Seth's Blog

• Top diving coach has degree from diploma mill. Should anyone care?
• butter grater from Japan
• “I love bacon. I eat it every day,” says 105-year-old woman
• Babies whose parents “clean” their pacifier by sucking on it have much less asthma and eczema than babies whose parents don’t do that

Thanks to Casey Manion and Bryan Castañeda.

• Washington Post covers evidence for the hygiene hypothesis
• Renata Adler answers audience questions (video)
• Mother Jones criticizes probiotics
• Rating prisons on Yelp. Quantified Institutions.

Thanks to Bryan Castañeda.

• World Health Organization opposes effective herbal malaria remedy
• Increasing potassium intake reduces blood pressure and risk of stroke (experimental evidence)
• How to clearly distinguish thermometer and proxy temperature records.
• Conversation with Edward Jay Epstein about his new book Annals of Unsolved Crime.
• The flavors of fermentation (WSJ). “Recreating naturally occurring fermented flavors in a lab isn’t easy, experts say. “What I marvel the most about is the complexity, especially with something like kimchi,” says Paul Ricciardi, an IFF flavorist.” I believe we like complex flavors so that we will eat more fermented food.
• Ada by Vladimir Nabokov, annotated
• Patient-powered health (BMJ)

Thanks to Dave Lull and Ashish Mukharji.

People like complex flavors. I suppose this is why I prefer black tea to green tea. My evolutionary explanation is that this preference caused our ancestors to eat more bacteria-laden food. Bacteria make food taste more complex and bacteria-laden food are healthier than bacteria-free food.

Phil Alexander sent me a story from this book that illustrates this preference:

We entered the saloon. Not a customer was there — a very surprising fact, considering that it was New Year’s Eve. The only person in sight was the bartender who paced back and forth in front of the bar like a caged beast.

“Well, whatta you want?” he asked savagely.

“Why, we just want a little New Year’s drink,” I returned. Winterbill was too surprised to say anything.

“Mix ‘em yourself,” the bartender replied. “I’m through with the saloon business.”

“If you feel that way about it,” I said, “why don’t you sell out?”

“Well, the first guy who offers me $300 can have the works.”

Somewhat amused and thinking he must be joking, I retorted, “I’ll give you $300 — provided it includes all your stock, the cash register, and other equipment.”

“Mister, you’ve bought yourself a saloon!” he snapped. “I’ll not only include all the stock and equipment — I’ll throw in a full barrel of whiskey I’ve got in the basement.”

Winterbill now joined in the fun and began to take an inventory.

The owner took off his apron and handed it to me. “Gimme the three hundred bucks.”

I gave him the money, still believing it was a joke. He put the money into his pocket, got his hat and coat and departed. To our complete bewilderment, we found ourselves in the saloon business.

A few minutes later, our first customer came in. He evidently had not made our place his first stop. I hurriedly put the apron over my evening clothes and asked for his order.

“Martini,” he said in a thick voice.

“Martini,” I repeated to Winterbill.

“Stall him!” Winterbill whispered.

“Coming right up,” I told the customer. He didn’t mind waiting. He was at the stage where he wanted to talk and so proceeded to do.

Meanwhile Winterbill racked his brain, for he had only the vaguest idea how to mix a Martini. He finally settled upon a recipe. He put a dash of everything from the numerous bottles behind the bar into one drink. I stirred it up and handed it to the customer. We watched anxiously while he drank it down.

“That was good!” he exclaimed. “Best Martini I ever tasted. Mix me another.”

Again Winterbill started to mix.

“How do you feel?” I inquired, none too sure of the consequences.

“Me?” asked the customer. “Fine. Never felt better in my life.”

He didn’t show any bad results after the second drink, and we both were relieved. As time went on more customers came in. They ordered whiskey sours, Manhattans, and Martinis. Winterbill had just one formula and that’s what he gave them all. Nobody complained.

. . . By the time we closed that night we had taken in more than the whole outfit cost us!

• The state of self-tracking by Ernesto Ramirez and Gary Wolf
• Schizophrenia (the negative symptoms) improved by folate and B12 supplementation but only in patients with impaired folate metabolism
• Why more Type 1 diabetes in Finland than neighboring Russia?
• A scientist tries to cure his own cancer
• Resveratrol disappointment
• Where do allergies come from? ”Foreign-born children residing in the United States had half the risk of developing allergies than those who were born here.”

Thanks to Peter McLeod, John Batzel and Joseph Sinatra.

