Neutron stars. They are so strange that we can barely wrap our heads around the idea of their existence. In fact, we still don't really know most things about them, so we can only guess and wonder trying to explain their extreme properties. This video explains all we know—or suppose—about them.
“Eccleston was a tiger and Tennant was, well, Tigger. Smith is an uncoordinated housecat who pretends that he meant to do that after falling off a piece of furniture.” — Steven Moffat
I think we all know who that makes Capaldi.
This is the best thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
PERFECT.
Except THAT WASN’T MOFFAT!!!! Or if it was, he got it from elsewhere, namely from Lynne M. Thomas, editor of Chicks Dig Time Lords.
Lynne! Time for some provenance. ;-)
(x)
I see it.
Good question. Today is as good a day as any to Go Polling!
Em um carro chinês, diga-se de passagem.
Via Lucas Abud e Gabriel Bastos
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
TadeuJohn Romero on minecraft
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I can’t believe someone invented the microscope. At some point in human history, some Dutch dude grafted a few lenses together and started looking at everything he could find. Could you imagine that reaction? You’re living your life, then suddenly discover that there are billions upon billions of microbes swimming around in your water? Talk about terrifying. And you don’t even know if the microbes are SMART or have FEELINGS and DREAMS. So every time you mop up a puddle you could be causing an adorable little genocide.
The best part is that the Dutch dude wasn’t even a biologist or scientist. He was a guy who made a microscope and went around blowing his own mind all day. Those really were the Wild West days of science. Sure, people were dying of simple infections, but you could be the first to discover things like gravity.
wes
Welcome to Burden of Proof, a regular column in which Julia Belluz (a journalist) and Steven Hoffman (an academic) join forces to tackle the most pressing health issues of our time — especially bugs, drugs, and pseudoscience thugs — and uncover the best science behind them. Have suggestions or comments? Email Belluz and Hoffman or Tweet us @juliaoftoronto and @shoffmania. You can see previous columns here.
Another day, another diet study. In one week, it's not unusual to find two studies on the same topic with contradictory conclusions — in this case, about what kind of eating would help people lose the most weight.
Those studies are not exceptional. There are at least 75 randomized controlled trials published every day — and that number continually increases. According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, every couple of days we now create the same amount of information that we did from the dawn of civilization all the way up until 2003.
Part of this new knowledge includes an overwhelming quantity of health information. It's constantly produced, reproduced and transmitted to public audiences. Not only are we confused; even the best scientists can't stay on top of it all. Much of it is wrong.
This has led us to a frustratingly paradoxical place: we have more science than we've ever had to make the best possible decisions about our health. Yet in reality, this knowledge usually hits us like a tsunami. We're drowning in bytes of data we don't know how to make sense of. Despite all the advances in science, it can even seem as though we're moving away from evidence-based thinking and toward magical beliefs in miracle cures and fast-fixes.
A lot of the information out there is simply wrong. Consider this recent study of Wikipedia entries about medical conditions: not only did they contain many errors, but nine out of ten of the articles examined significantly deviated from the best-available evidence.
The challenge before us is this: how can we find and capitalize on all good information — and avoid wrong information — to have healthier lives and societies?
Julia Belluz on Dr. Oz's big weight-loss lies (and one truth).
Like their patients, doctors used to scramble in the information deluge. They'd often end up using outdated information from medical school or authority figures — and not the best-available evidence — to guide their practices.
Before evidence-based medicine, doctors often relied on the authority of people who looked like this guy instead of actual science. (Photo courtesy of NBCUniversal.)
Then, in the early 1990s, came "evidence-based medicine." It sounds redundant, almost silly, but it was a revolution in medical practice. Essentially, the movement called on doctors to apply the scientific method to the clinics through "the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients."
One of the key insights of evidence-based medicine was that doctors needed accessible and trustworthy research to inform their decisions. They, too, needed help wading through all the research out there.
