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Updated: 37 min 18 sec ago

For 2024, Let's Do Something About Sepsis

Jan 01 2024 - 13:01
Sepsis - blood poisoning - is a severe immunological overreaction to an infection, and hospitals can often be a cause rather than a solution. A guess by the World Health Organisation is that up to 20 percent of deaths worldwide have sepsis as a factor. A new analysis finds that up to 40 percent of people who don't die still can't return to work after two weeks.

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A Year In Review

Dec 31 2023 - 07:12
2023 is over and I am looking back at my achievements and failures, to take stock and try to learn something from the matter. This blog looks like a reasonably good place for such an exercise, so I am writing here an inventory of what happened to me in the past 12 months. Sorry if this sounds very boring!

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New York Times Defended Harvard's Claudia Gay Using 'Duplicative Language' But Is Suing OpenAI Over It

Dec 29 2023 - 15:12
After Harvard leader (and Board member of Harvard Corp.) Claudia Gay dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism due to lack of protection from hate speech and violence directed at Jewish people, the broader community began to look at the scholarly work of this little-known activist who somehow was placed in charge of nearly $60 billion in money - and having a vote in hiring or firing herself.

There was an alarming amount of plagiarism, yet the New York Times quickly rushed to defend their political ally and reframe it as "duplicative language" - but that was not Joe Biden stealing British politician Neil Kinnock's life story for a speech, this was printed scholarship.

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In The New Year, Consider Less-Discussed Health Benefits

Dec 29 2023 - 14:12
Lose Weight Without Suffering

Everyone wants an easy solution to being more fit but the only thing easy is eating too much pizza. Since 2022 we've been treated to far too many pictures of celebrities with weird "Ozempic Face" because their vanity is stronger than their desire for energy balance.

You don't need a gimmick, you do need a little willpower. Commercial gyms love this time of year because everyone joins to honor their New Year's Resolution, they even pay stupid initiation fees, and then most are done a month later.

An easy way to save money on a gym membership, in order of difficulty:

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Affordable Care Act Bundling Of Physical, Behavioral Health Has Not Improved Access

Dec 28 2023 - 15:12
One concern about the Affordable Care Act was that in providing access to 700,000 people that companies refused to insure, access would decline along with the surges in cost for everyone. That has turned out to be true in both cases. 

Some states have also 'bundled' behavioral and physical health care, and that hasn't improved access or care for people with mental health issues. It isn't worse, that is the good news, but for the 400 percent increase in cost it isn't better - and demand became higher due to heightened anxiety and depression rates during and post the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Half Of Male Medical Interns Have Experienced Sexual Harassment

Dec 28 2023 - 13:12
Though every medical school and residency program has sexual harassment training and methods for reporting, over half of medical interns surveyed from June 2016 to June 2017 data in the Intern Health Study say they have experienced sexual harassment.

Self-reported demographic characteristics and survey were from June 2016 to June 2017 data in the Intern Health Study, an ongoing National Institutes of Health–funded repeated cohort study of postgraduate year 1 residents (interns) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

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SCOTUS Banned Racism In University Admissions But Little Will Change

Dec 26 2023 - 15:12
A CNN article notes that black students may now feel less inclined to mention their race when applying to colleges. They frame it as a blow against Affirmative Action by pesky conservatives on the Supreme Court, but removing racism can't be a bad thing.

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Weekend Science: Coffee And Static Electricity - Is Water The Answer Or A Grinding Mess?

Dec 26 2023 - 14:12
In some homes, it is believed that static electricity can lead to inferior grinding, and that has coffee connoisseurs searching for answers.

Will water help, or is it just making a mess because while a little may help, people will use too much? 

Coffee is prone to fads the way athletics - nasal strips, cryo-therapy, those weird blue-light filter glasses - and certainly nutrition is. A study may create a correlation and people sell a produce. Giving coffee acupuncture before tamping in espresso was all the rage starting in 2020 and for the last year some have sworn by adding water to reduce static electricity.


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If You Fear Dementia In A Relative, Ask Awkward Questions About Money

Dec 26 2023 - 12:12
No one likes to talk to elder family members about money, it can come across as greedy, but a sign of cognitive impairment that isn't obvious, like drastic memory loss, is 'wealth shock' - a sudden loss of savings.

Wealth shock does not cause dementia or Alzheimer's, sorry IARC epidemiologists, it does not cause cancer either, but it is a symptom of a decline. 

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Fallen Tech Heroes Miss Chance At Redemption

Dec 24 2023 - 14:12

Jobs. Gates. Berners-Lee. They opened our worlds to wonders: Graphical user interfaces, PCs, the World Wide Web. They were my heroes, and probably yours, deservedly so.

