nameandnature | Entries tagged with medicine

Coronavirus: Government’s Covid vaccine data ‘providing material for conspiracy theorists’ | News | The Times: “Statisticians lambasted the Health and Security Agency for its weekly vaccine surveillance report, which erroneously suggests that vaccines make you more likely to contract Covid.” The denominator problem explained.
(tags: covid19 vaccination science mathematics statistics medicine)

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The lockdown’s founding myth | Christopher Snowdon | The Critic Magazine: Argues that natural herd immunity was following the scientists’ recommendations at the time.
(tags: covid19 Politics)
It’s bizarre that this needs saying, but *of course* the UK had a Herd Immunity plan – Lessons From The Crisis: More digging into the history books from 2020.
(tags: covid19 medicine politics)

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COVID-19: what health experts could and could not predict | Nature Medicine: Devi Sridhar in Nature: “Nearly a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, it is time to look back and assess what could have been predicted by health experts.”
(tags: science covid19 pandemic medicine)
I thrived on the tension and drama of British politics. Then I had a heart attack | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian: “I lived for the nerve-shredding rollercoaster of Westminster. But the stress got under my skin, and into my blood”
(tags: twitter Politics brexit journalism health)
I’d love to ignore ‘Covid sceptics’ and their tall tales. But they make a splash and have no shame | Media | The Guardian: Neil O’Brien on the fantasies of those in the media, and beyond, who oppose lockdown. There have been a few articles like this recently, hopefully it marks a tide rising against the loonies.
(tags: covid19 science lockdown pandemic)
Rise of the Coronavirus Cranks – Quillette: Another demolition of the smiley face crew.
(tags: twitter pandemic covid19 science)

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Covid: The War We Never Fought – Consumer Surplus: “England is about to go into a second lockdown, along with lots of other European countries. It’s possible that the second wave of Covid infections we’re experiencing was inevitable, but we didn’t really try to avoid it either.” Contains a handy list of all the failed predictions from cranks like Toby Young and the Great Barrington backers.
(tags: health covid19 medicine Politics)
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020: The full text of the SI. This looks a lot more tightly drafted than the previous ones I’ve seen (and so is a fair bit longer).
(tags: law covid19)

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No, 90% Of Coronavirus Tests Are Not ‘False Positives’ And This Is Why | HuffPost UK: Bayes for the win.
(tags: mathematics covid19 bayes-theorem)
The UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce: strategy for protecting the UK and the world – The Lancet
Covid-19: Do many people have pre-existing immunity? | The BMJ: Non-bonkers article on pre-existing immunity.
(tags: covid19 coronavirus immunity)
The importance of Nigel Farage and other political hobgoblins – The Law and Policy Blog: “Farage is a political hobgoblin.
He appears where there are cracks between the government and the governed, as a purveyor of easy answers.”
(tags: ukip brexit nigel-farage covid19)
The BMJ interview: Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, on covid-19 | The BMJ
Boris Johnson: The gambler, by Tom Bower book review: “Boris Johnson: an amoral figure for a bleak, coarse culture
By Rory Stewart” Oof!
(tags: boris-johnson politics)

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Aerosol transmission of Covid-19: A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air | Society | EL PAÍS in English: Nice pictures, good info on aerosol spread.
(tags: covid19 medicine science)

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Yes, PCR tests can detect “the COVID virus” – Virology Down Under: The latest conspiracy theories allege that the test doesn’t work, so it’s interesting to see in explained.
(tags: pcr covid19 medicine biology science)
Johnson: The boy king who can’t grow up: “The ultimate problem with Johnson’s lack of seriousness is that he does not take the British people seriously. That is to say, he is a child who also treats us as children. He lies and jokes and tries to cheer people up, but never levels with us as adults. And so he has never confessed to the damage of Brexit. In the summer he declared it our “patriotic duty” to go to the pub. And last week he declared we should behave “fearlessly” in the face of the virus. Everyone must be mollycoddled or condescended to. The sordid reality must never be spoken.”
(tags: politics covid19 pandemic)

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The Truth About Trump’s COVID Test Timeline – The Bulwark: Something doesn’t add up
(tags: trump covid19 politics epidemic medicine)
FAQs on aerosol transmission of COVID-19.: Here comes the Science.
(tags: coronavirus COVID19 aerosol healthcare)