Statisticians paved the way by coming up with particular methods for making sense of science. One of the earliest examples was published by the British Medical Journal in 1904. Back then, a statistician named Karl Pearson was asked by the government to look at whether a vaccine against typhoid fever had reduced infection and death among soldiers who had used it in various parts of the British Empire. In his review, he looked at data from places like South Africa and India, and pointed out all their flaws and weaknesses, suggesting that an experiment — calling for volunteers to take the vaccine, and giving every other one a dose — would be needed to find out whether it actually worked.
Pearson laid the groundwork for this idea that researchers needed to look critically at medical evidence and combine the results of many studies to find out where bias or holes in the science might lurk.
Okay, another classic doctor-type. But this guy is different. This is Archie Cocrhane, the Cochrane Collaboration namesake and one of our heroes. He was a Scottish physician who pushed the medical community toward the scientific method. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
The group that's done more to further that cause than perhaps any other is the Cochrane Collaboration, an international not-for-profit established in the early 1990s. You've probably never heard of it (incidentally, like the evidence-based medicine movement, it was also co-founded by prudent Canadians) but they're one of the best sources for unbiased medical information in existence and they should be your first stop before you hit Google or WebMD.
Their mandate is to create syntheses of science — known as "systematic reviews" — on important clinical questions. The idea is simple and should sound familiar by now: many studies, involving thousands of patients can get us closer to the truth than any single study or anecdote ever could.
Combining the results of a bunch of studies also reduces bias and the play of chance that can color individual studies. So the folks at Cochrane designed a process for their systematic reviews. Basically, independent reviewers use well-established and transparent protocols to search the literature about health questions and then apply statistical methods to combine them so that they can see where the preponderance of evidence lies. The process is called "meta-analysis" and it's repeated at least twice and then published so that others can verify or repeat their steps. After all, not all systematic reviews are created equally.*
Today at Cochrane, you'll find reviews on everything from the effects of acupuncture for preventing migraines (maybe works) and premenstrual syndrome (may not work), to the usefulness of cranberry juice to treat bladder infections (probably doesn't work). The hard-working people behind Cochrane even translate their conclusions into "plain language summaries" and podcasts.
These summaries are considered the gold standard of medical evidence because they allow doctors to make decisions not just on the basis of whatever random research they come across, but on the totality of science about whatever medical question they have.
Now, there are a number of other databases that bring together high-quality reviews on health issues and the Cochrane methodology has been applied to other areas of science — from education and crime to health systems questions. (See chart below.) These summaries are more accessible than ever before, not just for doctors, but also for the rest of us.
If you don't find information about the health question you're researching in one of these databases, there are other good, evidence-based sources. Try MedlinePlus, Mayo Clinic, and NHS Choices. For more reliable health information, bookmark this page on the top 100 health websites you can trust. And if you want to nerd out about medical evidence check out the book Testing Treatments, which is free to download.
Evidence-based medicine is not perfect, of course, and doctors still sometimes make decisions that aren't rooted in science.
But the idea behind it is one that should guide our health choices: not all evidence is created equally, and it shouldn't be acted upon as such. What's more, the sheer quantity of new health science — and the huge opportunity it represents — means that we have to change the way we make decisions. To do that, there are better places to start than Dr. Google.
*Footnote: Check out the Cochrane Collaboration logo. It has a cool story behind it.
The horizontal lines on the logo represent seven experiments looking at whether a course of corticosteroids for women who were expected to give birth prematurely reduced the risk of death in their babies. The left-hand side of the circle means the results of the studies were positive and the drug was proven to be useful; the right-hand side means the opposite was shown to be true. The middle, vertical line means there was 'no difference,' or that the drug may or may not work. And the diamond represents the combined results of all the studies.
As you can see, most of the studies showed the drug worked and the combined results came out in support of using corticosteroids in mothers to save their babies' lives. But until the first systematic review was published almost 20 years after the drug hit the market, doctors were left to wade though contradictory studies on the question and basically guess about what to do with their patients. Thousands of babies suffered and died needlessly.
