Category: interesting
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The Evidence on Breastfeeding
In an article the Royal Statistical Society announced as the runner-up in their annual Awards for Statistical Excellence in Journalism, Helen Rumbelow thoroughly investigates the well-debated subject of breastfeeding. The conclusion of the piece is that much of the evidence in support of breastfeeding is massively misrepresented or inherently flawed. “The evidence to date suggests…
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Immigration Makes Cities Safer
Cities with large immigrant populations are some of the safest places to live, suggest the data and studies, especially those where the police “know how to work with [immigrants], not against them“. The studies in question–including one extensive study by the FBI–go on to suggest reasonsĀ why immigrants reduce a city’s crime: This is not just…
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Innovation and the ‘Creation’ of Time
I make no secret of being a huge fan of Matt Ridley’s body of work, and his latest addition to this, The Rational Optimist, seems like a welcome addition. A wonderful summary of the book’s main theme–that innovation and the spreading of theories and ideas is the key to a prosperous future and we should…
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Nine Diet and Lifestyle Tips for Longevity
By studying the world’s Blue Zones–“communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age”–Dan Buettner and team discovered a set of common behavioural traits in their subjects. In his TEDxTC talk Buettner discusses what he discovered to be the myths of living longer and the nine common diet and lifestyle habits of those…
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Year Two in Review
Another year, a further 445 posts and an additional 17,790 spam comments have passed (and 453 legitimate comments, for which I am eternally grateful–thanks!) and Lone Gunman is now two years old. Somewhat delayed since I’ve recently moved to the Netherlands, here are the best things I’ve read on the Internet and posted here over…
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Routine, Sleep and Premature Death
Sleeping for less that six hours a night is correlated strongly with an increased risk of premature death over a 25-year period (a 12% increase in the likelihood of your premature death, to be exact). That’s the conclusion from an extensive report (studying 1.5 million people) convincingly showing the link between quality sleep and one’s…
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Why Preserve Endangered Languages?
With his book on “the politics of language” due to be published next year, international correspondent for The Economist, Robert Lane Green,Ā is interviewed in More Intelligent Life. The discussion I find mostĀ intriguingĀ is this onĀ the saving of threatened world languages: Half of today’s languages may be gone in a century. Is there a book that explains…
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Defining a Game
In a talk lambasting what has become the most popular video game in America–Zynga‘s Facebook-based FarmVille*–we are shown how it fails to meet a single one of late sociologistĀ Roger Caillois’ six criteria for defining games (as laid-out in in his 1961 book, Man, Play and Games): Free from obligation, routine and responsibility. Separate from ‘real…
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Health Effects of Marriage
There are wide-ranging health benefits to be gained from being happily married, the research suggests, but just how extensive this effect is (and its intricacies) is hugely surprising. In Tara Parker-Pope’s comprehensive look at the physiological effects of marriage, we are told how just by getting couples to discuss a marital disagreement their healing of…
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Reliable Lie Detection Cues
We mistakenly attribute fidgeting, stuttering and avoidance of eye contact as outward signals of mendacity, suggests recent research into lie detection, showing that these are some of the least accurate ways to predict whether or not someone is lying. Instead, the most reliable way to tell if someone is lying is by listening carefully: Professor…