- American-Afghan detainee dispute. “The conflict over the Americans’ insistence that some detainees should continue to be held without charge had [become] public.” Via Ron Unz.
- Hydrogen therapy
- How to improve doctor performance. “Without telling his partners, Dr. Rex began reviewing videotapes of their [colonoscopy] procedures, measuring the time and assigning a quality score. After assessing 100 procedures, he announced to his partners that he would be timing and scoring the videos of their future procedures (even though he had already been doing this). Overnight, things changed radically. The average length of the procedures increased by 50%, and the quality scores by 30%. The doctors performed better when they knew someone was checking their work.”
- Pistachio miso and other unusual fermented foods.
Thanks to Tyler Cowen, Alex Chernavsky, Patrick Vlaskovits, Chuck Currie and Bryan Castañeda.
That doctor performance story was enlightening.
And scary.
“The average length of the procedures increased by 50%”: good, bad, unknowable?
They took more care and identified more polyps, I imagine. For a given level of reimbursement, their examination might be more cursory – unless they knew their performance was being monitored.
how is hydrogen therapy administered?
“They took more care and identified more polyps, I imagine”: I’d be very suspicious of using time as a proxy for taking care.