Trey learned two things about me early on in our relationship. First, I'm the kind of gal that if a server asks if I want to look at the dessert menu, I say yes. It doesn't hurt to look, right? And second, he learned that if crème brûlée is on that dessert menu, I'm going to order it.
This version of crème brûlée features a healthy dose of espresso flavor. Honestly, it sort of tastes like a vanilla latte. I highly recommend serving these on a tray filled with coffee beans. The added aroma will totally impress whoever you are serving this to. And when they aren't looking, you can totally pour the beans back into the bag and save them for your morning coffee. That's exactly what I did. :)
Espresso Crème Brûlée, makes 6-8 depending on your ramekin size.
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons espresso powder
1/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup super fine (baker's) sugar
Heat the heavy cream over medium heat, whisking to dissolve the espresso powder. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
In a bowl combine the egg yolks and sugar. Stir for a couple minutes until the mixture turns from bright yellow to a paler yellow. Slowly whisk in the heavy cream-espresso mixture and the vanilla extract. Pour the batter into your ramekins.
Place the ramekins in a large casserole dish or a baking sheet with a tall lip. Fill the baking dish with water so the ramekins are half submerged in the water. Bake at 325°F for 45-48 minutes. The custard should look set but have a slight jiggle in the center (like a solid custard). If it seems too liquidy, allow them to cook for a few more minutes. Ramekin size can really make a difference here, so use your best judgement. Take care when removing the baking dish from the oven as the water will be very hot. You do not want to splash it on your skin.
Allow the custards to cool. Then cover and refrigerate for at least two hours or overnight. Before serving, sprinkle a thin layer of sugar over the top and caramelize with a kitchen torch or under the broiler. Enjoy! xo. Emma
Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with The Signature Collection.
Photo by roaming-the-planet
Photo by roaming-the-planet
Photos by roaming-the-planet
First a Boeing 747, and now an industrial complex on a Vancover island; it seems no canvas is too large for Brazilian graffiti artists Os Gemeos who were invited to the Vancouver Biennale to turn six multi-story silos on Granville Island into their trademark ‘Giants.’ The murals on the 70-foot towers are now the largest paintings ever attempted by the pair, an astounding feat considering Os Gemeos completely donated a month of their time to create the non-profit art project. An Indiegogo fundraising campaign to recoup costs associated with painting the silos has been extremely successful. You can see more over on Arrested Motion.
In my productivity talk "How to Scale Yourself and Get More Done Than You Thought Possible" I include a challenge to the listener. It's kind of insane, but it's actually proven very useful to me when I really need to get important work done.
Insane right? I believe that checking your email in the morning is the best way to time-travel to after lunch.
Why DO we check email first thing in the morning? Well, because something crucial might have happened overnight.
There's a few things wrong with that sentence, in my opinion. Words like "something" and "might" stick out. We check our email because of fear, a sense of disconnectedness, and (in some cases) a feeling of urgency addiction.
We often go to bed with our current project or work on our minds. It's THAT project that we should probably wake up and start working on. It's that project that we kind of left unfinished when we went to bed in the first place.
We SHOULD get up and start working on our project first thing. Instead we check our email, get sucked into it, answer a few, get stressed, answer a few more, threaten to delete the whole inbox, and then it's lunch time.
When I'm not really focused, sometimes the day just slips past me. I find my feet around 5pm when the day is winding down, not at 9am when it should be winding up.
If something really really important happened it won't be in your inbox. Your phone will be blowing up. Someone will be sitting in your seat when you show up at work. They will find you.
When they DO find you, you should be working. Go to work and resist the urge to check your email. Start working immediately, head down, sprinting. There's HOURS of time before lunch to be discovered.
Here's your homework. Go to work tomorrow and don't open email until afternoon. You might be staring at first, wondering what the heck you're supposed to do. Do that project. Write that code. Work on that book. Update that blog. Do literally ANYTHING except email.
