Reasoned Consideration

The 'tl;dr' summary here is that basically, with relatively minor caveats, scientific studies generally increasingly seem to show low-carb diets to be either as good or better than alternatives, for both weight loss, and other health markers: [Added 2016] The effects of ketogenic dieting on skeletal muscle and fat mass 2014 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4271639/ " Lean body mass increased to a greater extent in the VLCKD [ Very low carbohydrate (<5 %), high fat (>70 %) ketogenic diets ] ... as compared to the traditional group. Ultrasound determined muscle mass increased to a greater extent in the VLCKD group ... as compared to the traditional western group. Finally fat mass decreased to a greater extent in the VLCKD group " [Rauch et al, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2014;11(Suppl 1):P40] [Added 2015] Dietary Intervention for Overweight and Obese Adults: Comparison of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets. A Meta-...

It's a commonly held belief that victims of child abuse are somehow 'pre-destined' to become abusers themselves. Research shows, however, that only a minority of abuse victims go on to become abusers, and that this is thus (in short) a myth:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11731348 . A related comic: http://www.tencentticker.com/somethingterrible/

An interesting article by Natalie Wolchover on the blue-skinned people of Kentucky, and recessive traits:  Will Humans Eventually All Look Like Brazilians? "Stearns says globalization, immigration, cultural diffus sion and the ease of modern travel will gradually homogenize the human population, averaging out more and more people's traits. Because recessive traits depend on two copies of the same gene pairing up in order to get expressed, these traits will express themselves more rarely, and dominant traits will become the norm. In short, blue skin is out. Brown skin is in. Already in the United States, another recessive trait, blue eyes, has grown far less common. A 2002 study by the epidemiologists Mark Grant and Diane Lauderdale found that only 1 in 6 non-Hispanic white Americans has blue eyes, down from more than half of the U.S. white population being blue-eyed just 100 years ago." I wonder, perhaps related mechanisms could explain why humans may be getting dum...

It's possible for something to be a fad and   also happen to be correct . People who pride themselves on not 'following fads' sometimes blindly follow the wrong path instead. Or to put it another way, sometimes the 'sheeple' are right. If your ego is tied up in your ability to 'not follow the crowd', you may fail to follow the crowd when they happen to be going in the right direction. Forget about whether something is a fad or not - the only thing that matters is whether something is  correct  or not. What you need is a set of 'mental tools' to distinguish good ideas from bad ideas. This mentality seems to be a kind of 'inverse  argumentum ad populum ' - effectively believing something is false  because  it is popular. Sometimes the sheep are going in some particular direction simply because there's food, water or sanctuary from danger that way.

Briefly: I think GMO is just a technique/technology - it can be used for good or bad. Blanket bans on GMOs are akin to banning "phones" or "the Internet" - it is wrong and ultimately damaging. If someone is misusing a technology for evil, then the evil practice should be banned, not the technology. It's true that particular companies involved in the development of GMOs are doing bad things - but the positive potential for GMOs in the right hands is enormous - these are ultimately separate issues. This is by no means apologism for the aforementioned.

So who keeps sponsoring articles like this one? ("'Regular Women' In Lingerie Remind Us What Imperfect, Un-Photoshopped Bodies Look Like") McDonalds? KFC? Pizza Hut? Because who else benefits from trying to convince everyone that it's 'normal', 'natural' and 'beautiful' to have bodies damaged by a lifetime of junk food and neglect? Is modern junk food really, ultimately, less 'fake' and 'unnatural' than Photoshopped images? Obesity is responsible for over 100,000 deaths per year in the US [1]. By comparison, anorexia is responsible for an estimated 145 deaths per year in the US [2]. It's grossly irresponsible of organizations like Huffington Post to glorify obesity to our children - it's no stretch to suggest they are probably  killing people  with their promotion of an ideological viewpoint that seems to be based on a misguided idea that 'body image issues' pose a greater public health risk than obe...

