I recently stumbled across two studies that trace family fortunes over centuries by tracing their surnames. One posits that the same families that were rich in Venice in the 15th century are still rich today. The other one makes the same argument for England spanning the time from 1170 to 2012. This is remarkable. From the second study:
… moreUsing educational status in England from 1170 to 2012, we show that the rate of social mobility in any society can
Scientists in California have used CRISPR, a gene editing tool, to engineer the genome of a bull calf. The idea is this: the region on the Y chromosome that initiates male development (the sex determining region, SRY) is actually not that large. So the scientists just transferred it onto another chromosome. Offspring that inherit this altered chromosome should have a male phenotype regardless of whether they also have a Y chromosome. So instead of 50% males, this calf … more
The more you know! Apparently, you should not rinse your mouth with water after brushing your teeth. Instead you should spit, in order to keep the fluoride from the tooth paste on your teeth as long as possible. Here is an article about it by the Oral Health Foundation: Spit, don’t rinse.
If you’re really ready to go down the rabbit hole of internet dental hygiene, here is an article stressing the importance of flossing.
A lot of people have been blogging about GPT-3, a neural network capable of generating all sorts of text. Here is someone who finally let GPT-3 generate his entire blog. The story is titled “My GPT-3 Blog Got 26 Thousand Visitors in 2 Weeks” and is quite an entertaining read.
Until this day the origins of the Sars-coronavirus 2 remain unknown. The two ends of the spectrum of theories are the zoonotic theory and the laboratory theory. The first states that the virus has evolved naturally from hosts such as bats and pangolins and recently started infecting humans as well. The assumed location for this is a wet market in Wuhan. The second one assumes that the virus has escaped (or maybe even was released intentionally) from a research lab. … more
When people discuss cannabis, they usually also talk about its potential to cause psychosis. I have never heard the same about tobacco.
Recently, I stumbled across an interesting study. It suggests that tobacco and weed may be equally strongly associated with psychotic-like-experiences. I haven’t read the whole study, but via a quick google search I could find broadly the same result elsewhere: For example, there is a meta analysis in the Lancet Psychiatry that found
… morean overall relative risk
I just read an article about the 2016 election that argued two things: First, fake news probably had very little effect on election outcomes. And second, the media actually did.
I liked the first part, because it confirmed what I already thought was true (see this short cartoon on confirmation bias for a little chuckle). Fake news only make a tiny fraction of all the news and I don’t think they are particularly effective. It is just genuinely hard to … more
70 research teams were tasked with analyzing the same identical set of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans. In many areas, they came to quite different conclusions. Ouch. This is not good. I mean, it’s maybe not as spectacular as finding brain activity in a dead salmon, but it’s not good.
Find a lighter article here and the nature paper here. Thanks to Robert for pointing me to it.
Stephen Fry delivers a powerful speech arguing why the Catholic Church is not a force for good in the world. The speech comes from the 2009 intelligence squared debate – which Stephen Fry kind of destroys completely. If you ever listen to a speech, listen to this one.
The relevant part starts at 21 minutes. This is a slightly edited version. The slightly more complete version is this, but the video is a bit pixelated.
Here is a list of electro music that I like. If you are interested in more recommendations, check out my podcast recommendations or my 36C3 video recommendations.
excellent for working or just as a background music
https://soundcloud.com/elias-dore/a-sunrise-in-sisyphos-wintergarten-240716
rather relaxed, but especially the beginning is really good
https://soundcloud.com/wandering-pulse/open-air-vincennes-session-1-june-2020
one of the first sets I ever listened to and still really good – if you find the name of the first track, please tell me!
https://soundcloud.com/delalani/denni-dena-bensky-cloudcuckooland-nachtsalon-281115
relaxed, good for working … more