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Herds And Shepherds In Cosmology

Dec 22 2023 - 11:12

The Universe is very large, and we are very small compared to it, not only in size. Creating a cosmology that attempts to explain the whole existing Universe is an obsession shared by all cultures. We think we now have the true cosmological model, like many civilizations that have come before us. There are, however, reasonable grounds for thinking that the total truth about the origin and evolution of the Universe is beyond our reach.

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Critical Thinking Vs Rote: Why Asia Leads In Student Standardized Tests But Not Adult Science

Dec 21 2023 - 18:12
Once per year, America goes through cultural spasms over international standardized tests. One group says only more money for government union employees will fix it while another claims young people are just dumber today while another claims that only dismantling education will restore America to its former glory.

They all claim they are being critical because they care; "it's for the children."

It really isn't, it is just politics.

Sorry Boomers, you didn't lead the world in standardized tests. Neither did you, Gen X. Standardized tests were not your thing either, Millennials.

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Government's Electric Car Mandate Is So Profitable GM Is Buying Out Dealerships Who Don't Want To Sell Them

Dec 20 2023 - 13:12
The federal government now mandates and subsidizes electric cars. Like with similar solar panels, ethanol, and compact fluorescent light bulb schemes, science shows it isn't helping anything except the companies getting taxpayer money.

With government providing corporate welfare, companies can cut lower-profit lines, including of electric cars, and focus on the fattest margins. Government funding is so lucrative that Buick dealerships are...plummeting?

Yes they are, they have declined 47 percent this year. The reason is because General Motors is buying out anyone who does not want to 'play ball' and invest heavily, about $400,000 of their own money, in electric car service and support.

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A Pattern Recognition Problem

Dec 20 2023 - 11:12
Next month I will be giving three lectures to high-school students on using artificial intelligence for research in fundamental physics, and as usual I am not yet worried by the schedule enough to start thinking at the presentations. Except that in one case the school professor who organizes the event asked me for some preliminary task for the students "to get them in the mood" of the contents of the lecture. 

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Practice Parameter On Anaphylaxis Changes

Dec 18 2023 - 18:12
The Joint Task Force between the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology have released two new guidelines for allergic reactions.

The new recommendations are that calling an ambulance after use of an epinephrine auto injector  is not required if the patient experiences prompt and complete, and response to treatment. Paramedics should be called  for severe anaphylaxis, symptoms that do not resolve promptly, or nearly completely, or symptoms that return or worsen.

The recommendation remains not to give epinephrine preemptively to an asymptomatic patient.

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What Should College Presidents Do?

Dec 18 2023 - 11:12
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Golden Fleece: California High Taxes Offset By Designating A State Bat

Dec 15 2023 - 23:12
In arguably their most important 2023 legislative move, Democrats have given California a state...bat.

The rationale was that bats are 'as diverse as California' so why government immediately chose an official government winner, the pallid bat, is as mysterious as why we have a state goldfish, a state marine mammal, and a state butterfly.

There are overwhelmingly 4,000 species of mammals so California has a way to go before they pick an official member of each.
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COP28 Was Less About Climate Change Than Dismantling Democracies

Dec 15 2023 - 16:12
Climate changes are always ironic. Wealthy celebrities flying in on emissions-belching planes while claiming they bought 'carbon offsets' from companies that made Al Gore so rich he is the kind of oligarch Republicans only wish they could be is always going to create skepticism.

Having it in a mideast dictatorship that funds terrorism using wealth it derived from oil is next level.

It's more ironic this year, that's harmless enough, yet more worrisome, because climate activism has increasingly been taken over by socialist activism, and a quasi-feudal belief in agricultural mysticism. 

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With Electric Cars Mandated By The Biden Administration, Activists Target Prius Owners As Bad For Climate Change

Dec 15 2023 - 14:12
We all remember when progressives gushed over the Prius as the car that was saving the planet. In standard 'endorse the alternative until it becomes the standard and then sue them and collect checks along the way' fashion, environmentalists have no turned on them.

They are being declared NRE - which in this case isn't Not Really European, the NRE that white liberals on The Continent use to refer to immigrants, but Not Really Electric.

Electric Car Government Relations get paid to pave the road for their clients/employers, so they do what you probably expect; create trade groups and even entire nonprofits to advance their agenda. And pay those naturally inclined to help, or even those who are 'useful idiots.'(1)

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Congress Undoes The Obama Administration War On Normal Milk - Now Restore Other Standards Of Identity

Dec 15 2023 - 11:12
The House Agricultural Committee has undone a decade-long travesty brought on by the Obama administration, where they decided in defiance of the entire science community that low-fat and non-fat milk would lead to healthier outcomes in children.

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