From Theory to Fact
Safe and Effective™
The Sound Of Deplorable Science
It was known for decades that the Appalachian culture was inbreeding because of all the birth defects that were in the culture that turned out to be… bad nutrition. (Which was why, BTW, the DOD introduced the School Lunch Program back in the late 1940s. To cut down the rate of 4F from childhood nutrition deficiencies.)
Now, with DNA, we can peer into the past of the Appalachian culture and show that those toothless (from poor nutrition) rednecks were…
Not actually sleeping with their daughters. The DNA shows no higher rate of actual incest in traditional Appalachian culture than in the general background of the US.
Fathers Milk
Telegraph- Trans-women’s milk as good as breast milk, says NHS trust
For a person born male to breastfeed, they must develop milk-producing glands by taking the hormone progestin.
A drug is required to lactate, such as domperidone, which is often prescribed to women struggling to breastfeed, and helps to stimulate the production of prolactin – a separate hormone that tells the body to produce milk.
Domperidone, also known by the brand name Motilum, was not intended for this, but is prescribed off-label by doctors, despite the manufacturer, Janssen, itself recommending against it because of possible side effects to a baby’s heart.
Francisco- As long as they’re not using ivermectin…
The Sound Of Settled Science
The Revolution Will Be Televised
Grab a beverage.
Tom Luongo- The Great Reset is Dead, Long Live the Great Reset
Spoken like the true authoritarian that he is, Harari can only see violence and chaos. He’s not wrong. The violence and chaos coming, however, have their roots in his attempts (or complicity) in trying to force, through violence, a global order on humanity which humanity doesn’t want.
This push towards violence, however, can stop tomorrow. All that has to happen is for cretins like Harari, Soros, Schwab, Gates, and all the people behind them, to truly accept the fact that they have failed and cut a deal with us.
Opinions Verboten
National Post- Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1 million in defamation lawsuit
During the trial, Steyn represented himself, but said through his manager Melissa Howes that he would be appealing the $1 million award in punitive damages, saying it would have to face “due process scrutiny.”
“We always said that Mann never suffered any actual injury from the statement at issue,” Steyn said on Thursday through his manager. “And today, after twelve years, the jury awarded him one dollar in compensatory damages.”
Pick Up The Cookie?
The Sound Of Settled Science
“We believe that it is crucial to thoroughly revise our preconceptions of the Amazonian world.”
Man Bites Mann
Mark is in Washington resting up in preparation for the resumption of his trial at the DC Superior Court on Monday morning.
In the meantime, here are Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer with their dramatised reconstruction of the last day’s events, including what Powerline’s John Hinderaker described as Steyn’s “bravura performance” of his opening statement.
I’m Going To Miss The Arctic Sea Ice
Daily Sceptic- Arctic Sea Ice Soars to Highest Level for 21 Years
The dramatic, if largely unpublicised, recovery in Arctic sea ice is continuing into the New Year. Despite the contestable claims of the ‘hottest year ever’ (and even hotter in 2024), Arctic sea ice on January 8th stood at its highest level in 21 years. Last December, the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) revealed that sea ice recorded its third highest monthly gain in the modern 45-year record.
Y2Kyoto: I’ll Miss The Maldives
If sea level rise is ongoing and inexorable, then all else equal, the areal extent of global land areas should be shrinking, especially in low-lying continental areas and among tropical islands. Indeed that is the message that NASA is telling children, warning of the disappearance of large parts of the coastline, as shown below, with large parts of Florida and Louisiana succumbing to the seas.
Sea levels around the world of course are rising and expected to continue to rise throughout the 21st century and beyond. However, from 1985 to 2015 — a period when global sea levels increased by about 60 millimeters (about 2.4 inches) — the areal extent of global coastal land increased by almost 34,000 square kilometers (about 13k square miles), or about the size of Belgium home to more than 11 million people.
If the notion of landification seems paradoxical or contrary to what you’ve read in the media, don’t worry, you won’t be not alone.
