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Professional Rugby May Be Associated With Changes In Brain Structure

Science 2.0 - Jan 11 2024 - 14:01

Participation in elite adult rugby may be associated with changes in brain structure.

This is the finding of a study of 44 elite rugby players, almost half of whom had recently sustained a mild head injury while playing.

The study, part of the Drake Rugby Biomarker Study, was led by Imperial College London and published in the journal Brain Communications.

The research found a significant proportion of the rugby players had signs of abnormalities to the white matter, in addition to abnormal changes in white matter volume over time.

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Spotted: An Exoplanet With The Potential To Form Moons

Science 2.0 - Jan 11 2024 - 14:01

Cambridge, MA ¬- Astronomers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have helped detect the clear presence of a moon-forming region around an exoplanet -- a planet outside of our Solar System. The new observations, published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, may shed light on how moons and planets form in young stellar systems.

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Rural Areas Need A 'Doctors Without Borders' Initiative From Wealthy Physicians In Cities

Science 2.0 - Jan 10 2024 - 17:01
If a doctor declares that they are going to another country on vacation to provide free medical care, they get a great deal of social currency from that. Ask a San Francisco doctor to travel to rural California to do the same and you'll be dismissed.

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Did Iron Man Just Create The Ozempic Fad Of 2024, Beta Blockers?

Science 2.0 - Jan 08 2024 - 14:01
During yesterday's Golden Globes acceptance speech for best supporting actor, Robert Downey Jr. ("Oppenheimer") seemed to be referencing stage fright when he said "Yeah, yeah, I took a beta-blocker so this will be a breeze." 

Let's ignore that he is pretending he has stage fright, and certainly that accepting an award would give him high blood pressure or heart palpitations, and discuss what we know it really means; celebrities have jumped on the beta blocker fad for social anxiety or depression. Unlike fentanyl or xanax, no one will judge you if you keel over while on beta blockers. No one is worried your propranolol habit is out of hand.

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Common Core On The Ropes - California Brings Back Cursive Writing In Schools

Science 2.0 - Jan 08 2024 - 13:01
Presidents Obama and Bush are good friends now, but they wouldn't be in President Bush held a grudge. While campaigning in 2007 and 2008, Senator Obama laid every cultural crime at the feet of the outgoing Republican. And when the housing crisis hit, and he made the economy worse with a stimulus package for government union employees just as President Biden did in 2021, President Obama blamed Bush - even though Bush warned in 2005 that forcing banks to justify why they turned down a mortgage while insuring bad housing loans, at the demand of Democrats, is what led to the housing bubble.

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Harry Potter Is The Top Selling Game Of 2023

Science 2.0 - Jan 08 2024 - 13:01
Even though author JK Rowling controversially believes that being a woman might be more than a state of mind, people bought "Hogwarts Legacy" in droves last year. It was the top-selling game, beating out new entries in the popular "Call of Duty" and "Diablo" franchises.

That is if current trends from November held up. December can be a real confounder because "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III" came out in November - and quickly rose to the number two spot. It could have beat Harry Potter but we won't know until Activision releases its numbers. Also impressive was "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom", because it was only available on one platform, the Nintendo Switch, while Harry Potter was also available on Xbox, Playstation, and PC.

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The Economics You Were Taught? Dead.

Science 2.0 - Jan 05 2024 - 17:01

This is a companion piece to “Enough: Toward A Sustainable Economics” 

https://www.science20.com/fred_phillips/enough_toward_a_sustainable_economics-256755.

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Revealed: The Color Of Uranus

Science 2.0 - Jan 04 2024 - 20:01
It is commonly said that Neptune is azure blue and Uranus pale cyan green – but a new study shows the two ice giants are actually far closer in color than typically thought. Because Uranus’ appearance and color has changed over the decades in response to the weirdest seasons in the Solar System.

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New York Has A Mild Winter Two Weeks In - Global Climate Change Implicated

Science 2.0 - Jan 04 2024 - 20:01
We're only two weeks into winter and a New York university is already declaring above-average temperatures in 2023 a result of global climate change. 

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We Often Keep Secrets Because We Don't Want To Be Judged - But Few Actually Care

Science 2.0 - Jan 04 2024 - 17:01
If you're holding back on revealing negative secrets about yourself, new survey results in a social psychology journal say you can relax; most people don't care.

When study participants pushed through fear to reveal a secret, those in whom they confided were significantly more charitable than they expected. This was a marketing experiment, not real life, but the authors say recipients appreciated the trust, honesty, and vulnerability needed to reveal secrets.

Here are some findings.


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Bipolar Disorder Is Greater Risk Of Early Death Than Smoking

Science 2.0 - Jan 04 2024 - 17:01
Bipolar disorder, a mental illness with both manic and depressed moods, is often resulting in earlier death than others, by up to 15 years. In two groups, people with bipolar disorder were four to six times more likely as people without the condition to die prematurely, while people who had ever smoked were about twice as likely to die prematurely than those who had never smoked – whether or not they had bipolar disorder.

