5 ms·

I wish they didn't use the word "horns" because this is probably going to cause some Christians to freak out.

mywittyname 7y ago
I also wish they didn't use horns, but not for the same reason. My main objection is that this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance, which is a part of every normal human skull. So kids aren't "developing horns," instead their bodies are adapting to the stresses involved with looking down for hours on end. Also, this isn't a bad thing, it's how our bodies work. Kids who do gymnastics or swim a lot have bodies that develop differently in response to those stresses.
- lagg 7y ago
  It's my understanding that the "horn" is some kind of growth at the base of the skull caused by craning it so often. So nothing like a horn any more than someone with a spinal condition if I'm reading the article correctly. Hell the messed up scar I have on the back of my head from falling on a rock as a kid looks more like a horn than this condition does. That's how you know it was an entirely intentional headline meant specifically cause a christian confirmation bias freakout because they know many christians (and some-nons) will stop reading there. It's getting REALLY annoying in general. HN sometimes helps filter this but sometimes people just paste the headlines unmodified. Really makes the political posts even more loathsome than usual. Washingtonpost in particular seems to love engineering these rage-clicks at the expensive of integrity. It doesn't help when the same people who stop at headlines will stop when they see the subscription spam.
- microwavecamera 7y ago
  > this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance Good call, that's exactly what they are. They buried all the actual science at the end of the article. "The effect — known as enlarged external occipital protuberance — used to be so uncommon, Sayers said, that one of its early observers, toward the end of the 19th century, objected to its title, arguing that there was no real protrusion."
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    > arguing that there was no real protrusion." I guess we found a technological solution to this problem.

I also wish they didn't use horns, but not for the same reason. My main objection is that this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance, which is a part of every normal human skull. So kids aren't "developing horns," instead their bodies are adapting to the stresses involved with looking down for hours on end. Also, this isn't a bad thing, it's how our bodies work. Kids who do gymnastics or swim a lot have bodies that develop differently in response to those stresses.

lagg 7y ago
It's my understanding that the "horn" is some kind of growth at the base of the skull caused by craning it so often. So nothing like a horn any more than someone with a spinal condition if I'm reading the article correctly. Hell the messed up scar I have on the back of my head from falling on a rock as a kid looks more like a horn than this condition does. That's how you know it was an entirely intentional headline meant specifically cause a christian confirmation bias freakout because they know many christians (and some-nons) will stop reading there. It's getting REALLY annoying in general. HN sometimes helps filter this but sometimes people just paste the headlines unmodified. Really makes the political posts even more loathsome than usual. Washingtonpost in particular seems to love engineering these rage-clicks at the expensive of integrity. It doesn't help when the same people who stop at headlines will stop when they see the subscription spam.
microwavecamera 7y ago
> this looks to be an elongation of the external occipital protuberance Good call, that's exactly what they are. They buried all the actual science at the end of the article. "The effect — known as enlarged external occipital protuberance — used to be so uncommon, Sayers said, that one of its early observers, toward the end of the 19th century, objected to its title, arguing that there was no real protrusion."
- mywittyname 7y ago
  > arguing that there was no real protrusion." I guess we found a technological solution to this problem.