An Aquatic Ape I think the strongest 'circumstantial evidence' supporting a partial form of the (controversial)  aquatic ape hypothesis * is something I don't think I've seen mentioned before: The simple fact that we find  wet Homo sapiens sexually attractive. If you think about it, doesn't it seem a bit arbitrary? E.g. would gorillas find other wet gorillas sexy, or would rats find other wet rats sexy? How universal is this? If we consider the concept of sexual choice ** in evolution, then if our ancestors were once partially evolving "in that direction", then we might expect that they may have felt  a mate choice preference  for the entailed characteristics of a hypothetical "aquatic ape" (such as the 'wet look', as well as finding smooth, hairless skin comparatively more attractive, as we do). To consider this argument, look at a picture like the one above (or  this ,  this ,  this ,  this , or  this ) ... then (for...

Studies are increasingly showing possible harmful effects of Triclosan , commonly used in antibacterial soaps, toothpastes, mouthwashes and more: (Addition 2014-11) Triclosan ... causes liver fibrosis and cancer in mice (November 17, 2014) (Additions 2014-09) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140903121858.htm Exposure of pregnant women to certain phenols may disrupt growth of boys during fetal development and first years of life (September 3, 2014) "Medical researchers have found that exposure to certain common phenols during pregnancy, especially parabens and triclosan, may disrupt growth of boys during fetal growth and the first years of life. Parabens are commonly used as preservatives in cosmetics and healthcare products and triclosan are an antibacterial agent and pesticide found in some toothpastes and soaps" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140512101410.htm Endocrine disruptors impair human sperm function (May 12, 2014) "A ple...

There is plenty of research showing that breastfed babies do better in numerous ways. But in considering the issue, this comment makes an important point: "Interesting how breastfeeding is the only area of research of which I'm aware that reverses the findings.  In any other research, the biological norm is assumed to be the benchmark, and deviations from the biological norm are measured in impact. Instead, we assume formula feeding as the benchmark, and measure the biological norm in terms of its deviation from formula feeding.  By which I mean - breastfeeding does not enhance development. It is the biological norm. Formula feeding inhibits neurological development ." (Emphasis mine.) The above comment is in response to an article that uses this phrasing: "MRI images, taken while children were asleep, showed that infants who were exclusively breastfed for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain" . [Hat-tip Shayne Wissler ...

Neat app to help visualize/understand the scale of ... everything , from the observable universe down to the Planck length.

Some beautiful high-resolution images of Mars . (Mars has a few interesting geological features we don't really have on Earth, like subsurface sublimation of frozen carbon dioxide, cf. " Spring Fans " and " Seasonal Erosion ".)

I think the Hubble UDF/XDF is probably  one of the most interesting images  in astronomy ... in short, every one of those dots/blobs is an entire galaxy , each with (on average) in the order of hundreds of millions of stars ... and the staggering part is that this image shows only an extremely tiny portion of our sky (much smaller than the visual area the Moon occupies). The implication is that the number of galaxies in our 'observable' sliver of the universe alone is probably in the hundreds of billions. So a crude low-ball estimate of the number of stars in the observable universe would probably then be ~15,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, give or take (and based on observations of our own galaxy so far from the Kepler observatory, if our galaxy is representative, it's probable that a large percentage of these stars have planets, though that is 'scientifically speculative'). So when you look at the night sky, consider that in each roughly Moon-sized a...

I like fossil fuels as much as the next guy, but: http://planetsave.com/2011/12/10/newest-epa-report-confirms-fracking-fluids-contaminating-pavillion-wyoming-water-supply/ ... the Environmental Protection Agency published a 120 page report today concluding that the process known as ‘fracking’ does indeed cause contamination of water supply ... In an initial sampling in 2008, EPA scientists found traces of hydrocarbons and other contaminants associated with frcking fluids. A second analysis in 2010 by federal health officials and the EPA confirmed these results, and residents were urged not to drink their water and to ventilate their homes while showering to prevent explosions from released methane gas. ... "The evidence keeps on coming in The government findings are sure to ignite more debate amongst Congress, but they are part of a mounting body of evidence that fracking is a source of chemical contamination for local water supplies. A previous study of fracking wel...

Why the latest study purporting a causal link between red meat and increased mortality is Bad Science (TM) ... http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/ and http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2012/03/red-meat-mortality-the-usual-bad-science/ Bottom line, eating meat is still good for you.