MeRead.txt
things recently in my browser or otherwise consumed
Nature archive
Friday, October 20, 2006
NYT: As Smoke Clears, Scots Breathe Easy Behind the Bar
In an article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on Oct. 11, Dr. Menzies, a clinical research fellow in the Asthma and Allergy Research Group at the University of Dundee, said the study showed that the smoking ban “has led to a rapid and marked improvement in the health of bar workers.” “Indeed,” he added, “on average employees had been working in a bar for more than nine years, but improvements in health were evident only one month after the introduction of a smoke-free policy.”
Posted by Jon, 11:09 pm :: Comments (0) :: #
Thursday, October 5, 2006
NYT: Numbers Are Male, Said Pythagoras, and the Idea Persists
“The Pythagorean society of the fifth century B.C. was a cradle of mathematical research, but Pythagoreanism was also a religion, and like many Greek cults its beliefs were dualistic. For Pythagoreans, reality consisted of two parts: on one side were the mind and spirit and the transcendent realm of the gods; on the other side were the body and matter and the mundane realm of the earth. Like many Greek thinkers, the Pythagoreans associated the mind/spirit side of reality with maleness and the body/matter side with femaleness.”
Posted by Jon, 8:44 pm :: Comments (0) :: #
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
WP: In Crises, People Tend to Live, or Die, Together
“Experts who study disasters are slowly coming to realize that rather than try to change human behavior to adapt to building codes and workplace rules, it may be necessary to adapt technology and rules to human behavior: In the narrow window between the siren of disaster and disaster itself, people always want to understand what is happening.” (via GNB)
Posted by Jon, 7:50 am :: Comments (0) :: #
Thursday, August 17, 2006
NYT: Get Out of That Rut and Into the Shower
Continuum … suggested that the best way to understand what consumers would value in a shower was not just to listen to them, through focus groups or surveys, but to watch them as well. That is, to film them taking real showers in their own homes and use the findings to design a new line of products. “We thought it would be hard to recruit people, but that was the easy part,” said Daniel C. Buchner, Continuum’s vice president for innovation and design. “The hard part was making a camera that wouldn’t fog up.” “If you want to come up with something genuinely new, you have to see your market and your customers in a new light. And what you see depends on how and where you look.”
Posted by Jon, 11:01 pm :: Comments (0) :: #
Sunday, May 7, 2006
NYT: Things I’d like to read, but don’t have time to:
- Someone Has to Pay for TV. But Who? And How?
- Early Intensity Underlines Role of Races in Ohio
- For Bush, the Economy Is a Glass Half Empty
- Contra-Contraception: A growing number of conservatives see birth control as part of an ailing culture that overemphasizes sex and devalues human life. Is this the beginning of the next culture war?
- Oh, My: Now That Was Italian
- Five ‘Don’t Miss’ Exhibitions This Summer
Posted by Jon, 11:20 pm :: Comments (0) :: #
Monday, April 17, 2006
WaPo: So Many Bald Eagles, So Little Room Left to Nest
Signs of aerial battles indicate that breeding programs have been so successful that the birds are running out of habitat. Protecting prime waterfront habitat from development may be key to stabilizing the population. Here’s guessing, that may not go the birds’ way.
Posted by Jon, 10:10 pm :: Comments (0) :: #
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