The fact of higher protein content appears to be true (without going back to find and critique all the original studies). Explanations are much harder to ‘prove’ for questions like this.

We can’t do experiments on the evolution of tears, so all we can do is come up with plausible theories and look at how they fit with the body of evidence. With enough evidence, from enough different angles, we might one day be able to say which proposed explanations fit the facts (and which don’t). It’s how we (eventually) proved smoking was killing people (another question we cannot do experiments on human beings to prove one way or the other) but not all questions are as important as smoking was and there isn’t necessarily a neat, single factor explanation to find even if someone was willing to fund all the necessary research.

Not my area but, for example, I recently saw a study claim that sniffing women’s tears makes men less aggressive. That’s an angle that might help build some support for, or knock down, the theory that emotional tears are useful for social communication (ie help get women killed slightly less often). Did those studies use sad stories or onions? Did any study compare sad stories to onions? If we’re seeing hints of differences between sad stories and onions, that would tend to support the social communication element of the explanation. Unless we think there’s a difference between sad tears and frightened tears, which there probably is, so we should check that too. And the rest of the literature on tears, if it’s considered important enough to get the theory right. And we need to remember that sticky tears are not the same thing as smelly tears, so can we do experiments where non-emotional tears are made sticky, and non-sticky tears made to smell frightened?

Etc etc.

Explaining things we observe but cannot directly experiment on is a process, a process which typically takes many years and dozens of research groups. And a lot of funding. And decades of exhausting battles, if there is a lot riding on the answer (as it did with Big Tobacco vs Public Health).

DOIs are forever. It’s why they exist.

The fact Starmer won’t even think about joining the single market is stupid too.

Joining the single market would simplify border issues but it wouldn’t solve them… We’d have to join the Customs Union and the common VAT area as well to do that. SM-only is not completely pointless but there is a massive political risk attached because it doesn’t solve all the problems its advocates pretend it does.

There are only two ways to make Brexit work. One is to be an EU member in all but name (following all the rules but having a very limited role in making the rules). The other is a united Ireland (with a lot more expenditure on customs and warehousing in Britain).

The first is politically impossible, and also pointless. The second is up to the people of the island of Ireland and requires a British govt which is willing to invest in the real economy, rather than keeping most of us around to create the illusion of a real country instead of a tax haven based on a massive casino.

I don’t know which jurisdiction you’re in but, while it isn’t illegal in the UK, you’re absolutely right about it being a bad idea and you are correct about the reason. In the event of a crash, it could count against you (in the UK, at least).

It is very easy to have a play with a benefits calculator to find out what reality looks like for yourself.

In-work benefits keep working people who earn less than they need to survive at or slightly above the poverty level. For people who are unable to work, due to sickness, disability or a lack of available jobs, it keeps them stuck below the poverty level with just about enough to survive but not to thrive.

As the article points out, the philosophy this system was built on was not necessarily well thought out at the time. In the post-covid era it is disastrous.

Batteries are too heavy for many applications (including, arguably, cars).

That doesn’t make hydrogen the only solution but it is at least a currently available solution. I posted a link about why the Orkneys (population 23k) are producing hydrogen and switching much of their transport to it: they have so much wind the UK (population 70m) national grid can’t take all the power they generate from it.

This is disgusting. PIP is designed to help with additional costs incurred due to an illness or disability but there are loads of people who are too sick to work who don’t need it, and many others who do need it but don’t qualify.

Cold weather payments should be extended to everyone who is reliant on benefits to survive (which would mean almost every benefit other than PIP being a qualifying benefit).

Yes. I’m not watching a video but it is a serious problem, especially as hydrogen degrades metals and finds its way out anyway. The private sector cannot be trusted to self-regulate nor the government to meaningfully regulate.

Trying very hard not to succumb to nihilism here …

That is true of all colours of hydrogen other than green (and possibly natural stores of ‘fossil’ hydrogen if they can be extracted without leakage).

Green hydrogen is better thought of as a battery than a fuel. It’s a good way to store the excess from renewables and may be the only way to solve problems like air travel.

