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What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies
The average overweight American looking to lose weight will set a goal of losing 30 lbs. Most people will never come close. Does anything actually work?
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,456 posts.
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Letter in Response to Jan. 17 Article in The New York Times
Gideon Lewis-Kraus ( Jan. 17 ) profiles the nascent field of ancient DNA, which in the last few years has contributed to a transformation in our understanding of the deep human past. His article touches on important issues that we, as a field, have yet to deal with fully: including how to handle ancient remains…
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On whether changes in bedroom CO2 levels affect sleep quality
Self-experiment on whether changes in bedroom CO₂ levels affect sleep quality
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Hubble takes gigantic image of the Triangulum Galaxy
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the most detailed image yet of a close neighbour of the Milky Way — the Triangulum Galaxy, a spiral galaxy located at a distance of only three million light-years. This panoramic survey of the third-largest galaxy in our Local Group of galaxies provides a mesmerising…
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Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed
Researchers at Brown found that alcohol hijacks a conserved memory pathway in the brain and changes which versions of genes are made, forming the cravings that fuel addiction.
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Cancer Progress: Much More Than You Wanted To Know (2018)
Official statistics say we are winning the War on Cancer. Cancer incidence rates, mortality rates, and five-year-survival rates have generally been moving in the right direction over the past few d…
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Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation (2007)
When an experimental study states "The group with treatment X had significantly less disease ( p = 1%)", many people interpret this statement as being equivalent to "there is a 99% chance that if I do treatment X it will prevent disease." This essay explains why these statements are not equivalent. For such an…
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What Left-Handedness Reveals About How the Brain Works (2014)
From Medieval sword-fighters to Broca’s brains, or why the hand may hold the key to the link between creativity and mental illness.
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Towards a Better Pythagorean Cup
There was an article on Hacker News the other day by David Richeson entitled Make Your Own Pythagorean Cup . A Pythagorean cup is a cup with a built-in siphon. Supposedly invented by Pythagoras, the cup functions just like an ordinary cup as long as it is only filled to a certain level. If anyone gets greedy and tries…
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Measuring the size of the Earth by watching a shadow on a wall
Recently I've been discussing the details of measuring the size of the Earth by watching a shadow descending a wall at sunrise, or ascending at sunset. The sums are easy enough if you do it at either Equinox, and at the Equator, and you can read about it here:
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China lands Chang'e-4 on far side of Moon
It’s a space feat no nation has accomplished until now.
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IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle
Background : “IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact mostly measures extreme unintelligence (learning…
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Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (2012)
Something central, very central, is missing in historical accounts of scientific and technological discovery. The discourse and controversies focus on the role of luck as opposed to teleological programs (from telos, "aim"), that is, ones that rely on pre-set direction from formal science. This is a faux-debate: luck…
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Critical step found in DNA repair, cellular aging (2017)
The body’s ability to repair DNA damage declines with age, which causes gradual cell demise, overall bodily degeneration, and greater susceptibility to cancer. Experiments in mice suggest a way to thwart DNA damage.
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Jean Bourgain
I have just learned that Jean Bourgain passed away last week in Belgium, aged 64, after a prolonged battle with cancer. He and Eli Stein were the two mathematicians who most influenced my early ca…
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Spain will soon overtake Japan in life expectancy rankings
Spain is forecast to topple Japan from the top spot in the longest life expectancy league table by 2040, while the US continues to slip down the rankings.
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Human blood cells can be directly reprogrammed into neural stem cells
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the stem cell institute HI-STEM* in Heidelberg have succeeded for the first time in directly reprogramming human blood cells into a previously unknown type of neural stem cell. These induced stem cells are similar to those that occur during the early…
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The ‘clean plate’ mentality drives us to overeat?
We’re more likely to overeat when we only have a little bit of food left over, and we justify it by convincing ourselves it’s not as unhealthy as it is, according to new research by marketing professor Kelly Haws.
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Can you use a magnifying glass and moonlight to light a fire? (2016)
A magnifying glass concentrates light on a small spot. As many mischevious kids can tell you, a magnifying glass as small as a square inch in size can collect enough light to start a fire. A little Googling will tell you that the Sun is 400,000 times brighter than the Moon, so all we need is a 400,000-square-inch…
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Experiment: Recoil vs. Muzzle Velocity
A detailed experiment to find any statistically-significant relationship between muzzle velocity and recoil management technique.
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Gluten Free Antarctica
Far below the Antarctic circle, I watch a woman cry real tears because she can’t get gluten-free toast.
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Facts about smell (2014)
The home of typing by Alice Bartlett 👩🏻💻
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Why are amplitudes complex?
[By prior agreement, this post will be cross-posted on Microsoft’s Q# blog, even though it has nothing to do with the Q# programming language. It does, however, contain many examples th…
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Intro to Quantum Information Science
Someone recently wrote that my blog is “too high on nerd whining content and too low on actual compsci content to be worth checking too regularly.” While that’s surely one of the…