Bill DeBlasio is suing oil companies for creating bad weather. Ross McKitrick points out what are no doubt only a few of the lies and BS in the filing.
Category Archives: Science And Society
The Fight Against Dietary Misinformation
In a recent study of 43 Latino and African American children with metabolic syndrome, for example, keeping total and calories from carbohydrate identical, a reduction from a mean of 28 per cent of calories from added sugar to 10 per cent, significantly reduced triglycerides, LDL-Cholesterol, blood pressure and fasting insulin within just ten days.
It’s been this very reliance on eminence trumping independent evidence that often stops policymakers, doctors and journalists asking the right questions while simultaneously misinforming the public.
As Albert Einstein once said, “A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.”
The public must also realise that the overwhelming majority of dietitians have no qualification or understanding of the basics of medicine and although most doctors equally have little or no training in nutrition, it’s not rocket science to advise people to avoid eating processed food, more than 70 per cent of which now includes added sugar.
As with the tobacco industry, there’s a lot of money at stake.
The Webb Telescope
We had dinner with Leonard and Barbara David when we were in Colorado over the holidays. He told me that he’d been working on this piece about whether it’s too big to fail.
I’ve been concerned about the risk for years. I hope it works, but it’s not the approach I’d have taken. The next big telescope will be assembled in space, not launch origami.
Virtual Assistants
Why you’ll fire Siri and do the job yourself:
I spoke to ObEN co-founder and CEO Nikhil Jain this week. He told me ObEN’s technology generates a 3D, computer-generated representation of the user’s face with a single selfie.
ObEN also learns to copy your voice. Once it’s got your voice down, it can do things with your voice that you cannot — speak Chinese, for example, or sing.
That “personality” is based not only on how you speak, but on what you know as well. It’s even possible to add knowledge manually.
Hard to imagine anything going wrong with that.
Gaps In Exploration
Are they “normal“?
If it’s exploration for exploration’s sake, probably. But if it’s for creation of wealth, I’d expect things to happen faster.
Cavities And Teeth
An Alzheimer’s drug that repairs and regrows them?
Faster, please.
Bi-Lingual People
This is interesting, if true; their brains solve math problems differently.
Bridenstine Update
Now he’ll have to wait until January to be confirmed as NASA administrator, and it will be a squeaker because politics. And WTF is wrong with Rubio?
Trump’s Space Policy
I haven’t seen everything, so I can’t say for sure that this is the stupidest, most ignorant take on it, but it will do until something dumber comes along.
[Update a few minutes later]
Meanwhile, a much smarter take from Sarah Cruddas.
[Monday-morning update]
Aaaaand here’s a rewriting of space history from Jason Rhian. Too busy with conference to fisk it, but it needs it badly.
[Bumped]
The “Clean Power” Plan
It’s long past time to review the “Endangerment Finding.”