Category Archives: General Science

The Keto Diet

Myths versus facts, from Nina Teicholz:

I think the larger question is why we are seeing such a sudden rash of anti-keto stories. So many of them quote no experts [sic] sources and do not provide citations for their claims. Skeptics with little acquaintance with the diet are quoted exclusively instead. From a journalistic perspective, this lack of balance of viewpoints and the failure to back up claims with evidence falls below basic reporting standards. Offenders on this list include even the Harvard School of Public Health, which recently published more than one unsourced, one-sided article on the keto diet (This is in addition to the Lancet Public Health article cited above, by Harvard researchers, which suggests that a low-carb diet kills you). These stories could reflect lazy reporting or they could very well be scare tactics to steer people away from the keto diet. Why would reporters or scientists at Harvard be doing such a thing? That’s material for another post. Stay tuned.

I’ll look forward to her thesis.

California Drought Issues

A four-and-a-half-year-old article that puts them into perspective.

It’s always sadly amusing when you see a headline about “hottest|dryest|whateverist X in recorded history” when we haven’t been keeping records very long, and people rely on their own living memory to judge current events, when a few decades is meaningless in the geological context of climate.

Space Science

How support for it can be a political liability.

I would note that this is another problem with a government space program in a representative republic, and why it’s hopeless to think we can do Apollo again. People who want to see space science happen need to look to other funding sources.

[Update late morning]

D’oh! New Mexico, not Arizona.