The other Anglo exceptionalism
Economists are fond of talking about the specialness of the United Kingdom back when it kicked off the industrial revolution. Similarly, USA is doing remarkably well by some metrics compared…
Can we pick the best sperm?
A lot of people are interested in embryo selection. Why? When people reproduce through IVF, they will generate more than one viable embryo. Which one to choose? The general approach…
Actual communism is bad for your health
Saw this anti-communism meme today: (I couldn't find a higher res version.) Looks true enough, but perhaps cherry-picked. There were more than 6 countries in the ex-USSR. So I downloaded…
Is some alcohol good for you?
In medicine, there are two normal dose-response functions for a chemical (or other treatment) and your health. In the first case, any amount of the chemical is bad and more…
Obesity and the secular decline in testosterone
One thing I didn't address in the last post about the decline of everything manly is that obesity is a potential cause of secular declines in testosterone. That's because the…
It’s not just sperm quality decline
Recently Scott Alexander wrote a long piece in his usual fashion Declining Sperm Count: Much More Than You Wanted To Know. He takes the usual meta-skeptical rationalist approach of reviewing…
Are fat people dumb?
There's a stereotype that fat people are lazy, less intelligent, and of course, they are widely considered unattractive in the west in modern times. But is this stereotype true? Well,…
Drug users vs. drug abusers
Drugs are bad mmk? Well, are they? The go-to argument involves looking at drug abusers. It's hard to say something positive about drug abuse in general. Everybody has a story…
Does vaping shrink your balls?
Some time ago, someone sent me this: https://twitter.com/AlpacaAurelius/status/1583506701726064651 I know, generic ancient Rome/Greek right-wing back-to-nature type stuff, even hates on deodorants: https://twitter.com/AlpacaAurelius/status/1587965330856493056 "Alright Emil, but these are cheap shots. What…
Does honey actually work against coughing?
I've been battling my way through round three of my COVID adventures this week, and it's not been fun. 3 days of lying in bed with full body fever, cold…