science
-
On testing.
With more data, many of us can stop being afraid and start helping our friends & neighbors who are most at risk.
2022, 45, access to health care, age, air pollution, air quality, Andrew Gelman, antibodies, antibody test, antibody testing, ass-hat in chief, asymptomatic, case fatality rate, CDC, CFR, cigarettes, coronavirus, coronavirus immunity, Covid testing, Covid versus flu, Covid-19, Covid-19 antibodies, Covid-19 epidemic, Covid-19 immunity, Covid-19 in children, Covid-19 serum test, Covid-19 testing, cruise ship, demographics, Diamond Princess, domestic violence, Donald Trump, duration of coronavirus immunity, duration of covid immunity, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, epidemiology, flu deaths, flu vaccination, flu vaccine, Harvard, health care, how many people were infected, immunity, infection, infection rate, influenza, influenza deaths, intubation, Ioannidis, isolation, Italy, John Ioannidis, lockdown, lung damage, modeling, New York Times, PCR, PCR testing, pollution, PotUS, Premier Biotech, quarantine, risk of social distancing, Robbio, sampling, sampling bias, Santa Clara, science, sedentary behavior, serum test, shutdown, smoking, smoking deaths, smoking rates, social distancing, Stanford, Stanford epidemiologist, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford study, Stanford University, suicide, teaching in jail, Trump, vaccination, vaccination rates, ventilators, viral propagation, viral shedding
-
On the study of naked mole-rats.
Naked mole-rats: impervious to acid, cancer, asphyxiation, even time itself. But are they impervious to us?
acid, acid resistance, aging, animal research, animal welfare, biological research, biology, caloric restriction, cancer, cancer biology, cancer immunity, carbon dioxide, chemotherapy, climate change, Eliot Weinberger, eusocial, eusocial mammals, eusociality, gas chamber, global warming, hyaluronan, Jennifer Jarvis, laboratory animals, lifespan, lifespan after reproduction, lifespan elongation, naked apes, Naked Mole-Rats, naked molerats, oxygen, oxygen deprivation, pain response, Park et al., Richard Alexander, science, scientific research, starvation, The Biology of the Naked Mole-Rat, Thomas Park, Venus, violence against animals, Weinberger, Xiao Tian
-
On happiness and mind control.
We could change our brains enough to feel happy with the world as it is … or we could use our unhappiness as a motivation to fix things.
abusive research, addiction, America, animal emotions, animal empathy, asylums, bad medical advice, bioethics, biomedical ethics, brain modification, brain parasites, brain stimulation, brain’s pleasure center, Carl Elliott, cat shit, chemically modulated happiness, cocaine, consciousness, conversion therapy, DCS, deep brain stimulation, depression, direct current stimulation, dopamine, drug abuse, drug crisis, drug use, eating cat shit, electrical brain stimulation, electrochemical stimulation of desire, empathy in rats, evolutionary rationale for pleasure, fighting depression, Frans de Waal, free will, happiness, homosexuality, human choice, human free will, Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, induction of empathy, Lone Frank, love potion, Mama’s Last Hug, mind control, nucleus accumbens, opiate use, painkillers, parasites, parasitic mind control, psychiatric patients, psychiatric wards, psychiatry, psychological crisis, psychology studies, psychosurgery, rat empathy, rats free their friends, research ethics, research subjects, review of The Pleasure Shock, Robert Heath, science, scientific ethics, scientific progress, sex in a laboratory, suicide, toxo, toxoplasma, toxoplasmosis, unethical experiments, unethical research, unethical science, United States
-
On two degrees and the worst year (yet) to be alive.
We’re hoping to limit climate change to two degrees … but even two degrees could turn our world into a terrible place to live.
536, 536 A.D., archaeology, atmospheric science, borrow Earth from our children, borrow the land from our children, carbon, carbon cycle, carbon economy, carbon emissions, carbon neutral, carbon tax, climate change, climate cycle, climate instability, crops, Dark Ages, Facebook, famine, feedback loop, food crops, forests, global warming, great depletion, greenhouse gases, heat sink, inherit the Earth, loss of fecundity, melting ice caps, Michael McCormick, most privileged generation, moving south for the winter, science, server farms, trains, trees, two degrees, two degrees Celsius, Venus, Venus was habitable, violence, volcano, weather, Wendell Berry, worst year to be alive
-
On the dangers of reading.
