5 ms·

It is hard for me to understand why a mouse study in a low-impact journal is at the top of HN. The article does not appropriately adjust for multiple testing,

It is hard for me to understand why a mouse study in a low-impact journal is at the top of HN. The article does not appropriately adjust for multiple testing, and therefore none of its claims are well supported except the JNK2 decrease in post-exercise mice. Full article is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1113/EP086189/asset/eph12060.pdf?v=1&t=izh254dq&s=b9991ef92571e89cf3782940965238a12904dd93 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1113/EP086189/asset/...

droopyEyelids 10y ago
Looking at this article, and the one about the supposed use of falcons as anti-drone measures, makes me think about the whole "fake news" thing. Something about how this is the quality of material we choose to promote among ourselves, the need for a critical eye when analyzing news, and how spreading fake stuff must be like shooting fish in a barrel. Not the most joyful thoughts to start a morning!
- kgarten 10y ago
  Don't understand the downvotes. I had similar feelings (I remember astroturfing articles about how safe nuclear power is after the Fukushima incident on the top of HN).
  - Filligree 10y ago
    To be fair, those articles were right. The problem with nuclear energy is not a lack of caution... I'm not sure if Fukushima has caused even ten deaths, total.
    - Jarwain 10y ago
      Maybe not immediately. However, radiation tends to take a while for its damage to appear. Especially since Fukushima is still leaking radiation into the ocean afaik
    - kgarten 10y ago
      I cannot find the article anymore, but there was one about "Why I'm not concerned about Fukushima" (directly after the incident) that was completely wrong (false information about the security infrastructure etc. there) and also saying the incident would be resolved in a couple of days. The other articles also stated very optimistic outcomes related to when the land would be usable again and when the situation would be controlled. Just to remind you: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/08/japanese-nuclear-plant-just-recorded-an-astronomical-radiation-level-should-we-be-worried/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/08... A robot will stop operating in ca. 2 hours with these levels, a robot ... "Nothing to see here, radioactivity is no issue. Fukushima is doing great." This is NOW ... not last year or before. Please come and help clean up, if radioactivity is no issue for you and you feel it is safe to go there. I think Tepco pays quite well. Edit: making clear that the radiation leak with the highest values has been measured a couple of days ago.
      - j_s 10y ago
        Was this the article? Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319629 Or maybe this one that it links to: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 Archive of the deleted story: http://web.archive.org/web/20110314205955/https://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110314205955/https://morgsatlar...
        kgarten 10y ago
        Thanks so much. Perfect! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 has the text I was referring to. yet, I remembered it was hosted on another website (without comments etc. and no wordpress blog). Read the highest rated comment "The article is mostly correct. ..." No, this article was astroturfing, most of the info was false (especially regarding the security measures in place in Fukushima, ... ).
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
    - kgarten 10y ago
      13 from the incident alone. not sure how many homeless people died (as they were sent there to clean up the mess) as an aftermath of the incident. Yet, maybe you think that's acceptable. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fukushima-workers-idUSBRE9BT00520131230 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fukushima-workers-idUSBRE9...
    - kgarten 10y ago
