Maybe it should just stop giving it.
To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: It killed my father. It should prepare to die.
Category Archives: Science And Society
Hospital Food
There’s no doubt it could use a lot of improvement, but I think this is bogus:
Dr. Eisenberg says the jury is no longer out on the benefits of eating a more plant-based diet with less refined foods, sugar and red meat. A study published last year in JAMA estimated that nearly half of the deaths from heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes are caused by poor diet.
They are, but there’s zero evidence that red meant causes any of them. Patricia had to spend a night in the hospital for a procedure a few weeks ago, and her breakfast was terrible, nutritionally.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: Incorrect diagnoses kill 80,000 people per year.
The medical profession gets far too much respect.
Senescent Cells
The evidence continues to accumulate that clearing them is very beneficial to health.
Timekeeping
This is an interesting history, but it makes me wonder how Huygens knew how long a second was to adjust the pendulum length.
The Greening Of The Earth
Few, if any, dispute that atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing since the industrial revolution. What is in dispute is the effects of this. The prevailing media narrative is that “OMG we’re all gonna die!” but this is an interesting post.
A Sea Change In Dietary Advice
Low-carb should be the first approach in treating diabetes and obesity.
[Update a few minutes later]
Meanwhile, “Big Pasta” Barilla has been meddling in nutrition science.
[Sunday-morning update]
No, despite the headline, there is zero scientific evidence that listing calories on menus is helping people lose weight, and this article provides none. This “study” is nonsense. First, it’s self reporting. Second, it’s premised on the assumption, for which there is zero evidence, that counting calories is helpful, when calorie counting is a scientifically bogus concept, that assumes all calories are equal in their effects on metabolism. The kind of calories matter, and the way they measure calories, by literally burning food, is not how your body metabolizes calories, so it doesn’t even make sense thermodynamically.
Branding In Space
There seems to be a lot of concern in the science journalism community about Bridenstine’s potential proposal to allow sponsorship of missions:
Bridenstine’s proposal would set a dangerous precedent for NASA’s future. By suggesting that commercial partnerships could help fund NASA’s missions, it implies that the agency is not worth funding through the usual means—annual budgets carefully negotiated and ironed out by lawmakers. And their constituents believe that the space program is important; according to a study from the Pew Research Center in June, 72 percent of Americans say it’s essential for the United States to continue to be a world leader in space exploration. If Nike is ready and willing to drop millions of dollars to sponsor the next mission to Mars, why should lawmakers bother spending any taxpayer money on it? The world’s premier space agency shouldn’t have to resort to brand sponsorships in the absence of political will. And even if brands could float the first few years of a mission, they might not have the stomach for the years, or even decades it sometimes takes for NASA’s most ambitious missions to come to fruition. [Emphasis added]
There is a false assumption here that a) the purpose of NASA spending is “space exploration,” and that the negotiations and “ironing out” have much to do with “space exploration” as opposed to zip-code engineering. The sooner that we recognize that there is in fact an absence of political will, and accept that space exploration should be privatized, the way it was until the end of WW II, the sooner we’ll start to make more progress.
[Update a few minutes later]
More from Ken Chang.
The Nutrition Scam
If you have forty minutes or so, watch Nina Teicholz.
Nerve Stimulation
…may help with female sexual dysfunction.
Isn’t sex itself nerve stimulation?
[Friday-evening update]
This seems sort of related: Custom sex dolls.
This seems to me like the ultimate expression of free-market capitalism. I found the kicker interesting:
“You have to find beauty in imperfection,” Krivicke says as he takes the mannequin head back from me.
I’ve noticed over the years that, when I get to know someone, and I come to like them, they grow increasingly interesting and physically attractive, even if I didn’t find them so initially.
Terraforming Mars
John Strickland analyzes the terrible media coverage of that recent report, and points out (as I did at the time) that Mars isn’t a closed system.