When my kid reads stuff she can’t quite understand, she only hurts herself. Others cause more harm. Please, vaccinate your child.
45, altering children’s literature, anxiety, books, breast milk, breastfeeding, Calvin and Hobbes, censoring children’s books, censoring children’s literature, censorship, children in human evolution, comics, conspiracy theory, cultivating a child’s reading habits, curating a child’s reading habits, death of a child, disease, disease burden, do vaccines cause autism, do vaccines work, do you like my hat, Donald Trump, Eula Biss, evolution, fatherhood, flu, flu vaccine, Fox Is Famous, Fox on the Job, gender stereotypes, get your child vaccinated, Go Dog Go, growth mindset, H1N1, herd immunity, human evolution, independent reading, James Marshall, kids’ books, learning to read too early, measles, milk, Mutts, Olivia Dahl, On Immunity, open communication, parental censorship, parenting, Patrick McDonnell, preventable death, preventable illness, raising children, Raquel D’Apice, reading, reading too early, research journals, Roald Dahl, science, science deniers, scientific discourse, scientific literacy, scientists, stereotypes, teaching children to read, too young for independent reading, undervaccination, unvaccinated children, vaccination, vaccine efficacy, vaccines, vaccines don’t cause autism, when a child starts reading
-
On loneliness.
It’s well known that loneliness wrecks brains … so why are we imposing it on the people we expect better behavior from?
addiction, animal welfare, biomedical research, coke, cooperation, crime, crime deterrence, Daniel Weary, David Grimm, dendritic growth, evolution, evolution of cooperation, health risks of incarceration, heroin, imposed loneliness, incarceration, isolation, jail, John-Michael Bloomquist, lab animals, lab mouse, laboratory animals, loneliness, loneliness epidemic, mass incarceration, meth, mice, mouse, neuron growth, parole, parole officer, parole violation, pot, probation, punishing defectors, punishment, rehab, rehabilitation, research animals, science, Surgeon General, The Prodigal’s Return, Vivek Murthy, War on Drugs
-
On Sci-Hub, the Napster of science.
Can people really be “informed consumers” of modern healthcare when they can’t read the research their taxes pay for?
academic journals, Alexandra Elbakyan, autism, bad medical advice, biomedical research, concussion, folate, ghostwriting, health, healthcare, medicine, Napster, p-value, pop medicine, repair manual, replication crisis, research journals, Sci-Hub, science, scientific papers, scihub, statistical testing, superfoods, TBI, theft, traumatic brain injury
-
On animals that speak, including humans.
Tom Wolfe & Noam Chomsky both claim that no other animals are capable of anything like human speech … while scientists are finally learning to listen.
-
On ethics and Luke Dittrich’s “Patient H.M.”
When scientists act unethically, it undermines trust in science … which breaks my heart, since the scientific method is awesome.
A Story of Memory Madness and Family Secrets, Arieh Warshel, biochemistry, brain surgery, cell biology, data, enzymology, epilepsy, ethics, fraud, GCC185, graduate school, human experimentation, immunofluorescence, ketosteroid isomerase, KSI, lobotomy, Luke Dittrich, medial temporal lobe, membrane trafficking, memory, MIT, MPR, Patient H.M., primary data, psychosurgery, publish or perish, reproducibility crisis, research, research ethics, RhoBTB3, science, scientific method, shredding files, Stanford, Suzanne Corkin
-
On idle time, coincidence, and Vivek Shanbhag’s ‘Ghachar Ghochar.’
An idle mind often reads supernatural portent into every coincidence.
45, Annie Jacobsen, atheists in foxholes, author as God, CIA, coincidence, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, curse, Donald Trump, foreshadowing, fraud, germination of supernatural belief, Ghachar Ghochar, hewn stone, idle, idle mind, jubilee, lost car keys, Magic, numerology, Phenomena, PotUS, precognition, prophecy, Puharich, science, speculation, Srinath Perur, statistical manipulation, statistical significance, supernatural, Trump, Vivek Shanbhag, wealth
Frank Brown Cloud 