Tumbling Through Life
(The asides of my mind. RSS)
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I know it’s an older post, but I have to put it up because by the time you read this, I’ll be in New Zealand.
(Source: aidwatchers.com)
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I’ve always been a huge fan of the NYTimes infographics, but they really outdid themselves with this map. Zoom in for the full effect.
(Source: flowingdata.com)
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Abstract:
This paper describes the rise of “global health” as a research, funding, and training priority within U.S. academic medicine, and the increasing desirability of “global health partnerships” with institutions in sub-Saharan Africa. Leading spokespersons emphasize that “partnership” with poor nations is central to the mission of global health, an ethic that distinguishes it from older, more paternalistic traditions of international health and tropical medicine. However, at the same time, the field of academic global health depends on steep inequalities for its very existence, as it is the opportunity to work in impoverished, low-tech settings with high disease burdens that draws North American researchers and clinicians to global health programs and ensures their continued funding.
This paradox – in which inequality is both a form of suffering to be redressed and a professional, knowledge-generating, opportunity to be exploited – makes the partnerships to which global health aspires particularly challenging.
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Gold standard research design has often dictated using placebo controls as a comparison group—often involving at least a small amount of deception. A new study (N=80) finds a placebo effect even when patients were told they were taking a placebo and any positive outcomes were not a result of their pill.
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For my foodie friends: foie gras is not unethical. At least not according to one of my favorite food bloggers, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, over at Serious Eats.
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Why the other line is likely moving faster. I do agree stores that use the single-line-multiple-cashier system (e.g., Whole Foods) are the most efficient, but I disagree with errors or holdups being random. Anybody who has eaten at the HSPH cafeteria knows experience has a huge impact on the speed of the cashier. (Hint: always go to the left register.) An experienced cashier is flat out faster on normal transactions, less likely to have errors, and handles errors more quickly.
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A new service scans and grades your resume… Might be useful for the job-seekers out there.
(Source: rezscore.com)
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[N]obody, and I mean nobody, in a position of influence within the GOP cares about deficits when tax cuts for the affluent are on the line. Deficit hawkery is just a stick with which to beat down social programs.Paul Krugman takes the gloves off…
(Source: The New York Times)
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A group of 25 eight to ten year old schoolchildren published an article in the scientific journal Biology Letters. I don’t want to put a lot of pressure on my not-yet-born children, but it’s fair to say the bar has been raised.
Also, an accompanying essay from two (older) scientists. Their bullying, while not malicious, is entertaining. (“The experiments are modest in scope…” “They lack statistical analyses…”)
(Source: The New York Times)
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If you use TextMate to do the majority of your programming and Stata for your statistical analysis, here’s a bundle that combines them both. Stata programming in TextMate is so much better than the 10.0 editor.
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Link reblogged from It's Okay To Be Smart
Science really needs to start reviewing their headlines.
(Source: jtotheizzoe)
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One day when I was a junior medical student, a very important Boston surgeon visited the school and delivered a great treatise on a large number of patients who had undergone successful operations for vascular reconstruction. At the end of the lecture, a young student at the back of the room timidly asked, “Do you have any controls?” Well, the great surgeon drew himself up to his full height, hit the desk, and said, “Do you mean did I not operate on half the patients?” The hall grew very quiet then. The voice at the back of the room very hesitantly replied, “Yes, that’s what I had in mind.” Then the visitor’s fist really came down as he thundered, “Of course not. That would have doomed half of them to their death.” God, it was quiet then, and one could scarcely hear the small voice ask, “Which half?Dr. E. E. Peacock, Jr., University of Arizona College of Medicine; quoted in Medical World News (September 1, 1972), p. 45, as quoted by Tufte (via aaronsw)
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Race as a social construct in the growing field of genetic research.
(Source: thesocietypages.org)
