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fullygoldy) wrote2007-11-13 07:20 pm
Things I Learned Today
1. I watched an electrician pull 2 new wires through a conduit. He disconnected one orange wire that was in the conduit already and attached a new orange wire plus a blue and a black (for a total of three), and then his helper pulled the orange wire from the other end of the conduit until all three were pulled through. Voila!! I always knew there would be a trick to doing this, but I'd never actually seen it done. This is good to know since my basement wiring is all run in conduit.
2. From The Washington Post: A study by a doctoral candidate (Paige Harden) at the U of VA in Charlottesville used the techniques of behavioral genetics to determine that there is no causal link between early sex and juvenile delinquency which is directly opposite of the widely held belief that loss of virginity at a relatively young age appears to "open the doorway to problem behaviors (Dana Haynie PhD, Ohio State)." Harden's analysis used the same data as Haynie's but arrived at the completely opposite result! Ooh! Burn! The way to reconcile that with the previous evidence of a link is to conclude that some other factors are promoting both early sex and delinquency, such as genes that increase impulsivity and risk-taking behaviors (The study will appear in the 3/08 issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence). In fact, the findings actually indicate that early sex reduces the likelihood of delinquency!! My favorite quote of the article: The new study "really calls into question the usefulness of abstinence education for preventing behavior problems," Harden said, "and questions the bigger underlying assumption that all adolescent sex is always bad."
3. The Associated Press reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering public promotion of the "co-benefits" of fighting global warming and obesity-related illnesses through everyday exercise, like walking to school or work. UW health sciences professor Dr. Jonathan Patz said, "this may present the greatest public health opportunity that we've had in a century." Substituting walking or bicycling for car travel 30 min each day would cut obesity, greenhouse gases, smog, car-related deaths, osteoporosis, and depression. The average person would lose 13 lbs in a year. You also avoid health expenses resulting from a sedentary lifestyle. If all Americans from 10-74 walked half an hour a day instead of driving, they would cut the annual US emissions of CO2 by 64 million tons. An additional shift away from a heavy meat diet would also go far, because it takes much more energy and land to produce meat than fruits, veggies and grains. The UN's Food and Ag folks reported last year that the meat sector of the global economy is responsible for 18% of the world's greenhouse emissions (includes contributions from fertilizer, energy consumed in growing/manufacturing, methane, and transportation).
4. To obtain and maintain my desired weight, I should only be consuming 1400 calories per day. Um - I'm going to have to make some major changes to hit that mark.
I did quote heavily from both articles in my summary - no plagiarism intended, but no actual journalists were cited either.
no subject
#2--cool! ...is to conclude that some other factors are promoting both early sex and delinquency, such as genes that increase impulsivity and risk-taking behaviors.
A classic problem in epidemiology--confusing "association" with "causality".
no subject
2.~ Whew ~
3. Lots of win win here
4. OUCH!
Sasha, this happens a lot in psychology/socialogy as well, especially when dealing with kids.
no subject
barley & sasha, a perfect example came up the next day when I read a tidbit in Women's Health. "Researchers have discovered a link between oral sex and throat cancer. A study of 300 people published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that those who'd had more than six oral-sex partners in their lifetime were almost nine times more likely to develop throat cancer as those who had none. Researchers speculate that going down may orally transmit HPV. Both sexes can get HPV, and many people have no symptoms. Certain strains can lead to oral, cervical and penile cancers. But don't dispair. Throat cancer is rare--only an estimated 4800 women will be diagnosed with it this year."
I've got a lot of concern over this. The sample size was 300? For a cancer that is rare? What about other contributing factors? Did the throat cancer recipients work in smoke-filled locales? Did they smoke? Is throat cancer the kind of cancer HPV produces? Kidney cancer can spread all over the body, but it is identifiable as *kidney* cancer. The whole "over six partners" vs. "none" is wonky too. What about the 1-5 partners? I think an awful lot of assuming and stretching the data is happening here. YMMV
no subject
All of the 15-year-old girls who were married and had kids 150 years ago? Juvenile delinquents all.
And genes that promote risk-taking behavior and impulsivity? Ok - I might be able to see one for risk-taking, and since our world is no longer so 'red in tooth and claw,' that gene would have had plenty of opportunity to be bred back into the population. But impulsivity? Can you say lack of discipline and personal responsibility and critical thinking?
Since when is the failure of our public school system to teach critical thinking and parents not setting responsibilities and boundaries for their children a genetic problem???
Sorry - awfully close to one of my soapboxes...
no subject
Both studies did make a distinction for "relative" earliness. So if your local average for losing virginity was 15, then "early" would be less than 15. If your local average was older, "early" would be older as well.
The way the Harden study debunked the Haynie study was to focus on the pairs of twins, both fraternal and identical, in the original sample. The pairs were raised in the same household (no separated at birth implications) and usually one twin would commence sex earlier than the norm. Presumably the parents were raising the children with the same set of values, yet one would exhibit riskier behaviors than the other. It seemed more pronounced in fraternal twins. Keep in mind that behavioral genetics is even newer than regular genetics. They're still trying to determine how genetics effects behavior, if at all.
It's kind of confusing too, because Harden actually postulated that early sex was less likely to lead to delinquency, because the maturity required to be in that kind of relationship would tend to damp out other modes of risk-taking.
The thing I liked most was that abstinence-only programs got the knock they deserve. I've never believed that they are as effective as the right-wing claims they could be. Humans are social animals, and adolescence is arguably our least civilized/most animal-like phase of life, so how can you expect to tell an animal "just say no?" I say, equip them with knowledge, and the means to be safe, *and* the ability to say/enforce no when they choose, and let them do what nature intended. Of course that puts us right back into the critical thinking and personal responsiblity arena, but it's far preferable to ignoring the fact that they're going to choose sex whenever they feel ready (whether we agree with the choice or not).