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The Pandemic’s Biggest Mystery Is Our Own Immune System – The Atlantic: More Ed Yong: the immune system is very complicated
(tags: biology disease immune covid19 pandemic)
E7201. The Epidemiology of Viruses | by Paul Bleicher | Jul, 2020 | Tincture: “Welcome Class of 2045 medical students to E7201… Most of you were toddlers when the COVID-19 epidemic arrived, the largest health-related disruption of human activity that the modern world has seen since the influenza epidemic of 1918–1920.”
(tags: covid19 medicine prediction)
Shane Crotty on Twitter: “1/ There are various tweets misinterpreting COVID-19 “pre-existing immunity” and making dangerous claims about herd immunity. Since many of those claims refer to our scientific papers, we will reiterate the facts. @SetteLab @: There are various tweets misinterpreting COVID-19 “pre-existing immunity” and making dangerous claims about herd immunity. Since many of those claims refer to our scientific papers, we will reiterate the facts.
(tags: covid19 immunology antibody medicine science)

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TinyPilot: Build a KVM Over IP for Under $100 · mtlynch.io: A remote keyboard and monitor with a Raspberry Pi.
(tags: kvm pi server programming)
danyspin97’s site – Colorize your CLI: More colours are good.
(tags: shell tutorial colour)
The Korean Playbook for COVID-19 (Translated) | by Indi Samarajiva | indica | Medium
Age of Attention – SDr: “A leverage point in avoiding toxoplasma, is the bridge people: people who are being rewarded for taking offense, and therefore select for the worst possible behavior of the outgroup. These people act as stressors, specifically triggering ideations of worst-case-scenarios. The fix here is removing these people from your feeds/circles of influence.”
(tags: toxoplasma internet rage social-networks)

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Sick and tired: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say: “Scientists researching treatments for chronic fatigue syndrome say they face online abuse and harassment. Some are leaving the field. It’s a ‘new normal,’ they say, and patients may lose out.”
(tags: research culture psychology internet trolling medicine)

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Ground Control | George Monbiot: “No progressive party can survive the corporate press, corrupt party funding systems and conservative fear machines by fighting these forces on their own terms. The left can build only from the ground up; reshaping itself through the revitalisation of communities, working with local people to help fill the gaps in social provision left by an uncaring elite. Successful progressive movements must now be citizen’s advice bureau, housing association, scout troop, trade union, credit union, bingo hall, food bank, careworker, football club and evangelical church, rolled into one. Focus groups and spin doctors no longer deliver.”
(tags: monbiot george-monbiot politics left progressive latin-america)
Henry Marsh’s “Do No Harm” – The New Yorker: The New Yorker looks at Henry Marsh, author of “Do No Harm”.
(tags: books surgery medicine brain neurosurgery)

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Imaginary Positions – Less Wrong: One I’d missed: Yudkowsky’s post on rounding to the “nearest cliche”.
(tags: cliche nearest eliezer-yudkowsky rationality)
The world is not falling apart: The trend lines reveal an increasingly peaceful period in history.: Steven Pinker argues we should look at trend lines rather than headlines.
(tags: statistics war politics violence world steven-pinker)
A Pasta Sea: Elijah and the Apologist of Baal: 1 Kings 18 re-imagined as if Baal had a William Lane Craig on his side. Fun times. “A Pasta Sea” is a good name for an ex-Christian blog, too.
(tags: bible apologetics ahab baal elijah funny parody)
A&E in crisis: a special report – Telegraph: “As the NHS faces its worst winter in years, Robert Colvile provides an in-depth, first-hand account of the pressures facing the health service.” Interesting: combination of people unable to see a GP quickly enough and hospitals unable to turf old people to social care quickly enough. Targets sometimes provide perverse incentives.
(tags: nhs health healthcare medicine hospital)
Free exchange: Nice work if you can get out | The Economist: Why the rich now have less leisure than the poor. Via WMC on FB.
(tags: leisure work economist)

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NSA files decoded: Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations explained | World news | theguardian.com: The Guardian’s summary of the story so far. Nicely presented.
(tags: politics snowden nsa surveillance encryption guardian privacy edward-snowden government gchq)
Attenborrowed: David Attenborough’s commentary on the mating habits of pop stars on MTV. “Spectacular wattles”. Via jwz.
(tags: mtv twerking nature miley-cyrus funny documentary robin-thicke david-attenborough)
The Right Match: A Short Documentary – YouTube: “Drs. Dorry Segev and Sommer Gentry are innovative researchers who connect the complexities of mathematics with the intricacies of organ transplantation.” They came up with using graph theory and integer programming to match up reciprocal kidney donors (that is, where someone wants to donate to their family member but they aren’t compatible, so they swap with another incompatible pair). These guys are also swing dancers, so this came via /r/SwingDancing.
(tags: transplant graph lindyhop swing medicine kidney mathematics science)

