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The unhealthy industry playbook

What Public Health Practitioners Need to Know About Unhealthy IndustryTactics. Attack legitimate science. e.g. Accuse science of deception, calling it “junk science” or “bad science,” claiming science is manipulated to fulfill a political agenda. Attack and intimidate the scientists. e.g. Create...
Source: aphapublications.org

Overturning 'conventional wisdom' with 'natural experiments'

Via Reuters ... "Economists David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens won the 2021 Nobel economics prize on Monday for pioneering "natural experiments" to show real-world economic impacts in areas from minimum wage increases in the U.S. fast-food sector to migration from Castro-era Cuba." "One experiment...
Source: reuters.com

Development and validation of teacher and student questionnaires measuring inhibitors of curriculum viability - BMC Medical

Background Curriculum viability is determined by the degree to which quality standards have or have not been met, and by the inhibitors that affect attainment of those standards. The literature reports many ways to evaluate whether a curriculum reaches its quality standards, but less attention is paid...
Source: biomedcentral.com

Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly | Commonwealth Fund

"How the 11 Countries Rank on Performance. The top-performing countries overall are Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia. The next three countries in the ranking — the U.K., Germany, and New Zealand — perform very similarly to one another." The UK was ranked #1 overall in 2017 - the last time this...
Source: commonwealthfund.org

Visa-free touring granted for UK artists in 19 EU countries – while industry demands "honesty" from government

"The government has announced that visa-free touring has been negotiated for UK artists in 19 EU member countries" This is great news for musicians but also good to see that individual EU states also still have control over their borders (they always did). It will be great for us all to have freedom...
Source: nme.com

Can Money Buy Happiness? A Review of New Data

Everyone knows the adage “money can’t buy happiness,” although few of us seem to believe it. The best-known theory on this topic is that money actually can buy happiness, but only up to a point. This comes from a study by two Nobel Laureates, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton (2010), which found...
Source: givingwhatwecan.org

Founded Upon an Error

A recent post on Reddit asks, “Why was Bayes’ Theory not accepted/popular historically until the late 20th century?” Great question! As always, there are many answers to a questio…
Source: allendowney.com

Bank of England predicts rebound in the economy

"The Bank of England said Britain's economy would grow by the most since World War Two this year and slowed the pace of its trillion dollar bond-purchasing programme, but stressed it was not reversing its stimulus." Strong indications finally of a bounce back in the economy highlight the devastating...
Source: reuters.com

APOD: 2021 April 18 - Rainbow Airglow over the Azores

"A spectacular sky is visible through this banded airglow, with the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy running up the image center, and M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, visible near the top left."
Source: nasa.gov

World's wealthiest (and 'business as usual') 'at heart of climate problem'

"These [polluter elite] are people who fly most, drive the biggest cars most and live in the biggest homes which they can easily afford to heat, so they tend not to worry if they’re well insulated or not. … They’re also the sort of people who could really afford good insulation and solar panels...
Source: bbc.com

Use of 360° virtual reality video in medical obstetrical education: a quasi-experimental design Vera Arents. Pieter C.

Background Video-based teaching has been part of medical education for some time but 360° videos using a virtual reality (VR) device are a new medium that offer extended possibilities. We investigated whether adding a 360° VR video to the internship curriculum leads to an improvement of long-term recall...
Source: biomedcentral.com

Sewage discharged into rivers 400,000 times in 2020

Waterways in England had sewage discharged into them for three million hours
Source: bbc.com

Detection of a particle shower at the Glashow resonance with IceCube Nature.

The Glashow resonance describes the resonant formation of a W− boson during the interaction of a high-energy electron antineutrino with an electron1, peaking at an antineutrino energy of 6.3 petaelectronvolts (PeV) in the rest frame of the electron. Whereas this energy scale is out of reach for currently...
Source: nature.com

Why European vaccine suspensions could have unintended consequences

Europe’s difficult rollout of covid-19 shots took another blow over the weekend, as several countries halted deployment of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid worries it could cause blood clots. On Monday Germany, Spain, Italy, and France were among those to suspend deployment of the vaccine, following similar...
Source: technologyreview.com

Rashomon approach to medical education.

"The Rashomon approach was named after the 1950 film, Rashomon. In this film, a single event, a homicide is described from the different perspectives of the characters. In the Rashomon approach, teachers, like film directors, need to fully understand the big pictures so that they can engage characters = students...
Source: biomedcentral.com

Best Way to Learn Online | Snapask

"Snapask App instantly matches students with tutors to answer difficult questions! Download and ask for free! Whether it is Primary or Secondary subjects (Malay, English, Mathematics, Phy, Chem, Bio) homework questions can be asked, and the tutor will reply instantly!" Snap a photo of your homework and...
Source: snapask.com

Data-driven humanitarianism

An article from MIT Technology Review showing how the World Food Programme uses geospatial data that is developed and made 'open' to all by people within the areas being served. "It’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but its people are among the most vulnerable. Afghanistan’s snowy...
Source: technologyreview.com

IEA says global CO2 emissions rising again after nearly 6% fall last year

"Global carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 5.8% in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic slowed economic activity, but they rebounded at the end of the year and are on course to rise further, the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday." Whilst economic growth is sought to reduce national deficits following...
Source: reuters.com

AI uses "ugly duckling" technique to spot melanoma with high accuracy

"Artificial intelligence is starting to combine with smartphone technology in ways that could have profound impacts on the way we monitor health, from tracking blood volume changes in diabetics to detecting concussions by filming the eyes." "Using the technology to spot melanoma in its early stages is...
Source: newatlas.com

Dreadful user experience can be expensive.

"Citibank just got a $500 million lesson in the importance of UI design: Citibank was trying to make $7.8M in interest payments. It sent $900M instead." The screenshot is from court records where the judge ruled against Citibank who had wanted to get their money back. The lesson is to always include...
Source: arstechnica.com