6 ms·

The summary of this, which was surprisingly difficult to distill, is that low light levels induces myopia. Or more specifically, elevated light levels causes a

The summary of this, which was surprisingly difficult to distill, is that low light levels induces myopia. Or more specifically, elevated light levels causes a dopamine release which prevents myopia. Not sure why the article needed to spend the first 2000 words not just saying that.

nn3 12y ago
Journalists are paid by the word. There is no incentive for being brief (and not wasting the time of the reader)
- dj-wonk 12y ago
  TS;DGP (too short; didn't get paid)
- jewbacca 12y ago
  Is this actually true? It's pretty hard to believe, I honestly feel like you pulled it out of your ass, but it's also possible I'm totally out of touch. This article is a "feature" (not entirely sure what that implies) in a scientific journal (targeted towards a relatively general audience, compared to other scientific journals). Is this particular publication, or this type of publication, known to pay by the word? Which other publications pay by the word? Is it more common in some areas of publication than others? How could such an incentive-perverting mechanism not have died off by now? Do any companies still pay/evaluate their developers by lines of code written?
  - chc 12y ago
    I used to work in newspapers and it's still pretty common in that industry. But they also usually give you a word count to hit, so it's not like you can just write yourself a Mercedes.
  - benbreen 12y ago
    In my experience, big sites that crank out short articles like the Atlantic online, Slate, and Vice pay a set rate per piece, but longer-form outlets like Aeon and Nautilus pay per word. I've never written for a print-only magazine but I've heard that they still pay per word by and large. And I should add, the academic journals I've written for pay nothing at all!
- devindotcom 12y ago
  I was paid for the word once and let me tell you, if they said 1500-2000 words, you can guess which end of the range I took. But that situation was very rare and in the other five or six jobs I've had in the journalism world, it hasn't been the case. And in fact journalistic style is to pack as much into the first sentence as you can. This is a long, analytical feature piece by a major journal's news department. If you want the brief version, find a rewrite by AP or a blog.
hetman 12y ago
Because this is still a new, and somewhat controversial idea, and the article spent a lot of time considering the alternatives and explaining why their proposed idea seemed to fit the data best. Without it there would be no reason to take their idea as more credible. Now I dislike pointlessly long articles, and certainly this article could have used with an abstract to put forward the main thesis before delving into alternatives, but I don't think your criticism is entirely fair. It certainly didn't fit the pattern of the really long articles where the writer invariably talks about their childhood or some other barely relevant events before actually talking about the issue at hand.
- jules 12y ago
  Haha no. If the article was written to be maximally useful then it would have mentioned the conclusion in the first two sentences rather than buried somewhere near the end. Clearly the incentives of the writer and magazine are not aligned with those of the reader.
rtpg 12y ago
I wonder if there's a way to reverse myopia though, apart from laser-eye-cutting surgery.
- hnsighty 12y ago
  See gettingstronger.org, frauenfeldclinic.com, myopia.org, etc. Absolutely reversible. No economic benefit. How is it going to be popular if there's nothing to sell? :) Pills, more pills, that's how most non-acute conditions are dealt with.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    some of those look pretty scammy, and no offence but you made an account 5 hours ago. Any "real" stuff out there?
    - hnsighty 12y ago
      Heh. Yea no offense taken. I made the account specifically to comment on this topic. Myopia.org is not pretty, but scammy, I dunno. And gettingstronger.org, look around there. It's not even a site about myopia, but he has some very relevant insights. Forum with a zillion posts discussing the topic. Also he sells nothing on there. So where's the scam potential? And Frauenfeld on "about myopia" has a ton of clinical research references. There is a giant PDF on that page with just about everything worth knowing about myopia. If it matters most what the sites "look" like, sure. Not Apple.com, no quick fix answers. This topic does require some reading to find meaningful insights.
      - warfangle 12y ago
        myopia.org: first impressions, timecube. Second impressions: wait, myopia isn't inherited? There are 18 loci on 15 chromosomes that are associated with myopia. Carriers of these genes are 10x as likely to have myopia. Bullshit meter for the site is off the scale. Does the same person who writes that site write homeopathic guides? Wait, let's see what else is linked to. Oh, some bullshit cholesterol pills! And on all cholesterol products, "We are currently not supplying this item due to quality issues at the supplier's factory." And cataract drops! "Carnosine (β-alanyl-L-hystidine), and its topical prodrug formulation N-acetylcarnosine (NAC), is advertised (especially on the internet) to treat a range of ophthalmic disorders associated with oxidative stress, including age-related and diabetic cataracts. No convincing animal studies or masked clinical trials have been reported" This dude is a snakeoil salesman. The myopia.org site is just the bait. gettingstronger.org: it has some, hm, interesting opinions that's for sure. He's a chemical engineer and philosopher, though, so not .. quite .. sure about his clinical expertise, especially with regard to myopia. No ads, not selling anything (on the surface) except his slightly-out-there ideas. Frauenfeld Clinic: with clinic in the name, you immediately think it's run by a doctor -- right? Welllllll.... it was launched seven years ago by a "holistic ophthalmology practitioner" that signs his posts only with "Alex;" The current curator is "Jake Steiner," who claims to have fixed his own myopia with "this amazing program." His training in the area is self proclaimed as, "[...] tak[ing] dozens of classes in ophthalmology, stud[ying] optometry, and read[ing] tens of thousands of pages of myopia studies" His consults start at $10k. Yeah, dude, you're propagating snake oil :)
hnsighty 12y ago
Oh boy. Go on scholar.google.com and search for "lens-induced myopia", "axial elongation eyeball", "near induced transient myopia", "pseudo myopia". How myopia happens has already been figured out, hundreds of times over, over the past 4 decades. It's in the major ophthalmology journals at least a few times a year. Researching what caused myopia, low light, just plain silly in 2015. ;-)
- facepalm 12y ago
  Could you give a short summary? Thanks!
raverbashing 12y ago
Which is funny, because modern humans live with a longer period of (artificial light) exposure So it's not "more light" but "more intense light" And don't forget the sunscreen
- mkesper 12y ago
  Mentioned in the article, too: Sitting in the shadow with sunglasses on a sunny day: >10000 lux, typical indoor/office: 500 lux. So, while much brighter than a candle, this can not be compared at all to sunlight.

