- ALS patients test promising chemical, collate the results themselves.
- Did you know about “side letters”? New ways that Hollywood makes money by Edward Epstein.
- Parents have stronger immune systems than non-parents.
- Does sewer work improve your immune system? ” Sewer workers think so. “The [sewer workers] that Mayhew met were strong, robust and even florid in complexion, often surprisingly long-lived–thanks, perhaps, to immune systems that grew used to working flat out–and adamantly convinced that the stench that they encountered in the tunnels [while searching for valuable stuff, such as coins] “contributes in a variety of ways to their general health.”
- Steve McIntyre tries to get Science and PNAS to enforce their data archiving policies. Thompson = Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State climatologist.
Thanks to Adam Clemens, Melissa McEwen, and Navanit Arakeri.
I’ve been following your blog for some time now and have at last made an observation on myself. I much prefer (= am made happy by) showering in daylight rather than artificial light. Perhaps everyone else knew this already, but I didn’t. It will constrain me a bit it winter, but so be it.
Seth: How long does the improvement (greater happiness due to showering in daylight) last?
A couple of stories that are up your alley:
Doctor’s “ignorance” leads him to the truth about what’s making a child ill:
childrenshospital.org/dream/dream_fall06/fishing_for_the_right_solution.html
Germs from pets = healthier babies:
latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-dogs-cats-babies-health-20120709,0,6527217.story
Seth, it seems to last for much of the rest of the day. Many hours, anyway.
I’m wondering whether anyone makes one of those artificial sunlight lamps that would be suitable for our bathroom.
May we please have the correct link for the item on sewer work and immunity.
Seth: Link fixed, thanks.
I’m not seeing the cause and effect between having kids->better immune system. Couldn’t a simpler explanation be that healthy people are more likely to have children than non-healthy people? They may have been healthier than the non-parents even before their children were born. Unhealthy people are probably more likely to have lower fecundity.
The simplest explanation is that children, like dogs, track in a lot of germs.
(and, in case my implication wasn’t clear, the immune system then develops a broader portfolio of antibodies.)