I’ve Researched Time for 15 Years—Here’s How My Perception of It Has Changed
Why does time slow down in near-death situations? Does time really pass more quickly as you get older? How do our brains process time?
Source: singularityhub.com
Newspocalypse now
"We will learn that the less something looks like what we have now, the better chance it has of being the thing on the other side of death."
Source: niemanlab.org
NFTs died a slow, painful death in 2023 as most are now worthless
A reminder that early adoption of technology is not without risk. "Non-fungible tokens promised to revolutionise the concept of ownership using the blockchain technology behind bitcoin, but the market seems to have all but collapsed."
Source: newscientist.com
In the ’80s, We Decided Bike Helmets Make Riders Safe. Cyclists Have Paid for It Ever Since.
Good review of the complex science around cycle helmets and safety. The article also touches on the unintended effects of helmet mandate laws (which have been repealed in many US cities). Shout out to Ian Walker of Swansea University and his heroic measuring of passing distance of vehicles with various...
Source: slate.com
The Impact of Mask Distribution and Promotion on Mask Uptake and COVID-19 in Bangladesh
A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that face masks can protect against COVID-19. There is, however, limited rigorous evidence on the extent to which mask-wearing is effective in reducing COVID-19 in a real-life situation with imperfect and inconsistent mask use. In Bangladesh, researchers...
Source: poverty-action.org
RECOVERY trial finds Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody combination reduces deaths for hospitalised COVID-19 patients who
Source: recoverytrial.net
Bank of England predicts rebound in the economy
"The Bank of England said Britain's economy would grow by the most since World War Two this year and slowed the pace of its trillion dollar bond-purchasing programme, but stressed it was not reversing its stimulus." Strong indications finally of a bounce back in the economy highlight the devastating...
Source: reuters.com
UK should set tougher air pollution limits, says Kissi-Debrah coroner
The UK government should impose tougher limits on air pollution, in line with World Health Organization recommendations, to prevent more deaths like those of 9-year old Ella Kissi-Debrah, a coroner has urged.
Source: newscientist.com
UK COVID cases will surge again even with vaccines, medical officer says
Britain will see a resurgence in coronavirus cases at some point and can't bring deaths from COVID-19 down to zero even with a successful vaccine rollout, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on Tuesday.
Source: reuters.com
Betting on death of petrol cars, Volvo to go all electric by 2030
"Volvo's entire car lineup will be fully electric by 2030, the Chinese-owned company said on Tuesday, joining a growing number of carmakers planning to phase out fossil-fuel engines by the end of this decade." Maybe the transition to all electric cars is going to go faster than it appeared only a few...
Source: reuters.com
Why Are COVID-19 Case Numbers Dropping?
"We don’t know. That part is easy. Also easy is that case numbers really are falling — it’s not just reduced testing — and it’s happening pretty much everywhere. Urban areas and rural. Red states and blue. Places with broad vaccine rollouts and those with hardly any. North and South America,...
Source: jwatch.org
Eeek! or E484K mutation and the coronavirus pandemic
Rupert Beale · Eeek! · LRB 19 February 2021: "Uncontrolled spread – as we knew it would – led to an even greater wave of infections, hospitalisations and deaths than last spring. Children were sent to school for one day before the necessary ‘lockdown’ was reimposed. The impulse to keep schools...
Source: lrb.co.uk
Dreadful user experience can be expensive.
"Citibank just got a $500 million lesson in the importance of UI design: Citibank was trying to make $7.8M in interest payments. It sent $900M instead." The screenshot is from court records where the judge ruled against Citibank who had wanted to get their money back. The lesson is to always include...
Source: arstechnica.com
Preventing critical failure
Can routinely collected data be repurposed to predict avoidable patient harm? A quantitative descriptive study Objectives To determine whether sharing of routinely collected health service performance data could have predicted a critical safety failure at an Australian maternity service. Design Observational...
Source: bmj.com
Dying in a Leadership Vacuum Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly?
Dying in a Leadership Vacuum Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? The NEJM Editors asks what has gone so wrong in the US and lays the blame with the political leadership. "This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were...
Source: nejm.org
Effect of school closures on mortality from coronavirus disease 2019: old and new predictions
"It was predicted in March 2020 that in response to covid-19 a broad lockdown, as opposed to a focus on shielding the most vulnerable members of society, would reduce immediate demand for ICU beds at the cost of more deaths long term. The optimal strategy for saving lives in a covid-19 epidemic is different...
Source: bmj.com
EU says one in eight deaths is linked to pollution: The bloc's environment agency says pollution contributes to hundreds
EU says one in eight deaths is linked to pollution: The bloc's environment agency says pollution contributes to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.
Source: bbc.co.uk
Our itch to share helps spread Covid-19 misinformation
Our itch to share helps spread Covid-19 misinformation: Study finds social media sharing affects news judgment, but a quick exercise reduces the problem. Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office.
‘The study follows others Rand and Pennycook have conducted about explicitly political news, which similarly...
Source: mit.edu
COVID-19 infections and deaths among Connecticut nursing home residents
COVID-19 infections and deaths among Connecticut nursing home residents: facility correlates:
Objective
To determine the associations of nursing home registered nurse (RN) staffing, overall quality of care, and concentration of Medicaid or racial and ethnic minority residents with COVID-19 ... Yue...
Source: wiley.com
We Need to Relocate ICU Patients Out of Covid-19 Hotspots: Increasing the number of beds in a hard-hit location may actually
We Need to Relocate ICU Patients Out of Covid-19 Hotspots: Increasing the number of beds in a hard-hit location may actually result in more deaths.
Source: hbr.org
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