      So you think the articles were right? Be careful with over generalization ... What about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 ? Thanks @ j_s for finding the article. Read the HN comments and then read https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20266-how-josef-oehmens-advice-on-fukushima-went-viral/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20266-how-josef-oehme... http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/josef_oehmen_nuclear_not_worried_viral/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/josef_oehmen_nuclear_not_wor... ;)
- cbgb 10y ago
  For the record, I just read about the use of eagles (not falcons, though they are kept at falconries in France) in combating drones in a daily newsletter I highly respect. Here is the article they cite: http://en.rfi.fr/wire/20170220-born-killers-french-army-grooms-eagles-down-drones?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2ASituation%20Report http://en.rfi.fr/wire/20170220-born-killers-french-army-groo... I guess I don't understand how at least the anti-drone eagles can be considered "fake news."
  - OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago
    Do you honestly think a bird is a good solution to deal with what is, to the bird, a whirling blade flying death machine? I also saw people pushing the story about millions of wind powered devices to freeze the arctic, it's just impractical nonsense on the face of it.
    - Tenhundfeld 10y ago
      I think you're using an older definition, wherein "fake news" means unworthy of attention. In recent weeks and months, "fake news" has been used by President Trump and others to mean factually incorrect. Something being a bad idea or stupid or impractical doesn't make it factually incorrect, i.e., does not make it fake news under the new definition. The article asserts several facts, among them: - birds of prey are often already kept near airports to scare birds away from the runway to reduce accidents during takeoff and landing. - the French air force has an experiment running with 4 eagles to train them to attack small drones, in addition to their normal scarebird duties. - the French air force thinks the experiment is promising enough to order a second group of 4 eagles. If those facts are correct, it is not "fake news." It is a silly puff piece about something that is not important, because it will almost certainly never turn into anything beyond an experiment.
      - lstroud 10y ago
        Simply, current definition "fake news" == propaganda
  - 10y ago
- OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago
  I don't understand the downvotes; maybe Hacker News isn't for me anymore.
- trollsonson 10y ago
  Came in to see fatfucks bashing the article. Was not disappointed.
dekhn 10y ago
Telomeres have been a nerd snipe (https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/) for hackers for as long as (if not longer) than Aubrey DeGrey has been claiming we're all going to live forever. Short summary: research in this area is interesting, especially if it's done right, but it doesn't mean we have any reliable interventions to increase mortality.
- jkdufair 10y ago
  Ah but we do! Guns, germs, bombs.
acjohnson55 10y ago
They had me at "telomere" <3
semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Hypothesis: when it comes to "off-topic" (i.e. non-programming) subjects on HN, and especially science, articles are posted with essentially random levels of novelty/importance/truth, and then a random set of individuals drawn from a population of 99.9% non-experts in that particular field upvotes, comments (or not) on each particular story. This implies amount of upvoting is mainly uncorrelated with importance of story. This could be tested by drawing a sample of N highly rated articles and N non-highly rated articles on both programming and on some other field (say cancer research), having an expert in each field score the articles in each group (highly and non-highly rated) in their field, and then compare the rating distributions for the two fields. According to the above hypothesis, on programming the distribution in the highly-rated group will be more peaked relative to the non-highly-rated articles, than in the other field. (There probably needs to be some manual de-duplication etc. in the initial selection of the four groups.)
- abandonliberty 10y ago
  Seems like a corollary to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”

