1 day ago • Comments on a post

Yup this is what needs to be tested, in other words can cancers be detected early enough so that people are more likely to be cured with treatment. Secondary benefits of detecting early are needing less extensive surgery, less intensive chemotherapy and radiation, less expensive next generation therapies in the long run.

We should also remember that the assays are improving all the time.

Having said all this, early detection is not prevention, and the endgame still remains prevention I think.

This whole field also serves as further confirmation that everything intestesting was discovered in the life sciences in the 1970s [1].

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/837366/

2 days ago • Created a post

U.S. plans trial of early detection blood tests for multiple cancers

154 points • 62 comments

2 days ago • Comments on a post

Note that a Corporation can do things without anyone who works there wanting to do those things. No employee of Union Carbide wanted to poision 2.5k people in Bhopal [1]. Yet it still happened, and there is no question about who caused the disaster.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

2 days ago • Comments on a post

It’s because reducing your personal footprint feels good but doesn’t achieve much globally.

3 days ago • Comments on a post

Related question: How is HN funded? I presume through YC.

3 days ago • Comments on a post

Thanks for the pointer to Korngold's work, yes can certainly see the resemblance!

3 days ago • Comments on a post

I think it is the case that a particular art form can peak. Post-peak, there isn't much to do. A walk through the Louvre will show you that sculpture peaked some time ago for example. Pickled sharks and giant nipples aren't signs of recovery.

Classical music suffers from this phenomenon I think. There are just some stunning orchestral works out there which aren't ever going to sound dated. Nothing is going to make Mahler's 9th symphony irrelevant or incomprehensible in the next couple of centuries. There isn't enough oxygen in these rarefied atmospheres for more masterworks to breathe.

3 days ago • Comments on a post

The original Star Wars soundtrack, although enjoyable, seems to borrow an embarrassing amount from Gustav Holst's The Planets. I suppose this is partly the problem current composers have - why would a modern Orchestra play something akin to a well established favourite instead of just playing the favourite itself.

7 days ago • Comments on a post

Anecdotally companies run by obvious assholes (eg Ellison and Oracle) or that engage in obviously bad behaviour (eg Big Tobacco) don’t have these problems. I guess their reputations filter out the type of employee who would do what was done at SpaceX.

7 days ago • Comments on a post

Interesting choice of name, presumably they were familiar with how the Tower of Babel played out.

8 days ago • Comments on a post

Is there actually an independently confirmed useful hypersonic weapon?

9 days ago • Comments on a post

Well no, I’m not wrong. That article you linked is a review of reviews comparing RCTs and observational studies for medical interventions, primarily surgical studies or pharmacological treatments with well characterised effects. Observational studies of supplements and nutritional interventions on the other hand have a very poor track record of RCT validation.

10 days ago • Comments on a post

I guess it's ok to publish uninteresting and probably false things. This could be a fairly accurate description of biomedical science to be honest. It's annoying when it ends up on HN for example, or in the health section of a tabloid newspaper.

In theory, these observational findings could suggest treatments that should be evaluated in a randomised trial. I am not actually sure this is true however, it is possible they are less useful than selecting interventions for further testing in some other way. Anecdotally, folk remedies may have a higher hit rate for selecting treatments for proper evaluation. This is often surprising - eg a precursor to aspirin is found in the Willow tree, which has been used as a medicine for thousands of years. Another example is the foxglove plant from which the heart drug digoxin is derived, which was used as a herbal medicine predating modern medicine.

10 days ago • Comments on a post

These results from observational studies almost never replicate in randomized studies. It's because people who decide to take glucosamine (or not) also do lots of other confounding things, like visit the doctor more, or have higher salaries, or don't live with people who smoke etc. It's been shown many times you can't really adjust for these things. Epidemiologists love doing these studies, because they are comparatively easy. The hardest part is the data sharing agreement with whatever registry you are using. You don't even need to leave your desk to collect any data.

10 days ago • Comments on a post

Just came to say I saw the same full moon of startling clarity in Christchurch.

13 days ago • Comments on a post

Bitcoin is used by people - for example in countries with capital controls or hyperinflation. It is also legal tender in El Salvador.

In any case your argument is a bit silly? There is an infamous Italian artist who sold tins of his own shit [1]. Would you like to argue that these tins are worth ‘something’ because I can empty the shit out and reuse the tin? I’ll take the bitcoin thanks.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist's_Shit

13 days ago • Comments on a post

Some problems come to mind:

- this is performing an irreversible procedure on a person without their consent. Justifiable for a disease but less so for vanity traits.

- genes are pleiotropic and modifying multiple genes could have unexpected effects. An easy example is that taller people have a higher risk of cancer. Barring some great advance in predicting the effects of genetic changes, this will remain a problem.

- it has a homogenising effect, optimising for traits a culture finds appealing and that can be easily measured. You will eventually get a eugenic army that all look like swimwear models and score highly on IQ tests.

At the same time, I think that modifying the organism is the only way to get rid of diseases like heart disease and cancer.

15 days ago • Comments on a post

Well your Mac is worth ‘something’ because of what people are willing to pay for it. It would be worthless to certain people, just as you find bitcoin worthless. What’s the difference?

15 days ago • Comments on a post

SawStop table saws effectively prevent complete amputations.

You can still do much worse of course, like chewing off all your fingers in a jointer or embedding an angle grinder wheel in your face.

15 days ago • Comments on a post

One solution is to make Spain pay for the retrieval plus charge them an astronomical finders fee. Spain can then keep whatever is retrieved, including the colonial baggage.