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AmidFuror, in Discover the Nutritional Marvel of Palm Kernels: Nature's Bounty for Bones, Hearts, and More - Flex Health Tips

This article mentions scientific studies that support its myriad factual claims but doesn't cite any of them. There is a lot of low-quality, tentative research about the health benefits of various diets. A serious discussion would need to include the limitations of such studies for the food in question.

This post seems to have little to do with science at best. At worst it invokes pseudoscience "superfood" health nonsense.

YIj54yALOJxEsY20eU, in Too much red meat is linked to a 50% increase in type 2 diabetes risk

Not to diminish the study, but

Researchers used statistical methods to adjust for confounding variables. “We found that about half of the excess risk with red meat consumption was explained by excess body weight,”

brighthurst, in Eureka! Groundbreaking Study Uncovers Origin of ‘Conscious Awareness’
@brighthurst@kbin.social avatar

This article makes me feel really stupid because it is making the case that there is some profound new discovery about consciousness when I see nothing profound whatsoever. To me, the most meaningful excerpt is:

“The babies in our study have revealed something really profound: that there is action in the midst of inaction, and inaction in the midst of action. Both provide meaningful information to the infant exploring the world and its place in it,” said Kelso. “The coordination dynamics of movement and stillness jointly constitute the unity of the baby’s conscious awareness – that they can make things happen in the world. Intentionally.”

Yes, and? So a baby learns from that the mobile directly correlates to its own leg moving and not moving? How is this anything profound and how do it explain anything new about consciousness? I don't mean to downplay novel new experiments (which this is), but I'm not seeing anything "groundbreaking," "profound," or the "birth of purpose." I get that understanding how infants learn is important, but I don't see anything new in these results, we've known about cause-and-effect learning for a long time.

If someone can edify me on any profound implications of this, I would be thankful.

protist, in CIA bribed its own COVID-19 origin team to reject lab-leak theory, anonymous whistleblower claims

A highly dubious source, the “anonymous whistleblower” speaking through the Republican Party, but I’m still uncertain what benefit is derived from investigating this? What does it matter whether it was a lab leak or zoonotic transmission at this point?

HeartyBeast,

What does it matter whether it was a lab leak or zoonotic transmission at this point?

Well, possibly quite important if you want to assess the risk posed by wet markets. And if it was a lab leak (personally, I think less likely) you'd want to know where processes failed, and possibly some heads to roll.

Zima,

It would show that the current safety protocols are inadequate and unless they are improved any future and ongoing research on gain of function or anything close to bioweapons is putting mankind at risk. It’s important to keep a historical perspective and remember how many doctors died treating ebola even though they used ppe.

Fiivemacs, in Does classical music make babies smarter? Scientist Says

Mmmm…I say no, because the types of people that typically enjoy that type of music most likely have a higher standard of living and are able to provide a better lifestyle and life lessons then someone who listens to say…Eminem.

WHARRGARBL,
Froyn, in Academic journal forced to retract peer-reviewed AI-generated paper after "rat penis" pics go viral

I enjoy reading between the lines. "Had the rat penis not gone viral, the paper would not have been retracted"

CodexArcanum, in 3D-Printed Neural Tissue Grows And Functions Like a Human Brain

Everyday we get closer to artificially grown brains replacing LLMs as the new AI hype.

topinambour_rex,
@topinambour_rex@lemmy.world avatar

It won’t be an AI anymore. But an AM, an artificial mind.

ThatOneKirbyMain2568,
@ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.social avatar

Maybe home-grown human intelligence (HGHI)?

EmptyRadar, in Strange object found trapped near Uranus

Wow, I wonder if this will impact Uranus in any way?

Kata1yst, in Strange object found trapped near Uranus
@Kata1yst@kbin.social avatar

We either need to rename Uranus to the traditional spelling of Ouranos to stop all this childish teasing, or we need to lean in harder and have the Onion get final edit on every single scientific publication on that planet.

snooggums,
@snooggums@kbin.social avatar

They fixed it in Futurama.l to avoid those childish jokes.

They renamed it Urectum.

admiralteal,

you - Rahn - oos

You don't even need to change the spelling, just pronounce it a way that better resembles the underlying Greek. Problem is, no English-speaker needs to think about pronunciation for the other planets because the latin is just pronounced phonetically.