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The Course of Their Lives – JSOnline: A fascinating series of articles on the experiences of medical students dissecting a body during their training, interspersed with the reflections of someone leaving her body to the medical school. Via Mefi.
(tags: body anatomy death medical-school dissection medicine)
What Can We Learn About Human Psychology from Christian Apologetics? – Less Wrong: Chris Hallquist tries to work out what’s going on with apologetics. It’s Less Wrong, so *do* read the comments.
(tags: religion christianity less-wrong psychology apologetics chris-hallquist)
DanceSport DJ Ice: This chap has made ballroom remixes of various popular tunes. Epic (or something).
(tags: music dancing remix ballroom)
Joe Pass & Ella Fitzgerald – Duets in Hannover 1975 – YouTube: Great stuff. Via Mefi. Ella’s on about half an hour in.
(tags: singing jazz duet joe-pass ella-fitzgerald video)
Solitude and Leadership – William Deresiewicz: William Deresiewicz on the necessity for those who would lead to find time alone to concentrate their thoughts.
(tags: army leadership solitude william-deresiewicz)

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Swing Dance Frame as Non-Newtonian Fluid | Jason Sager: Neat analogy for the way some moves work by resisting impulses (so that they are transferred and provide a net impetus to the follower) but not resisting smooth movement.
(tags: lindy frame fluid lindyhop dance)
https://github.com/mame/quine-relay: A quine (program that produces its own source code as output) which passes through 50 programming languages along the way. Utterly barking, in a good way. Via andrewducker.
(tags: quine programming)
Who By Very Slow Decay | Slate Star Codex: More excellent, harrowing stuff on the standard of end of life care and relatives who won’t let go.
(tags: death poetry medicine intensive-care aging)

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Ambidancetrous: The Blog — “We don’t want to make people uncomfortable.” (aka, “What about teh menz?!”): "Ultimately, some of the worry that some straight guys will be uncomfortable dancing with other men (or being led by a woman) may be justified." Het guys: you lost the oppression Olympics, so your comfort and consent about who touches you is less important than our plan to build a utopia through dance. PROBLEMATIC. Well, OK, that bit rubbed me up the wrong way. But seriously, I think an "ambidancetrous" dance scene would be less "problematic" if the expectations (and how they differ from pretty much every other scene) were made clear up front. What I expect would happen then is that if you insisted every lesson was ambidancetrous, you’d never get enough people to make a viable community. Maybe it’d work as an option within an established scene, though.
(tags: lindy consent gender feminism lindyhop dance)
http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/march/1361848247/karen-hitchcock/fat-city: A doctor writes about the difficulties of dealing with obesity: dealing with a social problem, and applying epidemiology to individuals. Via Metafilter.
(tags: food fat obesity medicine health)
On the stupidity of asking, “but where’s the evidence we need evidence for things?”: "it’s a mistake to think that if someone thinks maybe you should have some evidence for a particular thing you believe, they are therefore committed to a sweeping philosophical doctrine about needing evidence for absolutely everything."
(tags: evidence philosophy epistemology)
Online Child Porn – What the Papers Aren’t Telling You.: Could Google really block it? (Hint: no)
(tags: google porn filtering internet)
Ukip Activist Marty Caine Provokes Fury by Branding Drummer Lee Rigby’s Family ‘Idiots’ – IBTimes UK: Looks like the old "the EDL are the provisional wing of UKIP" joke is actually true.
(tags: edl lee-rigby islam racism ukip)

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Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament – Charlie’s Diary: Charles Stross argues against renewing Trident.
(tags: trident nuclear disarmament charles-stross war)
Coding, Fast and Slow: Developers and the Psychology of Overconfidence: "I’m going to talk today about what goes on in inside developers’ heads when they make estimates, why that’s so hard to fix, and how I personally figured out how to live and write software (for very happy business owners) even though my estimates are just as brutally unreliable as ever." via Andrew Ducker
(tags: software programming scrum estimation daniel-kahneman)
What Martial Arts Have to Do With Atheism – Graeme Wood – The Atlantic: Sam Harris on martial arts, meditation and atheism: "No one’s ever accused me of being an optimist, but I think reason and intellectual honesty will win. They’re just too useful."
(tags: religion atheism martial-arts meditation sam-harris)
How Not to Die – Jonathan Rauch – The Atlantic: Many doctors aren’t good at having "the Conversation". A doctor uses film to illustrate patients’ options at the end of their lives.
(tags: film ethics death health medicine intensive-care)