andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2018-10-02 12:00 pm

Interesting Links for 02-10-2018

jack: (Default)

‘Goblin’ world found orbiting at the edges of the Solar System

[personal profile] jack 2018-10-02 12:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, cool!

I feel like those quotes are not how I expect somehow
jack: (Default)

The Financial Times 404 Error Page is brilliant

[personal profile] jack 2018-10-02 12:38 pm (UTC)(link)
:)

Although nowadays I think "you looked for a page that isn't there" is much less often the reason for a 404, it's more likely to be a truncated link or a moved page, and I wish 404 pages frontloaded the information a bit, e.g. saying "you followed a link from 'page'" if that information is available, and "you were trying to reach URL", especially if it redirects you, and if the URL has the information, the title of the page you were going to, and -- ideally, for a major site -- something that actually helps you find the page (usually something based on how pages actually move, not a keyword search on random words in the URL)
doug: (Default)

Artificial sweeteners have toxic effects on gut microbes

[personal profile] doug 2018-10-02 01:25 pm (UTC)(link)
I have long had a hunch - and I have very little more to go on than that, really - that artificial sweeteners are the sort of thing that seemed like a really good idea at the time but will turn out to be a really, really bad one. You know, like tetraethyl lead in petrol and CFCs. This single study is pretty weaksauce evidence for that idea, but it's the beginning of the sort of thing that seems very plausible to me.
doug: (Default)

Re: Artificial sweeteners have toxic effects on gut microbes

[personal profile] doug 2018-10-02 02:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, indeed, and particularly interesting as well. :)

Some of the well-established not-so-good stuff about sweeteners are very clearly limited to that molecule, or that class of molecule (e.g. sugar alcohols). And some bad effects are really specific to a small class of individuals - like aspartame being very bad news for people with phenylketonuria, or the many that can be a migraine trigger.

But there's such a wide range of sweeteners now, chemically speaking, that it is surprising to get the same results from one study like this. So much so that I find the paper slightly suspicious on those grounds - not that I suspect the authors of bad practice, just of being the unlucky winners in the file drawer effect.

They do all stimulate the human sugar receptors, though (otherwise they wouldn't taste sweet), so they must all have some molecular similarity. So some direct effect like this is not completely implausible biochemically.

My major hunch for a mechanism whereby sweeteners are bad in general is more about it messing with the human appetite/satiety/set point stuff, but something mediated by the gut flora seems very plausible. I think we're at an exciting stage for research in to our commensal bacteria ... which is another way of saying it's very clear we don't really understand what's going on yet.

And I should admit that some of the stuff that reinforces my hunch about sweeteners being bad is classic correlation/causation mixup stuff. I don't know many skinny people who eat a lot of sweeteners and diet foods, basically. And this, despite my best efforts to disregard it as evidence, still works away at a subconscious level.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

Re: Artificial sweeteners have toxic effects on gut microbes

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-10-02 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
How might gut microbes evolve to better fit the environment of a 21st century gut?
danieldwilliam: (Default)

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-10-02 02:57 pm (UTC)(link)
If I understand the description of the orbit of the Goblin world correctly it's in quite an elipical orbit, ranging from 65 AU to 2,300 AU and the implication of this is that it's being pulled out of a more circular orbit by a large body orbiting further out aka Planet Nine, (or as it used to be known when I was a lad, Planet X).

Which is pretty cool - that we can spot something that large (or small) but we can't yet see something much, much larger.
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)

About the Goblin and So Many Other Things in Astronomy Right Now

[personal profile] dewline 2018-10-03 02:07 am (UTC)(link)
Wondrous and frustrating all at once.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-10-02 03:02 pm (UTC)(link)

I'm not entirely sure what the point is of extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples.

It seems to me that we've managed to create two slightly different forms of state sponsored marriage which strikes me as somewhat jurisprudentially inefficient.

MInd you, if the Romans could cope with three or four different legal forms of marriage I dare say we'll cope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_ancient_Rome
skington: (brain shrug)

[personal profile] skington 2018-10-02 03:16 pm (UTC)(link)
When France introduced civil unions, they cleverly deflected the expected “this is only for gay people, and gay people are icky and bad” objection by making it open to more than just same-sex couples: e.g. elderly sisters who had never married, or whose spouses had died, and who wanted to have hospital visitation rights. And I know of some people who decided to start off with a civil union, and then move on to marriage later on, if at all, if that seemed like a good idea. So having civil unions, or civil partnerships, as a weaker but broader version of marriage makes all the sense in the world.
skington: (brain shrug)

[personal profile] skington 2018-10-02 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
They might not be, but if they're basically the same as marriage the legislator missed a trick.
skington: (brain shrug)

[personal profile] skington 2018-10-02 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
OK, but that only makes sense when you don't have gay marriage. Once you do, there's no point in there being another thing that's the same but has a different name.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-10-02 04:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Which makes sense (both the French approach and the way they introduced it) but I'm not sure that there is much difference between civil partnerships and marriage in the UK.
cmcmck: (Default)

[personal profile] cmcmck 2018-10-02 04:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I tend to agree but if there's an intention to continue with CPs it makes sense to make them available across the board.
danieldwilliam: (Default)

[personal profile] danieldwilliam 2018-10-02 04:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh absolutely, if we're going to have civil partnerships then they ought to be equally available to all.

And I'm perfectly fine with an argument that runs, getting rid of CP *now* would be complicated and we might mess it up to the real detriment of actual people so we'll not worry too much about Dan's tidy lawyer brain.