I think this actually happened:

A man came to the [University of Pittsburgh] clinic with a chronic infection in his left ear. He told doctors that other doctors had tried everything: anti-fungal drops, antibiotics, and many other treatments. The Pittsburgh doctors gave him additional antibiotics. The patient came back to the clinic a week later and said he was cured. The clinic doctors told him they were glad they had helped him. He said: “You didn’t. I suffered so much after your drugs I took some earwax from my right ear and put it in my diseased left. In two days I was fine, infection cured.” . . . The good ear contained good bacteria that killed off the bad in the bad ear.

I predict that people will eventually realize that the 2005 Nobel Prize for “ulcers are caused by bacteria” was a big mistake.

Thanks to Mark Griffith.

• Fermentation forum
• Fruit and vegetable consumption today predicts happiness tomorrow
• multiple sclerosis and mercury exposure
• some bacteria protect against acne — a good reason to not take antibiotics for acne
• A fecal transplant eliminated a serious intestinal infection (in mice)
• The Iris Code (a 2004 article about Iris Chang)
• Zeo (sleep tracking) out of business

Thanks to Paul Nash and Adam Clemens.

A new paper in Nature Genetics describes research into the bacteria in ancient teeth plaque. When modern food came along, the bacteria became less diverse. One of the researchers said:

The composition of oral bacteria changed markedly with the introduction of farming, and again around 150 years ago. With the introduction of processed sugar and flour in the Industrial Revolution, we can see a dramatically decreased diversity in our oral bacteria, allowing domination by caries-causing strains.

Whether the decrease in diversity was due to (a) more sugar and flour or (b) less bacteria-laden foods is hard to say.

Again, data suggest we need bacteria to protect us against bacteria. You’d never know this from food safety laws or how freely pediatricians prescribe antibiotics. Again, it is hard to know without more research what caused this or that historical change in health (e.g., more tooth decay when sugar and flour became popular). The obvious answer (e.g., sugar causes tooth decay) might be wrong. If you believe that cavities are caused by too much sugar, the solution is to eat less sugar. What if cavities are caused by not enough bacterial diversity? Then other solutions might work better, such as eating more fermented food.

Thanks to Vic Sarjoo.

• An Epidemic of Absence (book about allergies and autism)
• Professor of medicine who studies medical error loses a leg due to medical error. “Despite calls to action by patient advocates and the adoption of safety programs, there is no sign that the numbers of errors, injuries and deaths [due to errors] have improved.” Nothing about consequences for the person who made the error that caused him to lose a leg.
• Doubts about spending a huge amount of research money on a single project (brain mapping). Which has yet to produce even one useful result.
• Cancer diagnosis innovation by somebody without a job (a 15-year-old)
• Someone named Rob Rhinehart has greatly reduced the time and money he spends on food by drinking something he thinks contains all essential nutrients. Someone pointed out to him that he needs bacteria, which he doesn’t have. (No doubt several types of bacteria are best.) He doesn’t realize that Vitamin K has several forms. I suspect he’s getting too little omega-3. This reminds me of a man who greatly reduced how much he slept by sleeping 15 minutes every 3 hours. It didn’t work out well for him (his creativity vanished and he became bored and unhappy). In Rhinehart’s case, I can’t predict what will happen so it’s fascinating. When something goes wrong, however, I’ll be surprised if he can figure out what caused the problem.

Thanks to Amish Mukharji.

• Kamal Patel’s quantified self experiment, week 1. Will a lot of quantification improve his health? I wonder if he is measuring too many things.
• Glenn Greenwald on the Aaron Swartz case. Sign a petition to fire Assistant US Attorney Steve Heymann.
• Chernobyl wildlife. “Abundant and surprisingly normal-looking.”
• American Gut Project. Via Mark’s Daily Apple.
• Widespread failure of Johnson & Johnson hip replacement. I am curious why this problem was not noticed in early tests of the device. Leave aside FDA approval — why was the device approved by Johnson & Johnson?  Too-early failure is not an obscure side effect.
• Heather Brooke TED talk about exposing government corruption. The current “information enlightenment,” says Brooke, is “about searching for the truth, not because somebody says it’s true, “because I say so.” No, it’s about trying to find the truth based on what you can see and what can be tested. That, in the first Enlightenment, led to questions about the right of kings, the divine right of kings to rule over people, or that women should be subordinate to men, or that the Church was the official word of God.”
• Nassim Taleb points to history and the Davos moderator has a curious response: “Who wants the money back?”

Thanks to Bryan Castañeda and Dave Lull.