Se va 2010 y alguien ayer me decía que es el fin de una era. Y no me pregunten por qué, pero lo entendí. Y no por una cosa puntual. Ni global ni personal, ni general ni particular.
Archivos Mensuales: diciembre 2010
Placebo effect works even if patients know they’re getting a sham drug | Science | guardian.co.uk
Patients can benefit from being treated with sham drugs even if they are told they contain no active ingredient, scientists have found. The finding suggests that the placebo effect could work without the need for any deception on the part of the doctor, as had been previously thought.
¿Cómo podría Santa Claus entregar todos los regalos en Nochebuena? – BBC Mundo
Partamos de la base de que Santa Claus existe. Así, sin mucho pensarlo, para meternos en este juego mental.
Simpático y jocoso, este personaje tiene una de las tareas más difíciles de la historia: repartir regalos entre los niños del mundo en una sola noche.
Si tenemos en cuenta que, según el Fondo de Naciones Unidas para la Infancia (Unicef), hay alrededor de 2.000 millones de menores de 18 años en el planeta, y que casi todos se portaron bien, ¿cómo puede este hombre ya entrado en años y algo gordito realizar tal hazaña?
Roger Highfield, autor de La física de Navidad, calculó que, en la noche del 24 de diciembre, Santa tiene que hacer casi 850 millones de paradas y para ello, si viaja en sentido opuesto al de la rotación de la Tierra, contaría con otras 24 horas para cumplir con su misión.
Pero, aún así, el tiempo sigue siendo extremadamente corto para semejante empresa.
La clave está en la velocidad con la que Santa tiene que viajar.
Sigan leyendo, por favor, en el link a BBC Mundo, porque esta nota es espectacularmente divertida.
Toby Ord: Why I’m giving £1m to charity – BBC News
Toby Ord is a university researcher earning not much more than the average salary. So why is he giving away £1m over his lifetime to help address global poverty?
When Facebook founder and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg pledged to give away most of his wealth during his lifetime, some British commentators bemoaned the lack of philanthropy on this side of the Atlantic.
But an academic at Oxford University is living off little more than £300 a month in an act of charity-giving that is arguably more impressive than those of Zuckerberg, Gates, Buffett and co.
Toby Ord, 31, has in the past year given more than a third of his earnings, £10,000, to charities working in the poorest countries. He also gave away £15,000 of savings, as the start of his pledge to give away £1m over his lifetime.
It’s not about the bike – BBC News
It’s a no-brainer. Cycling is good for you. It keeps you fit, gets you out in the fresh air and is kind to the environment.
Cycling to work is more popular than ever, because it’s an easy way of fitting exercise into the daily routine and it doubles as transport.
According to the government, “regular exercise like cycling halves your chances of suffering from heart disease, and helps to prevent strokes, diabetes, and some kinds of cancer.
“Your blood pressure and resting heart rate will be lower, and you’ll feel more awake and less stressed.”
And it can save a fortune. Or can it?
Escalada: los humildes
Hay mucho y muy bueno escrito por grandes escaladores y montañistas, que se comen vías 8a o más difíciles (ya explicaré en simple la graduación de dificultades de las vías en escalada, háganme acordar) y corren arriba y abajo de los clásicos alpinos y los más duros picos de los Himalayas.
Pero también estamos, humildes, nosotros. Los que con nuestras limitaciones lo disfrutamos enormemente.Woman dials 999 to report snowman theft in Kent – BBC News
A woman who dialled 999 to report the theft of a snowman from outside her home has been branded “completely irresponsible” by Kent Police.
The force said the woman, from Chatham, thought the incident required their involvement because she used pound coins for eyes and teaspoons for arms.
During the call the woman said: “It ain’t a nice road but you don’t expect someone to nick your snowman.”
Hybrids vs Trucks. Comparing sales over the last decade. – Mike Kruzeniski
In October, Toyota announced that it had sold over two million Prius hybrids globally since it introduced the vehicle in 1997. Remarking on the announcement, Jalopnik (an automotive blog owned by Gawker) compared the Prius sales to U.S. truck sales during the same period. Even though the comparison was between Prius global sales and truck sales only in the United States, as you might expect, the truck sales beat Prius sales by a considerable amount – about 17x.
However, a few things were odd about Jalopnik’s use of data: First, comparing a single vehicle against an entire vehicle category. Second, comparing global sales against U.S. sales. Third, comparing cumulative sales from 1997-2010, since the Prius was only introduced to the United States in 2000, while trucks were an already existing, well established and popular vehicle category with a long head start. While the data isn’t wrong, it tells a misleading and incomplete story. Since Trucks and Hybrids carry a certain cultural symbolism in the United States, I was curious about the full data behind these categories. I felt that there would be some better ways normalize and express the information for a fairer comparison of the categories, and to see if there were any emerging trends that would become visible. I spent some time digging in to the sources that Jalopnik linked to in their post, and found some others to piece together information that was missing (all sources are listed at the bottom of this post).
Vale mucho mucho mucho la pena leer este blog completo. Sobre todo aquellos a los que les interesa cómo el periodismo usa e interpreta los datos con los que da una noticia.
Fruit and vegetables do not protect against overall risk of cancer, review concludes | Science | The Guardian
Eating lots of fruit and vegetables will do little to reduce your risk of developing cancer, according to a review of a decade of research involving more than a million people. It concluded that maintaining a healthy weight and cutting down on smoking and drinking are far better ways to ward off the disease.
Vegetables and fruit are important for a healthy diet but the review says that eating increased amounts does not seem to offer much protection against cancer.