The Sound Of Settled Science
For the first time, researchers have analyzed the impact of antibiotic use on the rise of treatment-resistant bacteria over the last 20 years in the UK and Norway. They show that while the increase in drug use has amplified the spread of superbugs, it is not the only driver. […]
By analyzing data that spanned almost 20 years, they found that the use of antibiotics was linked to increased resistance in some instances, depending on the type of antibiotic. One class of antibiotics, non-penicillin beta-lactams, was used three to five times more on average per person in the UK compared to Norway. This has led to a higher incidence of infections by a certain multi-drug resistant E. coli strain.
However, the UK also uses the antibiotic trimethoprim more often, but analysis did not uncover higher levels of resistance in the UK when comparing the common E. coli strains found in both countries.
The study found that the survival of MDR bacteria depended on what strains of E. coli were in the surrounding environment. Due to this and other selective pressures in an area, researchers concluded that it is not possible to assume that the widespread use of one type of antibiotic will have the same effect on antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread in different countries.
The Thrill Of Word-Policing
Apparently, the word collision is, for Dr Madrid, much too brutal and masculine when referring to the convergence of two galaxies, and the subsequent merging of the supermassive black holes at their centres – an event that will entail the sling-shotting of countless stars and their orbiting planets, and which may release energy equivalent to around 100 million supernova explosions, and to subsequently be detectable halfway across the universe.
Come, let’s pay a visit to the publication laughingly referred to as Scientific American.
Starving Cancer
Cedars Sinai- Researchers Look to Fasting as a Next Step in Cancer Treatment
…fasting selectively targets cancer cells based on their vulnerabilities—just like chemotherapy. While healthy cells lie dormant during a fast (and shore up their defenses), cancer cells are already damaged, so they struggle to survive without nourishment.
“I liken it to bears and hummingbirds,” Freedland explained. “In the absence of food, bears hibernate. But hummingbirds, like tumor cells, can’t hibernate—and they’ll die without food.”
“the world did not start when your dataset begins …”
Sensible advice for no matter what side of a policy debate you’re on: Against Mathiness, Part 2
Policy research is more useful and relevant when it focuses on real-world variables. It is very easy for us researchers to study proxies for real-world variables or dimensionless indices in search of statistical or scientific significance. However, translating the practical meaning of those variables back to the real-world may not be particularly straightforward or even possible. .
Consider how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confused itself over a study of measurements of hurricanes, mistakenly converting trends in measurements of hurricanes to making claims about trends in hurricanes (which I documented here and here). The urge to use proxies for the thing-we-really-want-to-say-something-about often arises because the real-world variable does not give the results we want or expect. If you want to study hurricanes, study hurricanes. If hurricanes don’t give the results you want, that says something important — say it and don’t go looking for work-arounds.
For those who missed it, Part One.
Poop Patrol
Lets have a look.
“… an official from NASA called me up”
“Mathiness” is a term coined by economist Paul Romer, who characterized it as a style that “lets academic politics masquerade as science.” […]
Mathiness is the academic’s truthiness. Math makes research seem serious and science-like. For many consumers of research, math creates a barrier of technical sophistication that prevents the evaluation of truth-claims. When that happens, mathiness provides an aura of authority that says, “trust us, not them.”
In my UCLA talk, I opened by sharing that more than thirty years ago NASA called me up and asked me to retract my Master’s thesis, which was a comprehensive policy evaluation of the Space Shuttle program.
The Sound Of Settled Science
Over the past few weeks I have read Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World, by Mike Davis. During my time as a scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I spent a lot of time researching impacts of and responses to El Niño and La Niña under the guidance of the one and only Mickey Glantz. I was aware of the 1877-78 El Niño event and its profound impacts, but I never connected its significance to the contemporary climate discourse until recently.
Davis compiles estimates suggesting that more than 50 million people died in the mid-1870s related to extreme weather and climate — That equates to about 4% of global population. Today, that same proportion of the world’s population would be over 320 million deaths, or almost the entire population of the entire United States. We cannot even imagine this magnitude of human suffering.
The proximate cause of the 1870s massive climate impacts was a very strong El Niño even in 1877 and 1878, but that event was also perhaps comparable to strong El Niño events in 1997/98 and 2015/16. What accounts for the massive loss of life in the 1870s? Davis explores this in depth, and the simple answer is colonial rule informed by Malthusian impulses.