Feb 10, 2017 03:47 AM
Breaking News: Sticking Needles in Babies Does Not Stop Them Crying
https://skeptilogicon.wordpress.com/2017...em-crying/
EXCERPT: After a century of study and more than 3000 trials there is more than enough evidence to come to a conclusion on acupuncture: it doesn’t work, for any indication, ever. Why would it? There is no need for more study, it should be discarded and forgotten about. I look forward to repeating this message a few months from now the next time the press mindlessly regurgitates the latest nonsense from the witchdoctors....
Why fear of Boltzmann brains is junk science
http://motls.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-fe...-junk.html
EXCERPT: [...] This blog has discussed the stupidity of the Boltzmann brains as a topic that physicists should spend a lot of time with many times. Sean Carroll is arguably the world's loudest voice that claims that they're very important and the whole research of cosmology should be largely dictated by the Boltzmann brain alarmism. Most recently, in August, it seemed that after decades, Carroll finally understood why one of the most self-evident mistakes in his whole way of thinking is a mistake, indeed: Why there can't be any "uniform" distributions on infinite sets (or continuous sets of infinite measure). In his most recent "invited submission", he quotes several other argument showing the problem with the Boltzmann brain alarmist thinking but he is still absolutely incapable of understanding them – why they imply that he is wrong....
American Food Science Is Broken
http://gizmodo.com/american-food-science...1791962823
EXCERPT: [...] We have food science programs, but some of the food scientists that I spoke with find it difficult to attract the funding needed to innovate and come up with novel solutions to food science and nutrition issues through basic research. Others left publicly-funded food science for greener pastures in private industry. [...] Right now, the alphabet soup of federal agencies (NIH, NSF, and USDA through NIFA) and private funding sources supporting food science research in the United States don’t have a shared stated goal or direction. And while many startups are trying to be innovative, private innovation prevents the spread of knowledge for other scientists to build on.
“The situation in the US is sad,” said Alejandro Marangoni, professor in food science at the University of Guelph in Canada. Marangoni should know—his Canadian lab innovates with the structure of fats and oils, replacing unhealthy fats with oil and cellulose-based gels in products like hot dogs, or imaging milk fat using high-powered microscopes. Sure, the United States has scientists doing work like Marangoni’s, but it doesn’t seem to him and scientists like him that American food research has a central, forward-looking goal. “We need more of that type of conversation at the country level and decide where we need to be putting our money to help society move forward,” said [E. Allen ] Foegeding. [...] How did things get to be this way?...
https://skeptilogicon.wordpress.com/2017...em-crying/
EXCERPT: After a century of study and more than 3000 trials there is more than enough evidence to come to a conclusion on acupuncture: it doesn’t work, for any indication, ever. Why would it? There is no need for more study, it should be discarded and forgotten about. I look forward to repeating this message a few months from now the next time the press mindlessly regurgitates the latest nonsense from the witchdoctors....
Why fear of Boltzmann brains is junk science
http://motls.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-fe...-junk.html
EXCERPT: [...] This blog has discussed the stupidity of the Boltzmann brains as a topic that physicists should spend a lot of time with many times. Sean Carroll is arguably the world's loudest voice that claims that they're very important and the whole research of cosmology should be largely dictated by the Boltzmann brain alarmism. Most recently, in August, it seemed that after decades, Carroll finally understood why one of the most self-evident mistakes in his whole way of thinking is a mistake, indeed: Why there can't be any "uniform" distributions on infinite sets (or continuous sets of infinite measure). In his most recent "invited submission", he quotes several other argument showing the problem with the Boltzmann brain alarmist thinking but he is still absolutely incapable of understanding them – why they imply that he is wrong....
American Food Science Is Broken
http://gizmodo.com/american-food-science...1791962823
EXCERPT: [...] We have food science programs, but some of the food scientists that I spoke with find it difficult to attract the funding needed to innovate and come up with novel solutions to food science and nutrition issues through basic research. Others left publicly-funded food science for greener pastures in private industry. [...] Right now, the alphabet soup of federal agencies (NIH, NSF, and USDA through NIFA) and private funding sources supporting food science research in the United States don’t have a shared stated goal or direction. And while many startups are trying to be innovative, private innovation prevents the spread of knowledge for other scientists to build on.
“The situation in the US is sad,” said Alejandro Marangoni, professor in food science at the University of Guelph in Canada. Marangoni should know—his Canadian lab innovates with the structure of fats and oils, replacing unhealthy fats with oil and cellulose-based gels in products like hot dogs, or imaging milk fat using high-powered microscopes. Sure, the United States has scientists doing work like Marangoni’s, but it doesn’t seem to him and scientists like him that American food research has a central, forward-looking goal. “We need more of that type of conversation at the country level and decide where we need to be putting our money to help society move forward,” said [E. Allen ] Foegeding. [...] How did things get to be this way?...