How hydrogen is transforming these tiny Scottish islands

That’s not to say it’s perfect. Hydrogen in the atmosphere slows down the decomposition of methane so leaks must be kept well below 5% or the climate benefits are lost. We don’t have a good way to measure leaks. It’s also quite inefficient because a lot of energy is needed to compress it for portable uses.

And, of course, the biggest problem is that Big Carbon will never stop pushing for dirtier hydrogens to be included in the mix, if green hydrogen paves the way.

Archive link

Amazing scientist and all round decent man. I’m glad he lived to see his particle found, or probably found, or whatever the current state of the debate is.

I especially appreciate him for saying these sorts of things, to colleagues, journalists and anyone else who might listen:

Peter Higgs: I wouldn’t be productive enough for today’s academic system

A long life, lived well. RIP

You’re nitpicking the headline while agreeing with the article.

“What is striking is that the uncool, mean standards of FOSS conduct that many of us have decried for years, and that many defended as authentic, tough, etc., ended up not just being exclusionary loser behavior, but a significant attack surface.”

There’s only 23 players in a squad and, traditionally, only the numbers 1-11 used on the pitch. There are no good reasons for 44, let alone 88, to exist.

“Ban” is a clickbait word. Adidas has decided not to make any more of them because it doesn’t want to be associated with Nazis. Oh noes.

The age of consent in Washington is 16.

The attempt to attack Corbyn by drawing comparisons with Truss is bizarre. I can only assume that a mildly conscientious sub-editor inserted the bolded bit because it contradicts everything else he has to say about that particular analogy:

In her mix of utter conviction and utter obliviousness to how she might come across to anyone who doesn’t see the world the way she does, the politician she most resembles is Jeremy Corbyn. Like him, Truss is convinced the policies she advocates are popular with a majority of the public. For Corbyn it was nationalisation of the utilities, more money for the NHS and cheaper housing, all of which poll extremely well. For Truss it is secure borders, lower taxes and an end to burdensome environmental restrictions. In both cases, the explanation for why the things the public want never come to pass is the same: the system is stacked against the preferences of ordinary people.

I’m going to be a pedant and note that recorded history is only ~6k years old, for those parts of the world that had by then started writing shit down in non-perishable form (at the time, or at least before the spoken memories were lost forever). And much shorter for others, obv.

This question is difficult to frame accurately, but “events from BCE” might work, if you want examples that occurred multiple thousands of years ago.

London Elects said: “The Reclaim party candidate’s representatives met with London Elects for the first time on Tuesday 26 March, less than 24 hours before the close of the nominations deadline. At that time, the paperwork was incomplete.

“Mr Fox’s representatives were advised to ensure that completed forms were submitted well before the Wednesday 4pm statutory deadline. The paperwork was submitted very shortly before 4pm.

“Upon inspection, the nomination forms contained errors which – the deadline having passed – were too late for Mr Fox’s team to correct.

Monstrously unfair to disqualify incompetent fascists simply for being incompetent. Can democracy survive this outrageous attack?

The study is massively confounded. Did exercise cause good sleep, or did good sleep provide enough energy to do exercise?

They have not found evidence that doing exercise even when you are exhausted from a lack of sleep and are struggling to do everything else that has to be done will cause you to sleep better. They haven’t done a study which can find causal effects, only associations.

I don’t think it is bad advice; for people who are struggling to sleep well enough to keep up with the demands of daily life, trying to find the time and energy for more fresh air and walking is very unlikely to do any harm.

But, it is harmful to imply that people who are struggling are struggling because they’re lazy when it may well be that they appear lazy because they are struggling. Doctors are already fucking terrible for this kind of thing and doctors who do research should not be presenting it this way when, if they are qualified to do the research, they know they have not defined the causal pathway or even the direction of the causal arrow.

Africa is more diverse than the rest of the world put together.

Which particular Africans are you referring to?

If you are forced to use them:

1. Do not use the app
2. Find what you want on the website
3. Copy the description with a reasonable amount of detail
4. Paste description into your less evil search engine of choice
5. Click through and buy

That way, Amazon has to pay the search engine.