It's weird that it's the one Greek-named planet. If we're changing things up, it should just be Caelus to match the others.

DrYes,
@DrYes@kbin.social avatar

oo rah noos

"U" is not pronounced like "you" at all. "Noos" is also pretty off.

DessertStorms, in Strange object found trapped near Uranus
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

This headline belongs on not the Onion lol
Sorry 😂

ondoyant, in Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will
@ondoyant@beehaw.org avatar

maybe i’m just not smart enough for this, but the idea of free will as a concept has always seemed pretty poorly constructed in the first place. like, what would it even mean to have the will to act freely while existing conditional to your environment? we are placed into chaotic and uncertain circumstances, and have evolved the ability to navigate those circumstances through cognition. simple as that. there is no future that is “pre-determined” for us to follow, just chaos that we must navigate through until we die. i feel like the idea was kind of borrowed from theology and we’ve been ruminating on it ever sense, but its just never been a very compelling thought to me. like, of course our decisions are shaped by our environment and physiology, how else could it possibly work?

i feel like, for the people who argue for free will, its kind of like arguing for the existence of an afterlife. they’re motivated to continue advocating for it because it seems scary not to have it, but nothing about the way we work requires us to be able to make meaningful decisions that are out-of-context to our conditions, just like nothing about how we work indicates we continue to exist outside our physical conditions. if we free willed ourselves to do something that wasn’t constrained by our physical bodies, the stuff we know about the world, and the immediate sensory input we’re receiving, that would look like fucking magic or something, and if it is constrained by that stuff, then its just another word for cognition.

conciselyverbose, in Scientist, after decades of study, concludes: We don't have free will

Behave is a great (if fucking beefy) read on a broad variety of influences on human behavior (it's 1B to Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow on my nonfiction list), but one expert's opinion on something as inherently unmeasurable as free will doesn't warrant a news story.

monotremata, in Your brain finds it easy to size up four objects but not five — here’s why

Fun fact: there's a name for the phenomenon of instantly recognizing the number of objects when it's fewer than five. It's called "subitizing."

There's a pretty interesting overview of what we know about math on the brain (or at least knew as of its writing) in the book "Where Mathematics Comes From" by Lakoff and Nuñez.

Drusas, in Ozempic linked to stomach paralysis, other gastrointestinal issues: UBC study

Words can barely describe how awful gastroparesis is. I'd much rather be fat and diabetic than go through that again.

admiralteal,

The study is very clearly talking about non-diabetic patients, too..

These are almost certainly people who want the weight loss primarily for aesthetic reasons rather than health ones, and may face these terrible health complications as a result. Makes it even worse, I think.

You're almost certainly better off somewhat "fat" than skinny by way of a drug like this. Especially given that "fat" is an entirely subjective measure and the "objective" measures like BMI overweight/obese are not based on points of any kind of phase change in health outcomes but are just somewhat arbitrary statistical variations. Dramatic interventions like these should be reserved for people that have dramatic need, at least until we have such an intervention safe enough and with few enough side-effects for over-the-counter sale.

Drusas,

Yes, I understood that. Sorry I wasn't clear. I have experienced gastroparesis a couple of times, and I'm saying that it is worse than a chronic illness in my experience (I also have a couple of chronic illnesses). It's extremely unpleasant. Sure can lose weight since you can't eat anything, though.

Treczoks, in A sixth basic taste may join sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami on the tongue

So, basically, ammonium chloride tastes sour if I got this right. I would not classify this in the same league as sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and umami, as it is not a separate flavor, just a new molecule that bonds.

Compare this to the thousands of different molecules considered “bitter”.

Catoblepas,

I skimmed the actual publication (the Nature Communications link in the article) and from what I saw they made no claims about a ‘new flavor,’ just explained the exact mechanism the body uses to detect it, the potential reasons animals are sensitive to it, and a taste preference test with mice.

This is probably 100% university PR department fluff. It’s a very common complaint that these departments trying to advertise and drum up prestige for the university don’t really understand the research the scientists that work there are doing, and either accidentally or intentionally misrepresent it. People in the field roll their eyes and read the paper instead of the press release, and it impresses some people who don’t know anything about it.

Zima,

Thanks for saving us the time to understand it was bs.

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