Category Archives: Science

UPDATE ON FIRST SLEEP/SECOND SLEEP.

UPDATE ON FIRST SLEEP/SECOND SLEEP. I posted here about first sleep/second sleep in response to Annalisa’s observation that this was a hobby horse that I talked a lot more about than I posted about. My nephew Andrew has now sent … Continue reading

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“GOING FROM ZERO TO EPSILON,,,,”

“GOING FROM ZERO TO EPSILON….” For those of you who are not familiar with the notation, the Greek letter epsilon is used in math to represent an arbitrarily small number. I had a mathematician friend who used to say that: … Continue reading

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ARBITRARILY.

ARBITRARILY. Annalisa sent me this link to this comic on the SMBC site. She said she liked imagining the whole scene playing out, with possible frustrated responses to the arbitrary numbers being shouted out. I love this comic.

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THE KILLER FOG OF 1952.

THE KILLER FOG OF 1952. The London fog and smog through which Turner saw the world continued until the 1960’s. The killer fog of 1952 is described in this article by Christopher Klein on the history.com website. During the space … Continue reading

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TURNER’S LIGHT.

TURNER’S LIGHT. I had looked at many of Turner’s paintings with their effects of atmosphere and color without realizing that Turner’s work was shaped by the English air. Turner was born in 1775 and all during his lifetime, houses were, … Continue reading

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MAYBE STATINS SHOULD BE GIVEN TO TRY TO PREVENT ALZHEIMER’S.

MAYBE STATINS SHOULD BE GIVEN TO TRY TO PREVENT ALZHEIMER’S. Dr. Zissimopoulos identifies the problems with not following FDA requirements for clinical tests before prescribing statins for the prevention of Alzheimer’s: “Some people with a family history of Alzheimer’s might … Continue reading

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WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT EVIDENCE THAT STATINS MAY DELAY ALZHEIMER’S?

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT EVIDENCE THAT STATINS MAY DELAY ALZHEIMER’S? Julie Zissimopoulos in this article on the Statnews website lays out the difficult options in assessing new possible uses for older drugs which are off-patent. Random controlled trials are … Continue reading

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CHOOSING THE RIGHT LAB MICE FOR AN EXPERIMENT.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT LAB MICE FOR AN EXPERIMENT. I posted here in 2009 about Richard Feynman’s lecture on how to eliminate possible alternative explanations in a controlled experiment. Feynman described how an experimenter named Young was trying to train rats … Continue reading

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MINNESOTA NICE AND THE ZIPPER MERGE.

MINNESOTA NICE AND THE ZIPPER MERGE. When a driver knows that his lane is going to end, but waits until the last possible moment to change lanes, it is called a “zipper merge”. I posted here in 2014 that Washington … Continue reading

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HOW JET LAG AFFECTS BASEBALL GAMES.

HOW JET LAG AFFECTS BASEBALL GAMES. Nick sent me this article by George Dvorsky on the Gizmodo site about the effects of jet lag on the performance of baseball players. The article reports on a study by Ravi Allada and … Continue reading

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