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User: Neuronaut137

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  1. Effect sizes are microscopic on Study: Living Near Fracking Correlates With Increased Hospital Visits · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The two "significant" effects, for cardiology and neurology, are increases of 0.07% and 0.06%, respectively. Not 7% and 6%, but 0.07% and 0.06%. These are the smallest effect sizes you will ever see published. Effect sizes of that tiny size can easily be explained by decisions on which data to use, how to analyze it, etc. Even if those effects were real, those effect sizes are too small to care about. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  2. Re:wow only 77 on US Life Expectancy May Have Peaked · · Score: 1

    The US has more immigration, for one thing

    No, it doesn't: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_net_mig_rat-immigration-net-migration-rate http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_for_pop-immigration-foreign-population

    Yes, it does. Those statistics don't count illegal immigration, and despite that the U.S. immigrant population percentage is still higher than every European country other than Luxembourg and Switzerland (second list), and the immigrants in those two countries are typically wealthy to begin with. Since the comparison here was between the U.S. and Europe, the greater immigration rate does make a difference. I'm not making a point one way or another about the merits of immigration policy, but these are facts that need to be taken into account when evaluating health care outcomes. Has someone found any sort of comparison in health outcomes between insured, median-income, non-obese, non-smoking, non-alcoholic citizens of various countries? Until we have seen this data, how can we separate the gross statistics currently reported into the effects of: a) Access to health care. b) Quality of health care for those with access. c) Lifestyle choices.

  3. Up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right... on Konami Cuts and Runs From Iraq War Game · · Score: 1

    Do you think it gives you 30 lives in this Konami game, too?

  4. Igor on Open Source Software For Experimental Physics? · · Score: 1

    Igor Pro can be extended with C code (compiled into libraries called XOPs), or code written in its own internal language. The support from the developers for both the parts they've written and for the parts you might write, as well as the support from the user base, is the best I've ever seen, by a mile. The graphics and the GUIs are also cleaner and more professional looking than any other software I've seen.

  5. Re:Rail, no thanks on Can the Auto Industry Retool Itself To Build Rails? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You're also forgetting one additional thing:

    Driving is focused labor, and riding transit isn't.

    Unless you're an incredibly reckless misanthrope, you can't read a book or work on your laptop while making a 5 hour drive. Riding a train or bus you can. 5 hours of getting work done at the rate I bill is a considerable amount of money. Even if I was just reading for pleasure, that 5 hours is worth a lot more to me than the few tens of dollars I *might* save from driving. So unless the thrill of driving the open highway is something you'd pay many tens of dollars an hour for, riding transit makes more sense, all other thing being equal.

  6. Re:More bad research and unsupported conclusions on Diet of Fast Food and Candy May Cause Alzheimer's · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Correlation is not causation" is probably the most overused and misapplied tag on this site. If there is a control, and there was, then it's not just a correlation. Whether the cause is actually sugar/fat or some other difference between the "bad" diet and the control diet is subject to debate, but there is a cause here, not simply a correlation. And this is rodent research, so there is no such thing as a double blind study.