When it comes to bipolar disorder, the differences in health and lifestyle change mortality a lot.

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Seizures Implicated In SIDS And SUDC Deaths

Science 2.0 - Jan 04 2024 - 17:01
An examination of more than 300 sudden, unexpected deaths in young children, which usually occur during sleep,  commonly known as SIDS in babies or SUDC in toddlers, including extensive medical record analysis and video evidence donated by families to document the inexplicable deaths of seven toddlers between the ages of 1 and 3 finds they were potentially attributable to seizures. 

These seizures lasted less than 60 seconds and occurred within 30 minutes immediately prior to each child’s death, say the study authors.

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For 2024, Resolve To Be More Skeptical Of Epidemiology Claims - And Donate To Non-Profit Science

Science 2.0 - Jan 02 2024 - 10:01
How much corporate journalism health informations published each day is as evidence-based as the graphic on my coffee cup below?

Nearly all of it. And like 100 years ago, it was designed to advance an agenda, not inform public health, but journalists promoted it because they were part of the tribe saying it. In this case, there was an effort to push back the 'coffee invasion' in Britain. Coffee houses were all the rage on the continent and Big Tea was scared.

Nothing drove that home like saying British men would become French.


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For 2024, Let's Do Something About Sepsis

Science 2.0 - Jan 01 2024 - 13:01
Sepsis - blood poisoning - is a severe immunological overreaction to an infection, and hospitals can often be a cause rather than a solution. A guess by the World Health Organisation is that up to 20 percent of deaths worldwide have sepsis as a factor. A new analysis finds that up to 40 percent of people who don't die still can't return to work after two weeks.

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A Year In Review

Science 2.0 - Dec 31 2023 - 07:12
2023 is over and I am looking back at my achievements and failures, to take stock and try to learn something from the matter. This blog looks like a reasonably good place for such an exercise, so I am writing here an inventory of what happened to me in the past 12 months. Sorry if this sounds very boring!

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New York Times Defended Harvard's Claudia Gay Using 'Duplicative Language' But Is Suing OpenAI Over It

Science 2.0 - Dec 29 2023 - 15:12
After Harvard leader (and Board member of Harvard Corp.) Claudia Gay dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism due to lack of protection from hate speech and violence directed at Jewish people, the broader community began to look at the scholarly work of this little-known activist who somehow was placed in charge of nearly $60 billion in money - and having a vote in hiring or firing herself.

There was an alarming amount of plagiarism, yet the New York Times quickly rushed to defend their political ally and reframe it as "duplicative language" - but that was not Joe Biden stealing British politician Neil Kinnock's life story for a speech, this was printed scholarship.

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In The New Year, Consider Less-Discussed Health Benefits

Science 2.0 - Dec 29 2023 - 14:12
Lose Weight Without Suffering

Everyone wants an easy solution to being more fit but the only thing easy is eating too much pizza. Since 2022 we've been treated to far too many pictures of celebrities with weird "Ozempic Face" because their vanity is stronger than their desire for energy balance.

You don't need a gimmick, you do need a little willpower. Commercial gyms love this time of year because everyone joins to honor their New Year's Resolution, they even pay stupid initiation fees, and then most are done a month later.

An easy way to save money on a gym membership, in order of difficulty:

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Affordable Care Act Bundling Of Physical, Behavioral Health Has Not Improved Access

Science 2.0 - Dec 28 2023 - 15:12
One concern about the Affordable Care Act was that in providing access to 700,000 people that companies refused to insure, access would decline along with the surges in cost for everyone. That has turned out to be true in both cases. 

Some states have also 'bundled' behavioral and physical health care, and that hasn't improved access or care for people with mental health issues. It isn't worse, that is the good news, but for the 400 percent increase in cost it isn't better - and demand became higher due to heightened anxiety and depression rates during and post the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Half Of Male Medical Interns Have Experienced Sexual Harassment

Science 2.0 - Dec 28 2023 - 13:12
Though every medical school and residency program has sexual harassment training and methods for reporting, over half of medical interns surveyed from June 2016 to June 2017 data in the Intern Health Study say they have experienced sexual harassment.

Self-reported demographic characteristics and survey were from June 2016 to June 2017 data in the Intern Health Study, an ongoing National Institutes of Health–funded repeated cohort study of postgraduate year 1 residents (interns) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

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SCOTUS Banned Racism In University Admissions But Little Will Change

Science 2.0 - Dec 26 2023 - 15:12
A CNN article notes that black students may now feel less inclined to mention their race when applying to colleges. They frame it as a blow against Affirmative Action by pesky conservatives on the Supreme Court, but removing racism can't be a bad thing.

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