do not question the orthodoxy.
Speaking of which, hurricane forecasters are admitting they’re reaching the limits of being able to predict tracks, because (surprise!) hurricanes are complex non-linear chaotic systems.
Life On The Moon
This will drive the planetary-protection people nuts:
Whether the tardigrades survived is unknown—but Spivack said if they did, there is no risk of the creatures taking over the Moon as they would need to be revived by future humans that may find them.
Yeah, it’s all fun and games until they mutate and become our giant lunar tardigrade overlords.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
More at Pop Sci.
The Glaciers Of Mars
The latest from Bob Zimmerman.