What a medical doctor sees in social media posts can tell an entirely different picture than the one intended to be told. As the saying goes "the devil is in the details."
Other Science News
One would think that in a world where facts can be easily verified, it shouldn't become so polarized. But a new paper in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science argues that polarization is the natural outcome when groups of people disagree. In fact, the authors document a major example of polarization within the scientific community itself.
Researchers, believe it or not, ingested Lego toys to see how quickly they could be, um, excreted. Yes, this actually took place. This "work" was published in a journal.
How can you identify a scientifically ignorant person? Ask him if he's concerned about the health effects of GMOs. If the answer is yes, you've identified somebody who probably couldn't pass an 8th grade science test. Too harsh? Not according to the latest Pew poll.
Plenty of bad papers are accepted as true because the academic who wrote it is famous. On the flip side, many good papers are never written out of the fear that it could cost an academic his job. So, how about we just eliminate real names and publish papers under fake ones instead? That's the fundamental idea behind a new journal, not-so-subtly called The Journal of Controversial Ideas, set to launch next year. This idea is so good, I wish I'd thought of it first.
There is a growing cottage industry in reporting industry payments to physicians, the implication is that they alter our behavior. Is there any proof?
Just as you've been toiling away in preparation for your upcoming feast, we have been toiling away teaching the world about science. Last week, we appeared on the wildly popular Coast to Coast AM and more!
Visits to primary care physicians are down, visits to nurse practitioners are up. And savings are nowhere to be found. Two great business strategists, Clayton Christensen, and Michael Porter provide some understanding.
Pretty much everyone is behaving badly in the public sphere as politics is infecting everything. “Johnny made me do it” was not an acceptable argument in childhood, so why would it be now?
The deadliest occupational group for men was "construction and extraction," with a suicide rate of 53.2 per 100,000 in 2015. For women, the deadliest group was "arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media," with a suicide rate of 15.6 per 100,000.
Yelp is a very popular source of recommendations for food, activity, physicians and now the people weigh in on Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Centers. Patients have different expectations for these facilities and it influences their "satisfaction."
One of our core missions is to spread the good news about science as far and wide as possible. Obviously, we do plenty of that on the ACSH website, but we also regularly appear in various media outlets across the country. Here's where we appeared recently.