droopyEyelids 10y ago

Looking at this article, and the one about the supposed use of falcons as anti-drone measures, makes me think about the whole "fake news" thing. Something about how this is the quality of material we choose to promote among ourselves, the need for a critical eye when analyzing news, and how spreading fake stuff must be like shooting fish in a barrel. Not the most joyful thoughts to start a morning!

kgarten 10y ago
Don't understand the downvotes. I had similar feelings (I remember astroturfing articles about how safe nuclear power is after the Fukushima incident on the top of HN).
- Filligree 10y ago
  To be fair, those articles were right. The problem with nuclear energy is not a lack of caution... I'm not sure if Fukushima has caused even ten deaths, total.
  - Jarwain 10y ago
    Maybe not immediately. However, radiation tends to take a while for its damage to appear. Especially since Fukushima is still leaking radiation into the ocean afaik
  - kgarten 10y ago
    I cannot find the article anymore, but there was one about "Why I'm not concerned about Fukushima" (directly after the incident) that was completely wrong (false information about the security infrastructure etc. there) and also saying the incident would be resolved in a couple of days. The other articles also stated very optimistic outcomes related to when the land would be usable again and when the situation would be controlled. Just to remind you: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/08/japanese-nuclear-plant-just-recorded-an-astronomical-radiation-level-should-we-be-worried/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/08... A robot will stop operating in ca. 2 hours with these levels, a robot ... "Nothing to see here, radioactivity is no issue. Fukushima is doing great." This is NOW ... not last year or before. Please come and help clean up, if radioactivity is no issue for you and you feel it is safe to go there. I think Tepco pays quite well. Edit: making clear that the radiation leak with the highest values has been measured a couple of days ago.
    - j_s 10y ago
      Was this the article? Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319629 Or maybe this one that it links to: Why I am not worried about Japan’s nuclear reactors https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 Archive of the deleted story: http://web.archive.org/web/20110314205955/https://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/ http://web.archive.org/web/20110314205955/https://morgsatlar...
      - kgarten 10y ago
        Thanks so much. Perfect! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 has the text I was referring to. yet, I remembered it was hosted on another website (without comments etc. and no wordpress blog). Read the highest rated comment "The article is mostly correct. ..." No, this article was astroturfing, most of the info was false (especially regarding the security measures in place in Fukushima, ... ).
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
  - kgarten 10y ago
    13 from the incident alone. not sure how many homeless people died (as they were sent there to clean up the mess) as an aftermath of the incident. Yet, maybe you think that's acceptable. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fukushima-workers-idUSBRE9BT00520131230 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fukushima-workers-idUSBRE9...
  - kgarten 10y ago
    So you think the articles were right? Be careful with over generalization ... What about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2318980 ? Thanks @ j_s for finding the article. Read the HN comments and then read https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20266-how-josef-oehmens-advice-on-fukushima-went-viral/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20266-how-josef-oehme... http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/josef_oehmen_nuclear_not_worried_viral/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/15/josef_oehmen_nuclear_not_wor... ;)
cbgb 10y ago
For the record, I just read about the use of eagles (not falcons, though they are kept at falconries in France) in combating drones in a daily newsletter I highly respect. Here is the article they cite: http://en.rfi.fr/wire/20170220-born-killers-french-army-grooms-eagles-down-drones?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2ASituation%20Report http://en.rfi.fr/wire/20170220-born-killers-french-army-groo... I guess I don't understand how at least the anti-drone eagles can be considered "fake news."
- OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago
  Do you honestly think a bird is a good solution to deal with what is, to the bird, a whirling blade flying death machine? I also saw people pushing the story about millions of wind powered devices to freeze the arctic, it's just impractical nonsense on the face of it.
  - Tenhundfeld 10y ago
    I think you're using an older definition, wherein "fake news" means unworthy of attention. In recent weeks and months, "fake news" has been used by President Trump and others to mean factually incorrect. Something being a bad idea or stupid or impractical doesn't make it factually incorrect, i.e., does not make it fake news under the new definition. The article asserts several facts, among them: - birds of prey are often already kept near airports to scare birds away from the runway to reduce accidents during takeoff and landing. - the French air force has an experiment running with 4 eagles to train them to attack small drones, in addition to their normal scarebird duties. - the French air force thinks the experiment is promising enough to order a second group of 4 eagles. If those facts are correct, it is not "fake news." It is a silly puff piece about something that is not important, because it will almost certainly never turn into anything beyond an experiment.
    - lstroud 10y ago
      Simply, current definition "fake news" == propaganda
- 10y ago
OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago
I don't understand the downvotes; maybe Hacker News isn't for me anymore.
trollsonson 10y ago
Came in to see fatfucks bashing the article. Was not disappointed.

dekhn 10y ago

Telomeres have been a nerd snipe (https://xkcd.com/356/ https://xkcd.com/356/) for hackers for as long as (if not longer) than Aubrey DeGrey has been claiming we're all going to live forever. Short summary: research in this area is interesting, especially if it's done right, but it doesn't mean we have any reliable interventions to increase mortality.

jkdufair 10y ago
Ah but we do! Guns, germs, bombs.

acjohnson55 10y ago

They had me at "telomere" <3

semi-extrinsic 10y ago

Hypothesis: when it comes to "off-topic" (i.e. non-programming) subjects on HN, and especially science, articles are posted with essentially random levels of novelty/importance/truth, and then a random set of individuals drawn from a population of 99.9% non-experts in that particular field upvotes, comments (or not) on each particular story. This implies amount of upvoting is mainly uncorrelated with importance of story. This could be tested by drawing a sample of N highly rated articles and N non-highly rated articles on both programming and on some other field (say cancer research), having an expert in each field score the articles in each group (highly and non-highly rated) in their field, and then compare the rating distributions for the two fields. According to the above hypothesis, on programming the distribution in the highly-rated group will be more peaked relative to the non-highly-rated articles, than in the other field. (There probably needs to be some manual de-duplication etc. in the initial selection of the four groups.)

abandonliberty 10y ago
Seems like a corollary to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”