mahiwaga

crossposted on Facebook

It’s well known that conclusions from scientific papers can be confusing and misleading, especially when filtered through the popular press.

A few years back, a Stanford meta-analysis of studies on organic foods concluded that there was very little benefit.

Little evidence of health benefits from organic foods, study finds • 2012 Sep 3 • Michelle Brandt • Stanford Medicine News Center

Are organic foods safer or healthier than conventional alternatives?: a systematic review. • 2012 Sep 4 • Smith-Spangler et al • Ann Intern Med • Pubmed

A more recent study, however, notes that organic foods contain more of certain nutrients and antioxidants.

Is Organic More Nutritious? New Study Adds To The Evidence • 2016 Feb 18 • Allison Aubrey • The Salt • NPR

Choosing “organic” might mean you can get more omega-3 FFAs in your diet.¹

Also, organic foods contain more anthocyanins and polyacetylenes. Which may or may not have health benefits. Although the difference is concentration is not huge, and there are probably other more obvious things you can do to eat more healthy….²

The irony is that Copernicus set forth his model of heliocentrism without any empirical evidence whatsoever, and his model was less accurate than Ptolemy’s geocentric model in making predictions of planetary positions and he got the shape of orbits wrong (he thought they were circular and they’re actually very slightly elliptical).

It was actually Johannes Kepler who came up with a heliocentric model with elliptical orbits that eventually managed to supersede Ptolemy’s model and he determined the laws of planetary motion which Newton generalized to the classical law of gravity.

Happy 543rd Birthday, Nicolaus Copernicus • 2016 Feb 19 • Danny Lewis • Smithsonian

Seventy-four years ago, FDR issued Executive Order 9066, which rounded up Japanese Americans and imprisoned them in camps, against the advice of the Office of Naval Intelligence and despite the fact that the FBI felt confident they had already arrested any potential subversives.

When Santa Anita Racetrack Was A Japanese Internment Camp Assembly Center • 2014 Dec 8 • Jean Trinh • LAist

Donald Trump has decided to pick a fight with the Pope. This should be good.

The war of words between Donald Trump and Pope Francis may be a boon for Latino voter advocates • 2016 Feb 18 • Angilee Shah • PRI

I ran into a post about how fluoride has been classified as a neurotoxin. This should make all the conspiracy theorists salivate.

Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis • 2012 Jul 20 • Choi et al • US National Library of Medicine • NIH

The thing to remember, though, is that the dose makes the poison, and the concentrations of fluoride in the some Chinese towns is way over the limits recommended by the WHO.

Spanish-speakers are once again the majority in California.

Latinos have passed whites as the largest ethnic group in California • 2015 Jul 7 • Ashley Wu • Los Angeles Times

I am almost certain that this is the reason why one of my patients recently syncopized.

Hair-grooming syncope in children. • 2009 Oct • Evans et al • Clin Pediatr (Phila) • PubMed

Hair-Grooming Syncope Seizures • 1993 Apr • Donald W. Lewis and L. Matthew Frank • Pediatrics • AAP Gateway

Syncope in Children Caused by Hair Grooming • 2014 May • Kelly R. Egan Huibregtse, MS, Brenna Van Frank, MD, Carl E. Stafstrom, MD, PhD • Clinical Pediatrics • SAGE journals