Best of Twitter - Week of April 19, 2021
If you look at autocorrelated data, pick any random day, and look for a break in linear trend on that day, you will find a statistically significant break a ludicrous amount of the time. In this random AR(1) data with delta = .8, I reject the null at 95% about half the time.
Extra disclaimer for anything nutrition-related, but I found this post and replies to it thought-provoking, esp the part where the steady body temperature noticeably increases after diet changes:
All mammals share an ancestor who could switch their metabolism to a torpid state, as defined by low metabolic rate, low body temperature and elevated SCD1. The trigger? Dietary linoleic acid. The majority of Americans became torpid between 1962 and 1991.
^ also, while the priors of such stuff being BS are high, someone I know really well had a lifelong depression, tried everything, and then it got solved immediately by them quitting carbs (although this post is not about quitting carbs).
I've come to the same conclusion based on reading Heinrich and Leland:
"because our beliefs about reality come from other people, I think that the choice of which people to trust is the core issue in epistemology."
Epistemology as social learning👍
arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-corrupti…
Excited to share my latest findings! I found that single neurons in the mouse brain encoded the price of cryptocurrencies 🪙 Here is a neuron from the visual cortex which shows a highly significant correlation with the Bitcoin price at the time it was recorded.
A thread 👇
^ lol thread
What if the productivity growth slowdown is due to the 1970 Controlled Substances Act? A great long read on the history of drugs.
"Leaving out caffeine and alcohol was the only thing that spared us from total economic collapse."
And check out THE WOMEN'S PETITION AGAINST COFFEE. REPRESENTING TO PUBLICK CONSIDERATION THE Grand INCONVENIENCIES accruing to their SEX from the Excessive Use of that Drying, Enfeebling LIQUOR.
Apparently coffee caused men to be "Cuckol'd by Dildo's".
web.archive.org/web/2006081020…
Structural basis of assembly and torque transmission of the bacterial flagellar motor cell.com/cell/fulltext/… - such an incredible molecular machine - 175 subunits!
Love this lol:
“Everywhere you look—the compiler, the shell, the CPU, the DOM—is an abstraction hiding lifetimes of work. Biology is like this, just much, much worse, because living systems aren’t intentionally designed. It’s all a big slop of global mutable state.”
Jeff Dean (@🏡) @JeffDean
NMA registration is open! A hands-on TA-lead 3-week intensive online summer school - lectures and notebooks delivered in small pods. We had over 1,700 students and 190 TAs last year for our comp neuro course. This year, NMA is also unveiling a new course: deep learning! 1/
Neuromatch @neuromatch
Quarantined section
Frightening: a single flight from Delhi to Hong Kong has so far led to 47 imported cases (& counting). All were required to do pre-departure testing and all were tested upon arrival. Yet, most of the cases were detected in hotel quarantine (most detected on day 12).
Aaron is Bubble Bound 🤞 🇭🇰 @tripperhead