nn3 12y ago

Journalists are paid by the word. There is no incentive for being brief (and not wasting the time of the reader)

dj-wonk 12y ago
TS;DGP (too short; didn't get paid)
jewbacca 12y ago
Is this actually true? It's pretty hard to believe, I honestly feel like you pulled it out of your ass, but it's also possible I'm totally out of touch. This article is a "feature" (not entirely sure what that implies) in a scientific journal (targeted towards a relatively general audience, compared to other scientific journals). Is this particular publication, or this type of publication, known to pay by the word? Which other publications pay by the word? Is it more common in some areas of publication than others? How could such an incentive-perverting mechanism not have died off by now? Do any companies still pay/evaluate their developers by lines of code written?
- chc 12y ago
  I used to work in newspapers and it's still pretty common in that industry. But they also usually give you a word count to hit, so it's not like you can just write yourself a Mercedes.
- benbreen 12y ago
  In my experience, big sites that crank out short articles like the Atlantic online, Slate, and Vice pay a set rate per piece, but longer-form outlets like Aeon and Nautilus pay per word. I've never written for a print-only magazine but I've heard that they still pay per word by and large. And I should add, the academic journals I've written for pay nothing at all!
devindotcom 12y ago
I was paid for the word once and let me tell you, if they said 1500-2000 words, you can guess which end of the range I took. But that situation was very rare and in the other five or six jobs I've had in the journalism world, it hasn't been the case. And in fact journalistic style is to pack as much into the first sentence as you can. This is a long, analytical feature piece by a major journal's news department. If you want the brief version, find a rewrite by AP or a blog.

hetman 12y ago

Because this is still a new, and somewhat controversial idea, and the article spent a lot of time considering the alternatives and explaining why their proposed idea seemed to fit the data best. Without it there would be no reason to take their idea as more credible. Now I dislike pointlessly long articles, and certainly this article could have used with an abstract to put forward the main thesis before delving into alternatives, but I don't think your criticism is entirely fair. It certainly didn't fit the pattern of the really long articles where the writer invariably talks about their childhood or some other barely relevant events before actually talking about the issue at hand.

