henry copeland @hc

Creating https://t.co/yaIkIOcF20, an online toolkit the average person can use for personal (n-of-1) experiments. Way back when: Y84, bond trader, journalist.

Recent quotes:

Usha Vance Has Helped Her Husband J.D. Vance Chart His Political Path - The New York Times

In 2013, two students at Yale Law School decided to organize a discussion group on the subject of “social decline in white America.” One of them was J.D. Vance, currently the Republican candidate in Ohio for a U.S. Senate seat. For him, the subject matter was intensely personal: He had grown up in an economically depressed area of Ohio, and was raised in large part by his grandparents as his mother struggled with addiction. He had lived the material. The other student behind the project was Usha Chilukuri, the child of Indian immigrants, from an ethnically diverse San Diego suburb. For her, white social decline may have been an intellectual interest — but it was one with special significance. She was then Mr. Vance’s girlfriend, now his wife, known as Usha Vance.
#trump #racism #vance - nytimes.com

These 'Zebra' Cases Were Cracked by People Other Than Doctors | MedPage Today

A recent thread on Meddit opens in a new tab or window , or medical Reddit, takes the zebra story even farther, calling for the "most obscure but correct diagnosis you've seen suggested by a non-physician."
#diagnostics #reddit #digitalhealthcommunities - medpagetoday.com

'Shambolic' Medical Meeting; DaVita Whistleblower Suit; FDA Mum on MDMA | MedPage Today

Experts suspect the number of predatory conferences is growing, and that they operate on a spectrum, from outright deceit and fraud -- when organizers collect registration fees for a conference that never takes place -- to those that run but with questionable quality, Nature reported.
#academia #conferences - medpagetoday.com

Vaccine slashes chance of long Covid, says study, but risk remains

In the unvaccinated group, 10.42 out of 100 people early in the pandemic (before vaccines were available) had developed long Covid one year after being infected. In the Delta variant era (defined as June 19 through Dec. 18, 2021), 9.51 out of 100 unvaccinated people were diagnosed with long Covid, compared to 5.34 out of 100 vaccinated people. When the current Omicron era began (Dec. 19, 2021), the gap widened: 7.76 out of 100 unvaccinated people but only 3.5 out of 100 vaccinated people acquired long Covid.
#vaccines #long-covid - statnews.com

(4) Can J.D. Vance's Populist Crusade Succeed?

Indeed, when Vance praised Khan, it was at an event called “Remedy Fest” put on by a tech incubator called YCombinator, and oriented around the question of how to break up Google if the corporation was found to be acting unlawfully. To have a prominent 39 year-old Republican Senator show up at a conference whose sole focus is thinking through what a post-Google dominant internet would look like is a big political statement about what the younger faction of the right might look like.
#populism #vance - thebignewsletter.com

Nighttime Exercise Breaks May Extend Sleep by 27 Minutes - Neuroscience News

The results, which are based on 28 participants, show that after the activity breaks, participants slept for an additional 27 minutes on average, compared with prolonged sitting.
#exercise #sleep #wwb #weightlifting - neurosciencenews.com

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters on the company’s new culture memo and ad ambitions - The Verge

It’s funny that you mention it because we have tribes already. We had tribes before this. Let’s break it down. Kernel engineers who work on our content delivery network versus mobile UI engineers, that’s a different tribe. They have different ways of thinking about the world. We’ve always been balancing different groups of people that think about things differently. That’s why we have these memos because, quite frankly, an evolution of the culture memo was going from the original deck that you talked about, which I would call highly anchored in Silicon Valley — there was a libertarian philosophy or ethos that you could read in there. And partly what we were trying to do over these multiple iterations was tease apart the actual outcomes, the excellence-enabling things that we wanted to identify, versus the behaviors and the articulations, and trying to make those more general.
#narratives #culture #tribes - theverge.com

