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People Lie On Surveys And When It Comes To Guns, Women And Minorities Want Government To Know The Least

People Lie On Surveys And When It Comes To Guns, Women And Minorities Want Government To Know The Least

Jun 24 2023 | comment(s)

A crippling flaw in much epidemiology is that it takes survey results as truthful and then seeks to correlate that to some benefit or harm. It's why epidemiologists said butter was bad and trans fats were good, until butter was good and trans fats were bad. If you were gullible enough to buy quinoa, teff, or any other superfood, some influencer you believed had an epidemiology paper on their side.
Are You A Theorist Or An Experimentalist?

Are You A Theorist Or An Experimentalist?

Jun 23 2023 | comment(s)

A colloquium with a former thesis intern yesterday brought me to ponder again over the important question of determining whether a student should choose an experimental or rather a theoretical curriculum of studies. It is a problem that arises at a variable point of the student's trajectory depending on the way the university courses offer is structured, but the issue is universal as it revolves around the skills of the students rather than anything else.
Ocean Gate's Titan Submersible: A Suboptimal Shape and A Tragedy.

Ocean Gate's Titan Submersible: A Suboptimal Shape and A Tragedy.

Jun 22 2023 | comment(s)

Most if not all deep submergence vehicles that take people to the deepest parts of the ocean have a spherical pressure hull, not a cylinder. There is a simple reason for this: symmetry. The spherical symmetry of these crafts ensures that the pressure and forces will distribute in a way that causes, as much as possible, the cancellation of the forces acting on the hull. Ocean Gate’s Titan being a cylinder with two hemispherical end caps, one under the pointed fairing, violated this principle to an extent. The curved cylinder does have this same effect going on… but not to the same extent as a spherical shape. Carbon fiber vehicles have been made as pressure vessels for holding in 1 atmosphere of pressure against very low outside pressures.

How To Annihilate A Star

How To Annihilate A Star

Jun 22 2023 | comment(s)

Stars die in lots of ways. Most low-mass stars like our Sun shed their outer layers and eventually fade to white dwarf stars. Larger ones prefer to burn out rather than fade away so they go supernova and create ultradense objects like neutron stars and black holes. When two stellar remnants form a binary system, they also can collide. 

Yet a new paper shows there may be a fourth way - a collision where non-binary stars in dense regions can be forced together. The work used a long-duration gamma-ray burst with the Gemini South telescope in Chile.
California Didn't Reduce Brownouts With Solar, It Reduced Them With Less Regulation

California Didn't Reduce Brownouts With Solar, It Reduced Them With Less Regulation

Jun 21 2023 | comment(s)

In the 1990s, utility regulations promised to do for electricity what it had done for airline travel and telephone calls - reduce costs by 90 percent for consumers. California instead did what government had done to cable television costs; used over-regulation so that only the largest companies could survive the political phalanx they created.

In the early 2000s, a California Governor was recalled because he refused to use an executive order to mitigate the energy crisis government over-regulation had created. PG&E, the largest government-chosen utility, was banned from owing its power lines, and they could not change rates without government permission. They could not buy on the spot market, when demand was high, without government permission.
Pyrolysis: Using Phosphorus From Wastewater To Grow Better Crops

Pyrolysis: Using Phosphorus From Wastewater To Grow Better Crops

Jun 20 2023 | comment(s)

While modern weedkillers are great about using fewer chemicals and therefore less runoff into streams, the organic manufacturing process uses older, less effective compounds and that means on a calorie-per-calorie basis, the harm to the environment may be substantial. Water contaminated with copper sulfate, the most popular organic weedkiller, is harmful to crops, animals, and people.
Betelgeuse, Gamow, and a Big Red Horse

Betelgeuse, Gamow, and a Big Red Horse

Jun 20 2023 | comment(s)

There has been a lot of talk recently of Betelgeuse possibly going supernova this century or not long after.  The basis of this is a paper referenced in this article:

Betelgeuse is almost 50% brighter than normal. What's going on?

If you prefer, you can find out about it in this video (timestamped) from Dr Becky:


Giraffes In East Africa Are Geographically Isolated - That Doesn't Mean They Are Endangered

Giraffes In East Africa Are Geographically Isolated - That Doesn't Mean They Are Endangered

Jun 19 2023 | comment(s)

One way to keep a healthy genetic population is a diverse enough group that there can be a random exchange of material. If that is a big factor, then geographically isolated giraffes on preserves may be at future risk.
If You Think Fracking Is Causing Earth To Deflate, You May Believe Pumping Water Is Making Us Tilt

If You Think Fracking Is Causing Earth To Deflate, You May Believe Pumping Water Is Making Us Tilt

Jun 19 2023 | comment(s)

In 2012's "Science Left Behind", I noted a claim by a politician opposed to natural gas - after environmentalists had previously lobbied for it (see also: ethanol, hydroelectric) - who stated that extracting it was causing earth to deflate.

It wasn't the craziest thing in the book, that more soldiers on Guam would cause the island to flip over or that organic food used no pesticides would also have to be in the running, but people who believe it are going to believe it, just like media outlets touting a claim that we are pumping so much groundwater that we are moving the planet off its axis.
Why People Will Sacrifice Personal Enjoyment For Community

Why People Will Sacrifice Personal Enjoyment For Community

Jun 19 2023 | comment(s)

If you have traveled, you have seen someone who is a frequent traveler be offered an upgrade but decline because they are with someone else and want to stay together. This is rare in other species. 

