Interesting Links for 28-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• Astoundingly, new research into the power of prayer on heart surgery finds it has no effect
  (tags: medicine religion prayer )
• Sitting down all day is killing you
  (tags: sitting health )
• Tory MP complains of Gurkhas “sitting” and “wandering” in his town
  (tags: uk racism gurkhas )
• Moon Rock Analysis Casts Doubt on Lunar Origins
  (tags: geology

Comments

[a_pawson]

Presumably these Nepalese people "don't understand our customs" because they are sitting on park benches talking to each other, instead of the British custom of downing cans 8 cans of Special Brew and hurling abuse at people.

[momentsmusicaux]

Language is for conveying what's in my head into yours. Which is a lot more than facts :)

Angry birds: you destroy more than forts? I've never got that far into it!

[a_pawson]

I've finished the first couple of Angry Birds games. You destroy a variety of constructions, all of which are made out of planks, ice blocks, concrete or boulders. Whilst some may resemble famous landmarks someone is reading way too much into the game if they have decided buildings are schools, hospitals etc.

[cairmen]

Any idea if any of the sitting studies controlled for frequent breaks vs continual sitting?

(Depending on the answer I may be spending $BIGNUM on a sit/stand desk this year...)

[andrewducker]

Well, if you can find someone to get you the longform version of this:
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/172/6/494

And I'm sure you know a few people with access to academic texts...

[theweaselking]

By "new research" you mean "the article is from 2006", right?

[andrewducker]

Yeah. I totally spotted the really obvious date that is right there in the URL. Definitely. Really.

(Some day I will learn to read. Today is not that day.)

[theweaselking]

And, I mean, right below the title, before the article.

(Admittedly, I got halfway through the first sentence before realising I'd read it before and checking the date. And it's not like the research got it's methodology wrong, or isn't the most current and most definitive statement on the matter.)

[cartesiandaemon]

:) I almost don't care: I know perfectly well what the result will be, so I don't feel especially inclined to have lots more studies (although sufficiently many people do have the result in doubt, it's probably worth having at least a couple of big studies to point to).

In fact, on a similar question, I was very interested to realise that some (intellectual) christian friends _did_ have a doubt. I assumed people I knew would say "in theory God could intervene in the world, but you will never ACTUALLY find any double-blind evidence of it", but it turned out not to be that clear-cut.

OTOH, it might be consistent that God responds to some prayers, but only personal ones you really mean, not "Oh, I hope this Angela K I've never met gets better". Obviously I don't believe that, but experimental honesty compells me to admit it ought to have real world effects but be very hard to actually test.

[ipslore]

Obviously this MP is just concerned about people's health! These Ghurkas shouldn't be sitting down all day like that, after all.