jules 12y ago
Haha no. If the article was written to be maximally useful then it would have mentioned the conclusion in the first two sentences rather than buried somewhere near the end. Clearly the incentives of the writer and magazine are not aligned with those of the reader.

rtpg 12y ago

I wonder if there's a way to reverse myopia though, apart from laser-eye-cutting surgery.

hnsighty 12y ago
See gettingstronger.org, frauenfeldclinic.com, myopia.org, etc. Absolutely reversible. No economic benefit. How is it going to be popular if there's nothing to sell? :) Pills, more pills, that's how most non-acute conditions are dealt with.
- rtpg 12y ago
  some of those look pretty scammy, and no offence but you made an account 5 hours ago. Any "real" stuff out there?
  - hnsighty 12y ago
    Heh. Yea no offense taken. I made the account specifically to comment on this topic. Myopia.org is not pretty, but scammy, I dunno. And gettingstronger.org, look around there. It's not even a site about myopia, but he has some very relevant insights. Forum with a zillion posts discussing the topic. Also he sells nothing on there. So where's the scam potential? And Frauenfeld on "about myopia" has a ton of clinical research references. There is a giant PDF on that page with just about everything worth knowing about myopia. If it matters most what the sites "look" like, sure. Not Apple.com, no quick fix answers. This topic does require some reading to find meaningful insights.
    - warfangle 12y ago
      myopia.org: first impressions, timecube. Second impressions: wait, myopia isn't inherited? There are 18 loci on 15 chromosomes that are associated with myopia. Carriers of these genes are 10x as likely to have myopia. Bullshit meter for the site is off the scale. Does the same person who writes that site write homeopathic guides? Wait, let's see what else is linked to. Oh, some bullshit cholesterol pills! And on all cholesterol products, "We are currently not supplying this item due to quality issues at the supplier's factory." And cataract drops! "Carnosine (β-alanyl-L-hystidine), and its topical prodrug formulation N-acetylcarnosine (NAC), is advertised (especially on the internet) to treat a range of ophthalmic disorders associated with oxidative stress, including age-related and diabetic cataracts. No convincing animal studies or masked clinical trials have been reported" This dude is a snakeoil salesman. The myopia.org site is just the bait. gettingstronger.org: it has some, hm, interesting opinions that's for sure. He's a chemical engineer and philosopher, though, so not .. quite .. sure about his clinical expertise, especially with regard to myopia. No ads, not selling anything (on the surface) except his slightly-out-there ideas. Frauenfeld Clinic: with clinic in the name, you immediately think it's run by a doctor -- right? Welllllll.... it was launched seven years ago by a "holistic ophthalmology practitioner" that signs his posts only with "Alex;" The current curator is "Jake Steiner," who claims to have fixed his own myopia with "this amazing program." His training in the area is self proclaimed as, "[...] tak[ing] dozens of classes in ophthalmology, stud[ying] optometry, and read[ing] tens of thousands of pages of myopia studies" His consults start at $10k. Yeah, dude, you're propagating snake oil :)

hnsighty 12y ago

Oh boy. Go on scholar.google.com and search for "lens-induced myopia", "axial elongation eyeball", "near induced transient myopia", "pseudo myopia". How myopia happens has already been figured out, hundreds of times over, over the past 4 decades. It's in the major ophthalmology journals at least a few times a year. Researching what caused myopia, low light, just plain silly in 2015. ;-)

facepalm 12y ago
Could you give a short summary? Thanks!

raverbashing 12y ago

Which is funny, because modern humans live with a longer period of (artificial light) exposure So it's not "more light" but "more intense light" And don't forget the sunscreen

mkesper 12y ago
Mentioned in the article, too: Sitting in the shadow with sunglasses on a sunny day: >10000 lux, typical indoor/office: 500 lux. So, while much brighter than a candle, this can not be compared at all to sunlight.