Totalitarian culture is apolitical

A few words on such terms as "politics," "public life," "political participation," as well as "the fate of your nation" are in order here. The meaning of these terms underwent considerable changes between 1988 and 1992. During the Soviet era, "politics" meant something official and imposed from above on a common citizen. It included obligatory meetings and officially sanctioned demonstrations declaring unanimous support for the government, plus the Young Communist League's pseudo-popular initiatives. In the early glasnost era that fell between 1987 and 1988, public consciousness was agitated and politicized. This was especially apparent among the young people and the so-called "60's generation" -- dissident intellectuals whose formative years coincided with the Khrushchev thaw. Political clubs and seminars sprang up throughout the country, with the participants making daring (by the standards of the time) speeches and proposing novel political schemes. The circle of people united into these groups was fairly narrow, but their influence was growing rapidly, spurred in part by the liberal press. This liberal "club culture" operated with the approval of Communist party reformers, who tried to stir the debates towards "constructive channels" and keep reforms within the basic framework of the Soviet system of government. Later on, mass political movements would begin to gather force, bringing in their wake semi-open elections and ethnic conflicts. The political process could no longer be controlled from one center, yet it did not acquire stable features of a multi-party system. With the Communist party exiting center stage after August '91, the political vacuum ensued, and it has not been filled since. After all, the CPSU was not a political but a state monopoly structure; the absence of viable political institutions and organizations simply became more apparent since the Communist party's sudden collapse. Totalitarian societies tend to confer the "political" status on each and every problem facing the nation, yet they remain profoundly apolitical -- not just because the masses of people are politically disenfranchised, but because no real political interests are allowed to crystallize and acquire a stable organizational form. Where everything is declared to be political, especially every initiative undertaken by the extant powers, nothing qualifies as a genuinely political event. Politics, state, constitution, election -- all these phenomena are robbed of their political content, while public and private life, as well as ideology and economics, are radically conflated.
#politics #Russia #USSR - cdclv.unlv.edu

Levada Political Culture

As the public began to lose its interest in political debunking and in stories about the Stalinist excesses, the new stage of Russia 's political transformation commenced. This third stage, which dated back to the early 1992, placed on the agenda another question well known to the Russian reform-minded intellectuals: "What is to be done?" The answer was sought not so much in digging out new enemies and plotting new revolutions as in freeing prices from state control, encouraging private enterprise, and granting more autonomy to regional authorities. The liberal policies pursued at this stage tended to be idealistic, impractical, and sometimes downright irrational. Liberalism and state reforms clearly parted company. Meanwhile, the populace shunned ideology and gave the sacramental formula "What is to be done" a pragmatic reading, doing what it could to muddle through everyday life. Such a turn of events was particularly painful for an authoritarian society. Ever since Russia embarked on the course of modernization some 150 years ago, it relied exclusively on authoritarian means to move the country forward. Perestroika and post-perestroika reformers acted in the same tradition, seeking to impose reforms from above. By the end of 1992, support for political institutions and leaders hit a new low. Spurred by the ex-liberal scandal-mongering oppositional press, public consciousness turned against all politicians and reforms. Perestroika intellectuals grew increasingly angry, aggressive, and divisive. No national leader or political group seemed capable of commanding authority and providing moral guidance. But then again, the state resources for ramming social reforms down society's throat were exhausted -- the fact that political leaders had a hard time to digest.
#Russia #USSR - cdclv.unlv.edu

Renewing American Purpose - The American Mind

The Right needs to throw off the precedents and legal paradigms that have wrongly developed over the last two hundred years and to study carefully the words of the Constitution and how the Founders would have responded in modern situations to the encroachments of other branches. Originalism should not just be interpreting the words in their original meaning. It should be to understand the logic of the original Constitution and how these authorities should be used unencumbered by the scar tissue resulting from decades of bad cases and bad statesmen.
#trump #constitution #christian - americanmind.org

Some carbs are good for you and can help keep weight under control - The Washington Post

