Another Take on Not Smoking, the Law and Tolerance
This vignette offers a 1930s perspective on what some call social health – that an individual’s behavior might be influenced by neighbors’ and coworkers’ attitudes.
Reading About Thinking (on D. Kahneman’s Ideas on Perceptions of Knowledge)
An article appeared in yesterday’s NYT Magazine on the hazards of over-confidence. The Israeli-born psychologist (and epistemologist, I’d dare say), Nobel laureate and author Daniel Kahneman considers how people make decisions based on bits of information that don’t provide an adequate representation of the subject at hand. He recounts how poorly, and firmly, army officers evaluate […]
More on DCIS
More, a magazine “for women of style & substance,” has an unusually thorough, now-available article by Nancy F. Smith in its September issue on A Breast Cancer You May Not Need to Treat. The article’s subject is DCIS (Ductal Carcinoma in Situ). This non-invasive, “Stage O” malignancy of the breast has shot up in reported incidence […]
Notes on Kris Carr and Crazy Sexy Cancer
I’m half-tempted to put down yesterday’s new NYT Magazine feature on crazy sexy cancer goddess Kris Carr. Her blog was one of the first I found when I started ML, and it was the most popular link on my fledgling site until I pulled it, fearful of somehow sponsoring a too-alternative oncology perspective. But I […]
Human Milk For Sale, Where’s the FDA?
The June issue of Wired carries a feature on the Booming Market for Human Breast Milk. You can read about the under-the-counter and over-the-Internet sale of “liquid gold” with a typical asking price in the range of $1 to $2.50 an ounce. Here’s a taste, from the article: …“rich, creamy breast milk!” “fresh and fatty!”… […]
Art, Science and Radiation Imagery on a Magazine Cover
This week’s New Yorker cover pretty well sums up my thoughts lately. It’s a bleak, semi-natural image that blends art and science, offers brightness amidst darkness, and reminds us of how little most of us know about physics, nuclear energy and radioactivity. And it’s a strange, unsettling start for the Spring. — Related Posts:Considering the […]
A New Twist on Peanut Allergies and Other Allergic Reactions
The current New Yorker unfolds an engaging story on childhood food allergies. As related by Dr. Jerome Groopman, there’s a shift in how some doctors think about how these conditions are best managed and, even better – might be prevented. The article feeds into the recent discussion that medical science, and even dogma, too-often turns […]
Another Brooklyn (and how I feel when I look in the mirror)
The image of Brooklyn Decker, a real woman and model from Middletown OH, streamed through my Google news feed this morning. I have to admire any person named Brooklyn, the place where I was born. From a post on my BlogHer health RSS: The BlogHer subject is Decker’s diet and exercise secrets: “…no matter how […]
The U-Shaped Curve of Happiness
This evening, after I finished cleaning up the kitchen after our family dinner, I glanced at the current issue of the Economist. The cover features this headline: the Joy of Growing Old (or why life begins at 46). It’s a light read, as this so-influential magazine goes, but nice to contemplate if you’re, say, 50 years old and are wondering about your future.
The article’s thesis is this: Although as people move towards old age they lose things they treasure—vitality, mental sharpness and looks – they also gain what people spend their lives pursuing…
Science Takes a Double Hit in the Press, Maybe
In his latest New Yorker piece The Truth Wears Off, Jonah Lehrer directs our attention to the lack of reproducibility of results in scientific research. The problem is pervasive, he says: …now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed finding have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims […]