23 SEP 2023 by ideonexus
Explorer VS Adventurer
As Ursula K. LeGuin writes in The Dispossessed, a novel in which a man returns to Earth for the first time from an anarchist colony: “The explorer who will not come back or send back his ships to tell his tale is not an explorer, only an adventurer.” 1 
notes
notesThis applies to reading and research as well.
29 MAY 2014 by ideonexus
The Cultural Importance of Fundamental Research
The value of fundamental research does not lie only in the ideas it produces. There is more to it. It affects the whole intellectual life of a nation by determining its way of thinking and the standards by which actions and intellectual production are judged. If science is highly regarded and if the importance of being concemed with the most up-to-date problems of fundamental research is recognized, then a spiritual climate is created which influences the other activities. An atmosphere of cr... 1 notes
notesWhy pure science? in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 1965 21 4-8 Victor Frederick Weisskopf 1908
10 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Using an Access Database for Research
A few years back, I watched a CSPAN2 interview that changed the way I write major papers. The program wasBooknotes, and the guest was Pulitzer Prize winner, Taylor Branch. What I like about Booknotes is that they sometimes venture into the authors office to get a feel for how he or she actually tackles the grimy business of research.
Branch did not disappoint. To research histhree-volume biographyof Martin Luther King Jr., he made use of a massiveMicrosoft Accessdatabase. In one table, h... 1 notes
notesCaptured because it sounds much like what I use mxplx for in my research.
21 JUL 2013 by ideonexus
People Who Take Supplements are Less Healthy
Antioxidation vs. oxidation has been billed as a contest between good and evil. The battle takes place in cellular organelles called mitochondria, where the body converts food to energy, a process that requires oxygen and so is called oxidation. One consequence of oxidation is the generation of electron scavengers called free radicals (evil). Free radicals can damage DNA, cell membranes, and the lining of arteries; not surprisingly, they've been linked to aging, cancer, and heart disease. To ... 1 notes
notesPeople who eat lots of fruits and vegetables have lower incidence of cancer and other diseases, but people who take nutritional supplements meant containing high doses of the nutrients found in fruits in vegetables die at much higher rates.
18 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Why Do Journals Get It Wrong?
Why do studies end up with wrong findings? In fact, there are so many distorting forces baked into the process of testing the accuracy of a medical theory, that its harder to explain how researchers manage to producevalidfindings, aside from sheer luck. To cite just a few of these problems:
MismeasurementTo test the safety and efficacy of a drug, for example, what researchers really want to know is how thousands of people will fare long-term when taking the drug. But it would be unethical... 1 notes
notesWhy do journals publish so many papers with wrong results (2/3rds wrong by some estimates)?
12 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Journey, Not the Answer
It never occurred to me that there was going to be any stumbling block. Not that I had the answer, but [I had] the joy of going at it. When you have that joy, you do the right experiments. You let the material tell you where to go, and it tells you at every step what the next has to be because you're integrating with an overall brand new pattern in mind.Folksonomies: research
Folksonomies: research
1 notes
notesBarbara McClintock describes what it is like to work for years without knowing the outcome.
08 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Doctors are Always Under Attack
Doctors have been exposedyou always will be exposedto the attacks of those persons who consider their own undisciplined emotions more important than the world's most bitter agoniesthe people who would limit and cripple and hamper research because they fear research may be accompanied by a little pain and suffering. 1 notes
notesBy those who consider their emotions more important than suffering caused by research.
07 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Research is Like Oil Prospecting
Research is industrial prospecting. The oil prospectors use every scientific means to find new paying wells. Oil is found by each one of a number of methods. My own group of men are prospecting in a different field, using every possible scientific means. We believe there are still things left to be discovered. We have only stumbled upon a few barrels of physical laws from the great pool of knowledge. Some day we are going to hit a gusher. 
1 You will strike a new idea somewhere.
30 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Research, Like Learning, Requires Practice
People who are unused to learning, learn little, and that slowly, while those more accustomed do much more and do it more easily. The same thing also happens in connection with research. Those who are altogether unfamiliar with this become blinded and bewildered as soon as their minds begin to work: they readily withdraw from the inquiry, in a state of mental fatigue and exhaustion, much like people who attempt to race without having been trained. He, on the other hand, who is accustomed to r... 1 notes
notesQuote from Erasistratus, Greek Physician.
23 APR 2012 by ideonexus
Sitting Increases Chances of Cardiovascular Event
Methods: A population sample of 4,512 (1,945 men) Scottish Health Survey 2003 respondents (35 years) were followed up to 2007 for all-cause mortality and CVD events (fatal and nonfatal combined). Main exposures were interviewer-assessed screen time (<2 h/day; 2 to <4 h/day; and 4 h/day) and moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity.
Results: Two hundred fifteen CVD events and 325 any-cause deaths occurred during 19,364 follow-up person-years. The covariable (age, sex, ethnicity,...
1 The longer you sit, the greater your chances of death.