The fiber they contain also protects against a variety of diseases and helps keep you full. One 2019 review of research published in the Lancet found that people who ate the most fiber-rich foods were 15 to 30 percent less likely to develop heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer or die of heart disease or stroke. What’s more, fiber boosts “good” bacteria in the gut, which are linked to healthy digestion, better immune function and overall health. Resistant starches, found in oats and legumes (as well as cold pasta and rice), may have the same benefits. “These starches are similar to fiber,” says Nate Wood, a chef and an instructor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “They aren’t digested in the small intestine, so they don’t raise blood sugar.” Instead, they pass into the colon, where they feed the healthy gut bacteria.
#diabetes #carbs - washingtonpost.com

ChatGPT is bullshit | Ethics and Information Technology

In this paper, we argue against the view that when ChatGPT and the like produce false claims they are lying or even hallucinating, and in favour of the position that the activity they are engaged in is bullshitting, in the Frankfurtian sense (Frankfurt, 2002, 2005). Because these programs cannot themselves be concerned with truth, and because they are designed to produce text that looks truth-apt without any actual concern for truth, it seems appropriate to call their outputs bullshit.
#AI #LLM #ChatGPT - link.springer.com

Melatonin Use Tied to Decreased Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration | MedPage Today

Among propensity-matched patients ages 50 and older, melatonin use was associated with a reduced risk of developing AMD (risk ratio [RR] 0.42, 95% CI 0.28-0.62), reported Rishi P. Singh, MD, of Cole Eye Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues in JAMA Ophthalmology opens in a new tab or window .
#melatonin #macular-degeneration - medpagetoday.com

How Does Alcohol Affect Your Gut Health? - The New York Times

Researchers have looked at the microbiomes of people who have been treated for alcohol use disorder and found that within two to three weeks after the people stopped drinking, their gut microbes started to show signs of recovering, Dr. Barb said, and their gut linings became less “leaky.” But, she added, people who get treated for alcohol use disorder also usually start to eat more healthfully and sleep better, which can improve gut health, too.
#alcohol #micro-biome #gut - nytimes.com

How Does Alcohol Affect Your Gut Health? - The New York Times

In a 2023 study, for example, researchers looked at the microbiomes of 71 people ages 18 to 25 who did not have alcohol use disorder. Those who reported more frequent binge drinking (defined as four or more drinks within about two hours for women, or five or more drinks for men) had microbiome changes that correlated with greater alcohol cravings. That study also added to previous research that found that binge drinking was associated with greater blood markers of inflammation.
#alcohol #micro-biome #gut - nytimes.com

Age-dependent association of cannabis use with risk of psychotic disorder | Psychological Medicine | Cambridge Core

Compared to no cannabis use, cannabis use was significantly associated with psychotic disorders during adolescence (aHR = 11.2; 95% CI 4.6–27.3), but not during young adulthood (aHR = 1.3; 95% CI 0.6–2.6). When we restricted the outcome to hospitalizations and ED visits only, the strength of association increased markedly during adolescence (aHR = 26.7; 95% CI 7.7–92.8) but did not change meaningfully during young adulthood (aHR = 1.8; 95% CI 0.6–5.4).
#psychosis #pot #cannabinoids - cambridge.org

Drug Makers Are Advocacy Group’s Biggest Donors - The New York Times

Slides from a presentation delivered by the salesmen show that the company urged the alliance to resist state efforts to limit access to mental health drugs. “Solutions: Play Hard Ball,” one slide was titled. “Hold policy makers accountable for their decisions in media and in election,” it continued. The alliance’s own slides concluded by saying, “We appreciate AstraZeneca’s strong support of NAMI.”
#pharma #psychiatry #nami - nytimes.com

Drug Makers Are Advocacy Group’s Biggest Donors - The New York Times

But according to investigators in Mr. Grassley’s office and documents obtained by The New York Times, drug makers from 2006 to 2008 contributed nearly $23 million to the alliance, about three-quarters of its donations. Even the group’s executive director, Michael Fitzpatrick, said in an interview that the drug companies’ donations were excessive and that things would change. “For at least the years of ’07, ’08 and ’09, the percentage of money from pharma has been higher than we have wanted it to be,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said.
#pharma #psychiatry #nami - nytimes.com

