This new study suggests that some people’s personalities make it more difficult to get accurate MRI (and fMRI) pictures of their heads: “Individual Differences in Impulsivity Predict Head Motion during Magnetic Resonance Imaging,” Kong X-z, Zhen Z, Li X, Lu H-h, Wang R, et al., (2014) PLoS ONE, 9(8): e104989. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104989. The authors are at Beijing […]
Tag: accuracy
Using mathematics to describe things no one knows how to describe well
Here are two cases where: (A) people used mathematical equations to describe complicated things that nobody understands very well; and then (B) other people noticed the, uh, discrepancy. The British amateur who debunked the mathematics of happiness: “It seemed incredible to Brown, as though it had been made up. But the number was no invention. […]
Reminder: Ig Nobel winner says world WILL end Friday
This is a reminder to mark your calendar. Harold Camping, who shared the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in mathematics, again says that the world will end this Friday, October 21, 2011. BACKGROUND: This year’s Ig Nobel prize in mathematics was awarded two weeks ago to Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat […]
Surgical journal’s surgical exploration of medical ads
Many medical journals sport attractive ads. Many of these ads supply information to back up their claims (or will supply information, if you ask the advertiser for it). To what extent does that info actually support what the ad says? This study took a bit of a look into the question: “Claim Validity of Print […]
Light eater clarifies her diet, sort of
Jasmuheen, who won the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in nutrition for her book “Living on Light,” which explains that although some people do eat food, they don’t ever really need to, now tries to clarify her claims about her never-eat-food diet. In a newly distributed newsletter, she writes: [I offer] books and CD’s that may […]
Black hole under the river Thames
From New Scientist‘s Feedback column: CAMPAIGNING for another bridge or tunnel across the Thames river in London, blackwalltunnel.com presents meters showing the traffic flowing into and out of each portal of the existing Blackwall tunnel. Checking the site at 5 pm on a Friday, Feedback was concerned to see huge numbers of vehicles entering the […]