When you open email for the first time after lunch, you'll have hours of amazing work already behind you and you'll feel amazing.
Try it.
Sponsor: Many thanks to Aspose for sponsoring the blog feed this week! Aspose.Total for .NET has all the APIs you need to create, manipulate and convert Microsoft Office documents and a host of other file formats in your applications. Curious? Start a free trial today.
More Devil chicken.
Last week there were a bunch of great posts expounding on the staying power of blogs and RSS. It seems we’re not the only people comparing social media platforms to the open web and we gained a lot of valuable new insight.
All weekend I’ve been thinking about relevance. When Twitter first took off, it delivered. So much of my Twitter feed was filled with timely, interesting material that it became addictive.
But over time Twitter became more of a platform for self-promotion, corporate advertisement, and random, passive-aggressive posts from college roommates. It went from “check out this amazing article I read” to “look at me because I said so.” That’s just not relevant to me.
Facebook never really delivered on relevance, but it was at least new and fresh for a while. Now it feels like an obligation. Happy Birthday. Yes, I like your new hat. Congratulations on your anniversary. Oooh, she’s so cute. And, of course, buy this stuff from Nordstrom.
But blogs and RSS, like email and websites, remain. They are solely focused on delivering relevant information. Could they be better? Heck yes. Check out my queue after I spent several hours reading yesterday:
Yikes, that’s a lot of reading left to do. But that’s 2,619 posts with the highest signal to noise ratio I’m going to see all day. We’re hard at work with ideas to make that even better. And we believe that social is going to be the key in improving that ratio.
We’ll have more on that in the future. But for now, let’s all get back to blogging and reading. May your screen be filled with relevance.
Tadeu😊
IT’S COSTUME QUEST SEASON AGAIN~
TadeuI always thought about this: ideology ~= religion; ideological books (das kapital, mein kampf) ~= bibles; politics is the same, for governments or for clergy.
Adam Kirsch revisits Simone Weil’s 1943 essay, “On the Abolition of All Political Parties”:
“Political parties,” she writes, “are organizations that are publicly and officially designed for
the purpose of killing in all souls the sense of truth and of justice.” The member of a party delegates his conscience to the party, accepting its verdict on all political and moral questions; a person will do “as a Communist” or “as a Nazi” things that he would never do as himself. Once again, Weil brings the discussion back to the question of truth. Independent thought, she writes, necessarily seeks the truth: “If … one acknowledges that there is one truth, one cannot think anything but the truth.” It is only when one stops searching for truth and starts calculating partisan advantage that one falls into what Weil calls “inner darkness.”
It is obvious that Weil’s argument against parties stands or falls by her definition of truth. Truth, as this deeply religious thinker sees it, is unitary and self-subsistent: it exists somewhere “out there,” and our job is to look for it. There is a right answer to every political question, which every individual, and society as a whole, would necessarily discover if we approached it with pure hearts. Parties, by intervening between the individual and the truth, frustrate this quest; they stifle the conscience and confuse the mind. “Mendacity, error,” she writes, “are the thoughts of those who do not desire truth, or those who desire truth plus something else. For instance, they desire truth, but they also desire conformity with such or such received ideas.”
But what, one might ask, is the “truth” about a question such as taxes? Is an income tax rate of 35 percent more in conformity with the truth than a rate of 40 percent? Is this the kind of question to which, as in mathematics or religion, there is only one correct answer?
The Mega Drive doll (with controllers for hands, oh my god) and the Game Gear pen case will be sold by Cospa at Tokyo Game Show 2014.
[Update: As Matty pointed out, they’re available to preorder at AmiAmi!]
I’m really enjoying the image of a journalist at TGS, conducting interviews, navigating the cramped show floor, and introducing themselves to executives… while awkwardly carrying around a giant Mega Drive. I totally would have been that guy. Via Miki800.
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Tadeu😄
