Here’s an interesting article about how Virginia Apgar came up with the Apgar scoring system for newborn babies, back in 1952. Till then: There [had been] no routine examination of the newborns’ vital signs and, if there was, the methods … Continue reading →
In one of the previous shoe threads, this comment caught my eye: Once you start thinking about it, it does become rather gross to sit on a pro-shoe carpet. Someone literally may have walked in dog urine, or bubble gum … Continue reading →
Observational nutritional studies are inherently unreliable. I think that’s rather obvious. And most nutritional studies are observational. So we have this situation: …[N]utrition research critics, such as John Ioannidis of Stanford University…point out that observational nutrition studies are essentially just … Continue reading →
I am gratified to see all the responses to the shoe post of yesterday. So much so that I thought I’d add that I noticed a listing on airbnb that said under “rules”: “This is a shoe-free house.” I think … Continue reading →
“How to Survive 75 Hours Alone in the Ocean.” After reading the article, I’d say the gist of it is try not to get yourself into that situation in the first place.
Continue reading →When I decided to title this post “the enemies of civilization”, I didn’t mean what’s often meant by the phrase: barbarians who plunder and murder and rape and pillage. I’m talking about the sort of thing Sarah Hoyt was referring … Continue reading →
California is poised on the brink of expanding Medi-Cal (the state Medicaid program) to cover illegal immigrants 19-26. When I read that, my first thought was aren’t they already covered in California? It turns out that previously they only had … Continue reading →
It seems to be a growing trend among young people: Getaway is a sober bar, a new kind of dry nightlife option that is cropping up in New York City. The idea is to provide outlets for people who want … Continue reading →
There are at least three elements involved in the case of Noa Pothoven, a 17-year-old girl in The Netherlands who was widely reported to have received state euthanization for severe depression and related suffering. The first is the girl’s illness … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] Later on in his interview, the philosopher and bioethicist Julian Savulescu has much to say about what humans can do on the biological level to help make the world better, in the general … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Part II here.] As soon as I saw the headline for this article, I thought it might be about Peter Singer. I’ve written at great length about Singer before (see this, this, and this), and the title of the … Continue reading →
When I first heard that the measles outbreak in New York was particularly bad among Orthodox (actually, ultra-Orthodox) Jews, I assumed it was because of some religious prohibition about vaccines in that group. That’s also what I read here and … Continue reading →