http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_causation/all/1

I wish this article was out when I was still a course assistant in the biostats department—a lot of students could have used the info here. Aside: As somebody who has herniated a disc and seriously injured a shoulder, I’m still appalled by how often I’m told (by well-meaning physicians) to get an MRI. Nothing in the literature supports the notion that MRIs are useful or definitive for either injury. (Via Tyler Cowen.)

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Simply handing over your iPod to a friend, your blind date, or the total stranger sitting next to you on the plane opens you up like a book. All somebody needs to do is scroll through your library on that click wheel, and, musically speaking, you're naked. It's not just what you like--it's who you are. ~ Steven Levy

Very true. Just finished the Steve Jobs biography and am feeling very motivated to get this thing rolling again…

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(GIF: Click to play.)

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Bill Gross put up a list of the best student analogies from an Annual English Teacher’s conference. Among them:

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law George. But unlike George, this plan just might work.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

And then there’s this little gem that evoked a flood of nostalgia (and disappointment) from the time I won second place in logic and reasoning at the 8th grade county math olympics:

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the son of the guy who got first place.

(h/t: Tyler Cowen)

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I’m not suggesting we allow misery, or deny appropriate medications. I’m saying, things sometimes hurt. We live in a time when sturdy carpenters want Percocet for minor finger injuries. When teens want Lortab for ankle sprains. When young women with sunburns want something to ‘put me to sleep.’ ~ Edwin Leap

As somebody who has broken his arm (several times) and the majority of his fingers and yet never takes anything stronger than Advil (ok, occasionally, Aleve), I have to agree.

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As rioting increases, so do Amazon bat sales.

At first glance, I am a little surprised at the popularity of the bats. I guess I would have thought cricket bats were the preferred method of self-defense (or tool of anarchy depending on who you ask). It could be that bats just don’t sell a lot in the UK relative to cricket bats and while both have spiked in sales, the denominator is just lower for bats. I guess they might also just be cheaper.

(via The Atlantic)

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21767076

Coauthored an article with Joseph Palamar and Perry Halkitis from CHIBPS (at NYU). I might be biased but I happen to think this drug stigma scale is one of the more rigorously validated ones out there… Just saying.

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http://wrongingrights.blogspot.com/2011/07/in-which-i-am-actually-rendered.html

Due to the overwhelmingly negative response, the blog (welovepictures) decided to take down the post. Google Cache, however, never forgets. “Colonial Africa”-themed wedding with an all-black waiting staff and all-white attendees? In South Africa on top of that? Should have just called it an apartheid wedding.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21698548

Does one article make you an expert? If so, I’m now a gay sex parties in New York City expert… Published in Journal of Urban Health.

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Medical errors as extreme as operating on the wrong body part or the wrong patient are never supposed to happen. Systematic efforts to eliminate these "never events" began a decade ago, and yet such errors continue regularly in Oregon and across the U.S. The most thorough national study estimated 1,300 to 2,700 people are harmed every year by wrong site errors. ~ Joe Rojas-Burke at Oregon Live

When I explain the Safe Surgery 2015 project to people, they often ask me if it is necessary. Answer: Yes–especially if you’re the one having surgery.

(Cited study here.)

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