Overturning 'conventional wisdom' with 'natural experiments'
Via Reuters ... "Economists David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens won the 2021 Nobel economics prize on Monday for pioneering "natural experiments" to show real-world economic impacts in areas from minimum wage increases in the U.S. fast-food sector to migration from Castro-era Cuba." "One experiment...
Source: reuters.com
Psychology of panic buying
I've been fascinated by the psychology of panic buying and it is clearly an area for future research. It has an enormous impact on delivery infrastructure and I wonder if anyone has been tracking the data of the causes and the impact in the current fuel 'crisis'. A systematic review from last year identified...
Source: nih.gov
Rediscovering Cryptpad
Cryptpad is for working collaboratively on documents such as Rich Text, Spread Sheets, Presentations, Whiteboards, and Project Boards. The server has no access to any of your data and the encryption is based on zero knowledge. You don't even need to give an email address to register - you pick a username...
Source: cryptpad.fr
New WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines aim to save millions of lives from air pollution
"Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats to human health, alongside climate change. New guidelines provide clear evidence of the damage air pollution inflicts on human health, at even lower concentrations than previously understood." "Global assessments of ambient air pollution alone...
Source: who.int
Britain tells its food industry to prepare for CO2 price shock
"Britain warned its food producers on Wednesday to prepare for a 400% rise in carbon dioxide prices after extending emergency state support to avert a shortage of poultry and meat triggered by soaring costs of wholesale natural gas." State support has been given to a key producer for a period of 3 weeks.
Source: reuters.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
New WHO toolkit promotes inclusion of people with dementia in society
“Towards a dementia-inclusive society: WHO toolkit for dementia-friendly initiatives”, launched today, is WHO’s latest response for establishing and scaling-up dementia-friendly initiatives globally. The toolkit helps countries raise public awareness and understanding of dementia to support people...
Source: who.int
Clinically contextualised ECG interpretation: the impact of prior clinical exposure and case vignettes on ECG diagnostic
Does teaching ECGs with a clinical vignette improve training? Not greatly ... but having seen a condition previously (and presumably the ECG that went with it) is probably best. The researchers concluded that "ECG training should therefore not rely on experiential learning
alone, but instead be supplemented...
Source: biomedcentral.com
Visa-free touring granted for UK artists in 19 EU countries – while industry demands "honesty" from government
"The government has announced that visa-free touring has been negotiated for UK artists in 19 EU member countries" This is great news for musicians but also good to see that individual EU states also still have control over their borders (they always did). It will be great for us all to have freedom...
Source: nme.com
Gout and 'Podagra' in medieval Cambridge, England - PubMed International journal of paleopathology.
"The high prevalence rate of gout in the friary is at least partly explained by the consumption of alcohol and purine-rich diets by the friars and the wealthy townsfolk. Medieval medical texts from Cambridge show that gout (known as podagra) was sometimes treated with medications made from the root of...
Source: nih.gov
Can Money Buy Happiness? A Review of New Data
Everyone knows the adage “money can’t buy happiness,” although few of us seem to believe it.
The best-known theory on this topic is that money actually can buy happiness, but only up to a point. This comes from a study by two Nobel Laureates, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton (2010), which found...
Source: givingwhatwecan.org
Cauliflower and Chaos, Fractals in Every Floret
Scientists take a crack at recreating the hypnotic fractal spirals of the Romanesco cauliflower.
Source: nytimes.com
RECOVERY trial finds Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody combination reduces deaths for hospitalised COVID-19 patients who
Source: recoverytrial.net
Covid-19 news: England sees rise in cases for first time in 5 weeks
The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic
Source: newscientist.com
Greta Thunberg aims to change how food is produced
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has set her sights on changing how the world produces and consumes food in order to counteract a trio of threats: carbon emissions, disease outbreaks and animal suffering.
Source: reuters.com
Apple AirTags, Now Jailbroken, Could Become Even Bigger Privacy Nightmare - ExtremeTech
The new Apple AirTag is not the first smart tracker, but it's so good at what it does that it could actually be a privacy nightmare, an even greater concern after a security researcher has shown it's possible to "jailbreak" one.
Source: extremetech.com
I tracked my kid with Apple's Airtags to test its privacy features
I clipped a keychain with one of Apple's tiny new Bluetooth trackers, AirTags, onto my son's book bag and waved goodbye to him on the school bus. I watched on my iPhone's Find My app as the bus stopped at a light a few blocks down from our street.
Source: cnn.com
Founded Upon an Error
A recent post on Reddit asks, “Why was Bayes’ Theory not accepted/popular historically until the late 20th century?” Great question! As always, there are many answers to a questio…
Source: allendowney.com
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
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