Hacker News Reader

tomqon The Radiation Exposure Lie

It sounds like the shape of the dose response curve for chronic low dose radiation is controversial. There's a lack of definitive evidence either way and reasonable arguments in both directions. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis and other independent sources.

This article is making the case in one direction and is biased. I'm not saying it's wrong, but I wouldn't walk away using this as your only source on the topic.

tomqon The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

Yeah GPTZero says 100% AI generated

tomqon Do judges give out tougher sentences when hungry? A study too good to be true

This new paper finds 10% higher likelihood to acquit per hour of fasting. That’s huge. Imagine you’re in the criminal’s shoes. The original also found a marked impact of hunger on acquittal rates.

They real story here is that a just system would have no relationship between judge hunger and acquittal rate, and both studies show human judges fall far short of that mark.

tomqon How Organisms Come to Know the World: Fundamental Limits on AGI

The authors make a classic mistake: the brain is not comparable to a Turing Machine, it is a finite state machine. There’s no infinite tape in a brain.

tomqon A 2,500-mile radius in Asia contains half the world's population (2017)

A detailed follow-on study found a 4,000-mile radius sphere centered on the earth’s core contains ~100% of earth’s population. Scientists stunned.

tomqon Block on GM rice ‘has cost millions of lives and led to child blindness’

One of the unfortunate things about the GM foods debate is how rarely the details of a particular crop are considered. What method was used to engineer it? What gene was added in or modified? What is the IP approach used by the inventor? What are the results of field trials? For all the strong opinions I’ve seen, nobody mentions these specifics. It’s like deciding someone is guilty or innocent of a crime when all you know is that they’ve been charged.

tomqon Maternal fluoride exposure during pregnancy and IQ scores in offspring

Barely significant results like this are suspect. See https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/31/16021654/p-... for a good overview. TLDR: the smart money is on this result failing to reproduce.

tomqon Aging is associated with a systemic length-driven transcriptome imbalance

Thanks, your points make sense. It’s definitely a worrisome coincidence given the multiple tests they ran but didn’t correct for. I hope to see that knockout experiment you describe!

tomqon Aging is associated with a systemic length-driven transcriptome imbalance

It's a good point. Why would the length effect you describe be be associated with age, across many organs, cell types, datasets, and species? The technical effect would be a good explanation for this finding in one dataset, but it seems unlikely that many datasets would have a technical length effect that correlates with age by chance.

tomqon Results from placebo-controlled LSD microdose human study

It’s important to note: the study only had 20 participants, so it wouldn’t have enough statistical power to detect a moderately large effect. Failure to find an effect is different from evidence there is no effect.

tomqon Physics Makes Aging Inevitable, Not Biology (2016)

This is an interesting article, but the core argument that aging is an inevitable result of physics and not biology has a counterexample. It’s the biologically immortal hydra: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(genus)

tomqon The ACLU Asks in 1934: Shall We Defend Free Speech for Nazis in America?

There are many good examples in history of oppression making a movement stronger. Think of the Boston massacre, Rosa Parks, or British treatment of Ghandi. That said, the plural of anecdote is not evidence.

In the similar domain of terrorism, the following highly cited study finds that military occupation is the leading cause of suicide bombing: http://www.ir.rochelleterman.com/sites/default/files/pape%20...

So that's good evidence for a blowback effect.

That said, the above arguments are against government oppression of a movement. Actions by localities to remove statues or by private companies to not provide a platform for hate speech are a different ballgame. It's not obvious they lead to blowback.

tomqon Exercise should be kept to a healthy minimum

This study is completely disconnected from biological reality. Exercise is the only general-purpose life-extending intervention we know of with certainty. See for yourself: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_exercise

tomqon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2016)

Evidation Health | SF Bay Area | https://www.evidation.com | Full Time | ONSITE

We are a team of mission-driven experts in precision medicine, machine learning, behavioral economics, health outcomes research, and design. We generate economic and clinical evidence for digital health technologies and enable regular people to participate in finding the best tools to help make managing health just a little easier for everyone. We are Series A funded by GE Ventures and Rock Health with fast-growing revenue.

Positions Available:

Senior Software Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/engineering/sr-software-eng...

Software Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/engineering/software-engine...

Data Engineer (Santa Barbara, CA): http://www.evidation.com/careers/data-science/data-engineer/

tomqon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2015)

Evidation Health | SF Bay Area | https://www.evidation.com | Full Time | ONSITE

We are a team of mission-driven experts in precision medicine, machine learning, behavioral economics, health outcomes research, and design. We generate economic and clinical evidence for digital health technologies and enable regular people to participate in finding the best tools to help make managing health just a little easier for everyone.

We are Series A funded by GE Ventures and Rock Health with fast-growing revenue.

Positions Available:

Senior Software Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/engineering/sr-software-eng...

Software Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/engineering/software-engine...

tomqon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2015)

Evidation Health | SF Bay Area | https://www.evidation.com | Full Time | ONSITE

We are a team of mission-driven experts in precision medicine, machine learning, behavioral economics, health outcomes research, and design. We generate economic and clinical evidence for digital health technologies and enable regular people to participate in finding the best tools to help make managing health just a little easier for everyone.

We are Series A funded by GE Ventures and Rock Health with fast-growing revenue.

Positions Available:

Senior Software Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/engineering/sr-software-eng...

Front-end Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/engineering/front-end-engin...

Data Engineer: http://www.evidation.com/careers/data-science/data-engineer/ (At our Santa Barbara office)

tomqon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2015)

Evidation Health - San Francisco or Santa Barbara, CA

We're hiring a data engineer, a product designer, and software engineers to optimize healthcare. Work with a small, uniquely capable team including the ex-COO of Sense Networks, ex-CTO of OkCupid, and ex-CCO of CardioDx.

http://www.evidation.com/careers/

tomqon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2015)

Evidation Health - San Francisco or Santa Barbara, CA

We're hiring data scientists, data engineers, and software engineers to optimize healthcare. Work with a small, uniquely capable team including the ex-COO of Sense Networks, ex-CTO of OkCupid, and ex-CCO of CardioDx.

http://www.evidation.com/careers/