Yet not all experiences get equal treatment - if a parent is traveling with a child they may take the upgrade to give it to the child - and a new paper sought to understand how consumers make trade-offs between experience quality and togetherness. The authors write that consumers prioritize physical togetherness with relationship partners over opportunities that would improve an experience in real time.
Acupuncture And Chiropractors Are Alt Medicine For White People - Including Veterans

Acupuncture And Chiropractors Are Alt Medicine For White People - Including Veterans

Jun 16 2023 | comment(s)

It is well established that although acupuncture, chiropractic care, massage therapy, yoga, and meditation/mindfulness market themselves as Asian traditional techniques that will help buyers avoid the same Big Pharma industry that gives us cancer treatments and vaccines, the overwhelming users in America are not Asians at all, they are wealthy white female progressives.
With Government Opposing Smoking Cessation Tools, Alternatives Like Gum Come Back Into Play

With Government Opposing Smoking Cessation Tools, Alternatives Like Gum Come Back Into Play

Jun 16 2023 | comment(s)

In the 1990s, culture seemed to truly get that cigarettes and the damage they cause are the leading preventable lifestyle killer. Tobacco companies got penalized to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for their part in suppressing data showing the harms of smoking but instead of celebrating the win and using that money to promote smoking cessation and harm reduction, much of it went to trial lawyer yacht payments and the "expert witnesses" they support. 

Some went to anti-smoking groups, who were now reliant on Big Tobacco money and, you guessed it, then had to get allied epidemiologists to start promoting a new lawsuit, this time for second-hand and even third-hand smoke as causes of cancer.(1)
With Insurance Companies Cracking Down On Fake Ozempic Prescriptions, Supplement Grifters Sell Berberine

With Insurance Companies Cracking Down On Fake Ozempic Prescriptions, Supplement Grifters Sell Berberine

Jun 14 2023 | comment(s)

Do you know someone who once got their child an autism diagnosis, mostly so they could do things like skip the line at Disney World? How about a medical exemption so they could go to school without an MMR vaccine?

If so, you probably live in a place like California or New York City. Rich people often stay rich by exploiting loopholes so they don't have to spend money. They are even happy to lose weight as long as the rest of us pay higher health insurance premiums - much the way they have gotten poor people to pay for their solar power subsidies.
Grass Fed, Free Range, No Antibiotics - USDA Is Cracking Down On Misleading Animal Claims

Grass Fed, Free Range, No Antibiotics - USDA Is Cracking Down On Misleading Animal Claims

Jun 14 2023 | comment(s)

You may not know it, but the US Department of Agriculture does; if there is detection of an antibiotic in an animal off to the processing plant, the entire railcar full will be destroyed. On the other hand, if you never use antibiotics for a sick animal, you are being inhumane and jeopardizing a whole herd.
Healthcare Patients May Be Biased Against Chatbot Avatars

Healthcare Patients May Be Biased Against Chatbot Avatars

Jun 13 2023 | comment(s)

A decade ago, automated telephone menus were what everyone hated. It was common to press 0 or yell 'Agent' at the phone because you knew that after inputting everything it wanted, when you got to an agent they were going to ask you for everything all over again.

Today, you probably ignore the chat window that opens up on a website, especially if you think it is a bot. A Verizon bot is going to be able to help you with nothing, so going back to find your account number, which means closing the chat window, is a waste of time, when the real agent who replies will ask for it all over again(1)
Anthropologists Link Monogamy To Significant Inequalities Among Women

Anthropologists Link Monogamy To Significant Inequalities Among Women

Jun 12 2023 | comment(s)

Cooperative breeders, where we count on the help of others to raise offspring,is not unique to humans. It may only appear that way.

A new paper amassed data from 90 human populations comprising 80,223 individuals from many parts of the world — both historical and contemporary. They compared the records for men and women to lifetime data for 45 different nonhuman, free-ranging mammals. The argue that humans are a non-exceptional species of mammal. Says first author Cody Ross, PhD, anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute; “we can quite successfully model reproductive inequality in humans and nonhumans using the same predictors.”
Fewer Black Men Than Women Vote Democrat And A PNAS Paper Suggests That May Be Because They're In Jail

Fewer Black Men Than Women Vote Democrat And A PNAS Paper Suggests That May Be Because They're In Jail

Jun 12 2023 | comment(s)

A new demography paper argues that there is a reason more black women have voted for Democrats than men have since 1980 - more black men are in jail.
CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Can Limit Agricultural Pests, But Will Environmentalists Accept Modern Science?

CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Can Limit Agricultural Pests, But Will Environmentalists Accept Modern Science?

Jun 12 2023 | comment(s)

CRISPR/Cas9 technology has led to a “homing gene drive system” based on a specific Drosophila suzukii gene called doublesex that can suppress populations of D. suzukii vinegar flies – the “spotted-wing Drosophila” that devastate soft-skinned fruit in North America, Europe and parts of South America.
Alcohol Doesn't Cause Alzheimer's Disease, But It Sure Isn't Helping Any

Alcohol Doesn't Cause Alzheimer's Disease, But It Sure Isn't Helping Any

Jun 12 2023 | comment(s)

A new study suggests alcoholism coupled with genetic susceptibility is associated with changes to gene expression indicative of disease progression in the brains of mice that are genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s. When repeatedly exposed to intoxicating amounts of alcohol, these mice showed signs of cognitive decline approximately two months sooner than they usually would.
UPF OMG: The Dinner Table Is Not A Periodic Table

UPF OMG: The Dinner Table Is Not A Periodic Table

Jun 12 2023 | comment(s)

A short time ago, the National Institutes of Health 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee held its second public meeting to discuss recommended changes. It was very authoritative, they said they were concerned about cancer and chemicals and obesity and they assured us they were looking at all of the new literature. The panel signaled it wants to go after Frappuccinos and aspartame. The problem is that none of those issues are why they were created.