20% Drop in Gun-Related Injuries During NRA Conventions
Among 75,567,650 beneficiary-period observations in the claims analysis, 14.3% occurred on NRA convention dates. The unadjusted rate of firearm injuries was lower during convention dates than during control dates (129 beneficiaries with a firearm injury among 10,883,304 persons [1.19 per 100,000] vs. 963 beneficiaries with a firearm injury among 64,683,254 persons [1.49 per 100,000]; P=0.004; relative difference, 20.1%; 95% confidence interval, 6.7 to 34.0). The findings were unaffected by ad...80/20 Rule for Production VS Consumption
As James explains, you can read everything you want about waking up earlier—from sleep habits to the Circadian rhythm—but when the alarm goes off, the only thing that matters are the strategies you’ve actually tried. “The biggest issue around the myth of ‘I need to learn more’ is that somehow learning and doing are mutually exclusive. And they’re not at all. You should certainly be taking in new information and exploring continually. But you also need to be exploiting the infor...Caloric Restriction Could Mean a 20% Extension in Lifespan
Sinclair and several other prominent gerontologists are presently seeking human therapies based on the long-standing observation that lifelong restriction of caloric intake considerably extends both the healthy and total life span of nearly all species in which it has been tried, including rodents and dogs. Drugs that elicit the gene expression changes that result from caloric restriction might, these workers assert, extend human life span by something approaching the same proportion as seen ...The Stress of Cold Temperatures Extends Lifespans
In 1986, John Holloszy of Washington University immersed his lab rats in shallow, cool water for four hours each day. They burned so many extra calories that they ate half again as much as control rats, but weighed less. The cold rats lived 10% longer, on average. Holloszy framed his report on this experiment not as a hormetic effect of cold exposure, but as a refutation of the “rate of living” hypothesis. In 2006, Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute for Aging Research exposed lab worms...Physiological Decline in the Body When You Stop Exercising
...regular endurance exercise leads to four major consequences: Increased ability of the heart to eject blood increased ability of the blood vessels to send blood to where blood is needed Increased number of capillaries (the vessels that deliver oxygen and ‘food’ to the muscles) increased size and the number of mitochondria (the “power plants” of the cells). All these changes lead to the more efficient use of oxygen, as well as nutrients. [...] Pino considers a person who can run...Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF) Lowers Cancer Risk
A well-established, graded, inverse association exists between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) as well as all-cause mortality in numerous healthy and clinical adult populations.1- 3 Compared with those classified in the lowest CRF category (<7.9 metabolic equivalents [METs]), individuals in the highest CRF category (≥10.9 METs) have a 1.6- to 1.7-fold lower risk of CVD and all-cause mortality, respectively.4 Accordingly, measurement of CRF via for...From Time Magazine article on the study:
Here’s the best part: it doesn’t take a lot of exercise to have a big health impact, Lakoski found. “Just a small improvement in fitness made a difference in survival of those that developed cancer,” she says. Compared to men who could run 12-minute miles on the treadmill at age 50, men who ran slightly faster 11.5-minute miles had an additional 10% decrease in cancer death and an extra 25% decrease in cardiovascular death among those who developed cancer in the study.
Positive Bias in the 2-4-6 Task
The boy's expression grew more intense. "This is a game based on a famous experiment called the 2-4-6 task, and this is how it works. I have a rule - known to me, but not to you - which fits some triplets of three numbers, but not others. 2-4-6 is one example of a triplet which fits the rule. In fact... let me write down the rule, just so you know it's a fixed rule, and fold it up and give it to you. Please don't look, since I infer from earlier that you can read upside-down." The boy said ...A game to demonstrate we jump to conclusions and seek to confirm our biases.
Latinos Less Likely to Be Online Than Whites
While about two-thirds of Latino (65%) and black (66%) adults went online in 2010, more than three-fourths (77%) of white adults did so. In terms of broadband use at home, there is a large gap between Latinos (45%) and whites (65%), and the rate among blacks (52%) is somewhat higher than that of Latinos. Fully 85% of whites owned a cell phone in 2010, compared with 76% of Latinos and 79% of blacks. Hispanics, on average, have lower levels of education and earn less than whites. Controlling f...Hispanics are less likely to use the Internet, but if you control for socioeconomic disparities, this difference becomes much less.
Notes from the "Defending Science Online" session
No direct quote for this meme.Summaries of important points and comments made by the speakers and audience for this session:
Chris Mooney
· How do we correct misinformation?
· “How I Started Worrying and Learned to Doubt the Blog”
· Internet is second only to TVF as source of information about Science and Technology
· Brendan Nyhan – people did not change their minds when presented with corrections that challenge their ideological point of view
· Cultural Cognition of Scientific Facts (Kahan et al): conservative libertarians were more likely to accept an article on reducing pollution when it included headline about nuclear power.
· “What Happened on Delibaration Day” Case _____
· Correcting George Will: “no global warming for more than a decade” bloggers tar and feathered him, Washington Post recognized the outrage and WMO wrote letter correcting him, but Will did not apologize or correct himself.
· Message First, Facts Second
Joshua Rosenau
· Blogs can’t correct Texas Textbooks.
· School Board science standards 1998 review “strengths and weaknesses” but they only wanted to review weaknesses of evolution.
· Texas Freedom Network, texasteachers.org, Teach them Science, NCSE
· Reach people with documentaries about Kansas, and convince them to speak at meetings.
· Audience Research: talk about medical advances from evolution, compatibility of faith and evolution
· Start Online, Move Offline.
· Make it hard to be dismissed: state why your opinion matters (member of the community, scientific background)
· If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a big enough coalition. – Bernice Johnson Reagon
Val Jones
· Science Based Medicine blog.
· 80% of Americans go online for health information, but only 20% consider the source.
· Case Study of Two Patients going to two different online sources for health information.
· True story: colon cancer survivor who found oncologist online, breast cancer who tried alternative medicines and died in six months
· Getbetterhealth.com
Comments:
· November 1963: Malcom X Black Revolution
· Margaret Sangers: planned parenthood
· Meam Goldman: talked about birth control when it was illegal
· George Will is into Toaster oven science, not real science. (look up article where George Will says he loves science)
· Van: academic centers need to set up social media centers. Shout down crazy people.
· Create peer-to-peer references that people can link to in response to people being wrong in comments sections.
· Van: Health Blogger Code of Ethics
· Astrology News: Astrologers said It’s true, but it doesn’t change any of the results. There’s a reason it doesn’t change any of the results.
· Mooney: quick heuristics to determine whether to engage someone, politely say, “I don’t want to have this conversation.”