- A curiously short article about “why fermented foods are all the rage”
- Parents help child with disabling rare disease via complete genome sequencing
- Use of vinegar to screen for cervical cancer works as well as more expensive tests
- Charlotte’s Webcam and other children’s books for the Age of NSA
- From Vanity Fair caption writer to educational reformer. “One of the few useful skills I learned as a journalist,” he says, “is not to be intimidated.”
Thanks to Navanit Arakeri and Patrick Vlaskovits.
That’s the usual length of Bee Wilson’s weekly column.
Educational reform is a scam.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/10/another-education-reform-sic-fraud
The US school system is pretty good. In the US, students with european ancestry do as well or better as in any european country; students with asian ancestry do as well or better as in any asian country; students with hispanic ancestry do as well or better as in any latin american country; and black students do as well or better as in anywhere.
The growth in the number of Hispanic students has made it look like the US schools are rapidly deteriorating though. And, “something must be done”. Unfortunately, the only way people get improvements is by 1) cheating or 2) keeping students in school longer. So far, cheating has been the preferred solution.
Wouldn’t the second story fall count as evidence that the human genome project and the like are having positive effects right now and demonstrate clear potential for further improvements in quality of life? Perhaps some of this Nobel Prize winning basic research isn’t so bad after all….
Seth: The beneficial effect of the human genome project has been very small compared to what was promised and what was spent. The example reinforces that — it illustrates a tiny benefit. And this is a success story.
I was looking for a rebuttal of this post : https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/kombucha-a-symbiotic-mix-of-yeast-bacteria-and-the-naturalistic-fallacy/
Seth: Thanks. Yeah, I’ll write something about it.