Links for you. Science:
A Dead Disease Still Lives in Lab Freezers. What Else Does?
Important paper: Intrinsic challenges in ancient microbiome reconstruction using 16S rRNA gene amplification
Drug Resistance: Worse, And Still A Lot To Learn
Health Experts Are Explaining Drug-Resistant Bacteria Poorly
Scientists say melting glaciers are now threatening Antarctic ocean life
Other:
Is the Death Rate Really Increasing for Middle-Aged White Americans? (but also see “Gelman vs. Case-Deaton: academics vs. blogs, again“)
It’s Way Too Easy to Hack the Hospital
Dirty Air: The Silent Killer in Black Communities
Arab Spring
What Would You Do, Hippies?
The Mega-Danger of Mega-Deals: Monopolies Are Crushing U.S. Workers and Consumers
How The Old Farmer’s Almanac Previewed the Information Age
How We Transformed Our School
How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name
The astonishing amount of data being collected about your children
You’re Getting Ripped Off By Forced Mandatory Arbitration — Here’s How to Stop It
A war the West cannot win
Ethics and Responsibility In Relation to Paris
Exploiting Emotions About Paris to Blame Snowden, Distract from Actual Culprits Who Empowered ISIS
Obama championed cheap, fast, city-run Internet. His administration won’t.
Women in D.C. housing-first units concentrate on their futures
mikethemadbiologist
Re Gelman vs Case-Deaton: Smith’s commentary is a nothingburger. Gelman is hardly representative of the blogosphere in general. He’s as skilled a statistician as there is. That he provided his analysis via blog posts rather than peer-reviewed journals seems beside the point. The substance is there. He posted the code he used to re-analyze Case-Deaton’s data on his website. What more could you ask for?
In principle, journals provide a mechanism for thoughtful peer review. In practice, there’s no guarantee that the journal review process will provide that. What you want is thoughtful review and constructive criticism. If that comes via blog posts then so be it.
I suspect that Gelman’s critique received a cool reception from the authors because he found the issue so fast. If you “spent a year sweating out every number, sweating out over what you were doing” it can’t feel very good to have someone stand up and say, with evidence in hand, “I’m sure you did but you missed that big thing right there.” There’s pride at stake.
Re: mega mergers, good piece, don’t forget about this deal too. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0TB0UT20151122