Behind the Ivy Intifada | Compact

She also didn’t voice any objection when the term “intifada” was equated with hate speech, despite knowing well—as a native Arabic speaker born in Egypt—that the term is used broadly for mass uprisings in many contexts; it’s how the Warsaw Uprising is described in Arabic.
#gaza - compactmag.com

Association of step counts over time with the risk of chronic disease in the All of Us Research Program - PubMed

The relationship between steps per day and incident disease was inverse and linear for obesity (n = 368), sleep apnea (n = 348), gastroesophageal reflux disease (n = 432) and major depressive disorder (n = 467), with values above 8,200 daily steps associated with protection from incident disease. The relationships with incident diabetes (n = 156) and hypertension (n = 482) were nonlinear with no further risk reduction above 8,000-9,000 steps.
#exercise #steps - pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Primary care providers’ physical activity counseling and referral practices and barriers for cardiovascular disease prevention - PMC

Our analyses used data from DocStyles 2015, a Web-based panel survey of 1251 PCPs. Overall, 58.6% of PCPs discussed physical activity with most of their at-risk patients. Among these PCPs, the prevalence of components offered ranged from 98.5% encouraging increased physical activity to 13.9% referring to intensive behavioral counseling. Overall, only 8.1% both discussed physical activity with most at-risk patients and referred to intensive behavioral counseling. Barriers related to PCPs’ attitudes and beliefs about counseling (e.g., counseling is not effective) were significantly associated with both discussing physical activity with most at-risk patients and referring them to intensive behavioral counseling (adjusted odds ratio, 1.92; 95% confidence interval, 1.15–3.20). System-level barriers (e.g., referral services not available) were not. Just over half of PCPs discussed physical activity with most of their at-risk patients, and few both discussed physical activity and referred patients to intensive behavioral counseling. Overcoming barriers related to attitudes and beliefs about physical activity counseling could help improve low levels of counseling and referrals to intensive behavioral counseling for CVD prevention.
#exercise #paleotherapy #doctors #heart - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Social Media Use Does Not Diminish Offline Friendships in Youth - Neuroscience News

Children who spend more time using social media report spending several evenings a week with friends offline. Other studies have shown that the use of social media leads to increased closeness in friend relationships, the development of new friendships, and old friendships being reinforced. This may be a possible explanation for the findings from the Trondheim Early Secure Study.
#social-media #counter-intuitive #moral-panic - neurosciencenews.com

Why is exercise good for you? Scientists are finding answers in our cells

In 2020, Snyder and his colleagues took blood samples from 36 people aged between 40 and 75 years old before, during and at various time intervals after the volunteers ran on a treadmill. The team used multiomic profiling to measure more than 17,000 molecules, more than half of which showed significant changes after exercise9. They also found that exercise triggered an elaborate ‘choreography’ of biological processes such as energy metabolism, oxidative stress and inflammation.
#exercise #multiomic - nature.com

The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections | PNAS

Specifically, we show that (i) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more, (ii) the shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and (iii) such rankings can be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation.
#goog #search #pressflex #epistemology - pnas.org

Social Media Fuels Eating Disorder Echo Chambers - Neuroscience News

The researchers next looked at how these communities interacted with each other. Chu described the result as “astonishing.” Clusters, or echo chambers, appeared where tens of thousands of users in the same community responded to and retweeted each other, yet they had little interaction with outside groups.
#health #social-media #Twitter #moral-panic #digitalhealthcommunities - neurosciencenews.com

Cheers to Longevity: Couples Who Drink Together, Live Longer - Neuroscience News

Shared Drinking Habits Linked to Longevity: Couples who both drink alcohol tend to live longer compared to those with discordant drinking habits or who abstain altogether. Impact on Relationship Quality: Concordant drinking couples report higher relationship satisfaction, potentially due to increased intimacy and shared activities.
#synchronize #alcohol #longevity #relationship - neurosciencenews.com