Best of Twitter - Week of March 22, 2021
Oh boy.
“The standard deviation of estimates across replications was 3–4 times the mean reported standard error.”
Nick HK @nickchk
#China's legal experts consider imprisonment of #CRISPRbabies maker a problematic far-fetched interpretation of scientifically-outdated 2003 Health Ministry guidelines that had little to do with human gene-editing. New criminal law amendment "fixes" this.
^ I don’t necessarily agree with all of this but helpful as a reminder that we are all different
Very well-known oncologist Jose Baselga (who stepped down from Memorial Sloan Kettering after failing to disclose corporate conflict of interests) died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a wicked brain disease caused by prions. Prions also cause Mad Cow, sheep scrapie, CWD in deer.
Lluis Montoliu @LluisMontoliu
The prion agent--a misfolded protein--is also infectious.
Classic CJD can be spread iatrogenically (that is, by doctors) via dirty brain surgery tools and injections of human growth hormone obtained from cadaver pituitary glands.
Other prion diseases include Kuru, the subject of a Nobel Prize won by Carleton Gajdusek. Kuru was a disease afflicting cannibals on the island of New Guinea. The prions spread via he consumption of human brains in funerary rituals. Fascinating story.
Lastly, Stanley Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for identifying "prions" as the super-weird cause of all TSEs. Prions are infectious proteins! They have a wrong/unhealthy shape and spread by transmitting wrong shape to other proteins.
the big problem is jargon that starts with a precise, distinct meaning and then spreads out to fill the vague space formerly occupied by the ordinary words that the jargon replaced in specific situations
^ interesting discussion of how we use words and jargon in response to Nate Soares
K12 education system prevents younger people from gaining power (making them wait for 16+ years competing in intelligence-based status games => they end up overvaluing intelligence, undervaluing power, and not knowing how to influence) => older ppl hold onto their power longer
Age in 1776:
Marquis de Lafayette, 18
James Monroe, 18
Henry Lee III, 20
Aaron Burr, 20
Nathan Hale, 21
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Just a bunch of kids, right? What do they know?
-@DeAnnaBurghart
One thing that surprised me when I switched plans from "earn lots of $ and donate" to "build important things," is how much more productive I became.
I thought if I was earning the $ by doing intellectually interesting work I'd stay motivated. Turned out that wasn't true!
Actually, it was even worse—I *thought* I was motivated while I was doing plan A, and only when I switched did I even realize *how motivated it was possible to be.*
Several friends had this experience as well. Makes me wonder how many people are stuck in that state.
(For example, I never thought I'd be pumped enough about work to live for 1+ yr in a country where I didn't speak the language! Or to have the stamina to spend 20+hr/wk on the phone with an accounting firm. Or etc.)
Japan is remarkable, part infinity: A party that has ruled for 60+ years (with a couple of short breaks) still polls 30 points or so above the opposition.
The LDP is very antifragile.
Anyone know why?
@whyvert The way politics works in Japan is very different from the way it works in the West.
medium.com/@tsangshu.sing…
I imagine this largely explains such a situation