Gluten-free January Participants: Take the Survey!

Matt Lentzner, Janine Jagger and I have designed a survey for participants of Gluten-free January, using the online application StatCrunch. Janine is an epidemiologist who studies healthcare worker safety at the University of Virginia; she has experience designing surveys for data collection so we're glad to have her on board. The survey will allow us to systematically gather and analyze data on the results of Gluten-free January. It will be 100...

if you need me....

i'll be hanging out here.  not b/c it's cool but b/c i have no where else to sit in my house due to the fact that all of my kitchen drawers and doors are currently scattered throughout the house.  as for the rest of the family, they're going to have to fend for themselves!  and i'll be listening to this on repeat (did you see garden and gun this month?!).  happy weekend!...

The Diabetes Epidemic

The CDC just released its latest estimate of diabetes prevalence in the US (1):Diabetes affects 8.3 percent of Americans of all ages, and 11.3 percent of adults aged 20 and older, according to the National Diabetes Fact Sheet for 2011. About 27 percent of those with diabetes—7 million Americans—do not know they have the disease. Prediabetes affects 35 percent of adults aged 20 and older.Wow--...

Journal of Universal Rejection

This is absolutely fanTASTIC. I especially love the archives.About the JournalThe founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected. Despite that apparent drawback, here are a number of reasons you may choose to submit to the JofUR:  * You can send your manuscript here without suffering waves of anxiety regarding...

Two Wheat Challenge Ideas from Commenters

Some people have remarked that the blinded challenge method I posted is cumbersome. Reader "Me" suggested:You can buy wheat gluten in a grocery store. Why not simply have your friend add some wheat gluten to your normal protein shake.Reader David suggested:They sell empty gelatin capsules with carob content to opacify them. Why not fill a few capsules with whole wheat flour, and then a whole bunch with rice starch or other placebo. For two...

And my heart filled with joy

Yesterday I went to get a soda and passed by a group of young women, one of color, sitting around chatting. Having never seen them before I figured they were from a nearby (non-science) department, but then I started hearing snippets of their conversation - "-- and I can't believe he's teaching it in Java."                             "I know, what a ridiculous language to...

still undecided.

i was so going to play it safe and go white....i had my mind made up.  i talked to my mom; she said white.  i saw this pic on brad ford's website and i thought....yep that looks fab (as if i could compare that kitchen to my own). and then i saw these on his site.....and now i am back on greige.  i have a problem: it's called, i seriously cannot make up my mind for my own house.  it's...

Mobile Scholar: Part 3

I've thus far written two posts on how to turn my iPad into a computer. I am doing this both because I am too stingy to buy a MacBook Air and too stubborn* to give up.My number one "killer app" has been the ability to work on papers from anywhere using LaTeX. I am now able to fully do this (provided the iPad has an internet connection). Here are step-by-step instructions for anyone interested in trying:Step 1: Get DropboxThis first step is very easy....

Art + Multimedia

In December we visited a lecture about interaction between arts and sciences, namely between (primarily) visual arts and (again, primarily) multimedia studies (Russian page). The lecture was given by Asya Ablogina, who turned out to be a nice girl. Although she lacked any technical background, she was doing well. Surprisingly, there is a lot of artwork that exploits technical support in a witty manner, which I was unaware of, so the lousy stuff exhibited...

Blinded Wheat Challenge

Self-experimentation can be an effective way to improve one's health*. One of the problems with diet self-experimentation is that it's difficult to know which changes are the direct result of eating a food, and which are the result of preconceived ideas about a food. For example, are you more likely to notice the fact that you're grumpy after drinking milk if you think milk makes people grumpy? Maybe you're grumpy every other day regardless of...

Fashion Tips, Part II

As promised, here are some specific professional dress tips for women. I am in no way a fashionista - I am a computer scientist - but I will pass along things that have worked for me. I should also note that I am all about low-maintenance everything - clothes, hair, shoes, etc. I want to optimize sleeping, research, and goofing off - not waking up three hours early to put on makeup and straighten...

kitchen painting

my kitchen is definitely a work in progress.  the previous owners had lots of green accents throughout the house and so the wall color made perfect sense.  however, with our stuff moved in, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.  i have until friday to make a decision and i keep flip flopping.  i can't decide whether to paint the cabinets white or go a greige (a light grey/ green...

TGIF

i sound like a broken record these days but i have too much on my plate right now....but i had to say hey and thank you for all of your comments and emails from wed's post.  they totally put a smile on my face and gave me that warm and fuzzy feeling inside to know that y'all are in the same boat as me!!   TGIF....i'm off to move piles around so painters can get into the kids' rooms.  have...

Eating Wheat Gluten Causes Symptoms in Some People Who Don't Have Celiac Disease

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a condition characterized by the frequent occurrence of abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, bloating and/or gas. If that sounds like an extremely broad description, that's because it is. The word "syndrome" is medicalese for "we don't know what causes it." IBS seems to be a catch-all for various persistent digestive problems that aren't defined as separate disorders, and it has a very high prevalence: as high...

What was wiped? Part 1

Hello again Reader, I've actually put an appointment on my calendar now to remind me to blog, let's see if reminders will ensure regular posts.This is a short beginning for part 1 to insure I meet these weekly updates. Many times when you are working an investigation the question of spoliation will come up. In the most obvious scenarios of spoliation a suspect will use a tool...

i try

i try and i totally fail every time....i want to be that mom that has her sh*t together and i try hard...but i am not.  i need to face the facts.  i am the mom that is running around w/ her head cut off.  it's a constant battle that i face every AM.  i just can't get organized.  it doesn't matter if i wake up 3 hrs before i have to get taylor to school, i am always racing...

Your Daily Knuth

I keep meaning to write a script that greets me with a Knuth quote when I log in every morning, but I haven't had time.Today while looking up something else I came across these two gems, though, and thought I'd share:"Premature optimization is the root of all evil" and"If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy."I sometimes think Knuth is like the Mae West of Computer Science. Or maybe Confucius. Which I guess makes Stallman... Sun...

howdy.

it's been awhile.....we have moved and are in our new house in a new town.... but right now, i am going to imagine that i am not surrounded by boxes, newspaper, and crap.  in fact, i wish i could find one of taylor's plastic wands.  i'd wave it and things would magically come out of the boxes, make their way to their proper places, the walls would be painted already, and the pictures would...

Jangan Sampai Cairan Empedu Jadi BatuSelasa, 18 Januari 2011 | 10:35 WIBKOMPAS.com - Anda sering merasakan nyeri di sekitar perut? Jika iya, boleh jadi, Anda tengah mengidap penyakit batu empedu. Penyakit batu empedu adalah mengendapnya kolesterol yang mengeras di dalam kantung empedu atau saluran kantung empedu manusia.Tidak sedikit penderita penyakit batu empedu awalnya mengira bahwa sakit yang dideritanya hanya gangguan pencernaan biasa, seperti...

Room for Failure

Back long ago when I was a wee undergraduate lass, there was a mathematics professor at my university, let's call him Smith. I have no idea what caliber of researcher Professor Smith was back then, looking now at his citation count in Google Scholar I'm not feeling impressed, but maybe those sorts of numbers are more common for Math.We undergraduates knew Professor Smith not for his mathematical brilliance, but for his tendency to insult people when...

New blog design

Happy Sunday, hope you enjoy the new blog design as much as I do. I've added some facebook/twitter buttons as well to make things easier for those of you already sharing, thanks btw. Looking for the next blog to be up Tuesd...

The gift of declining service

On reflection, I feel like I should clarify yesterday's post a bit. I was mostly targeting the post toward early-career researchers (ECRs). I think a well-established researcher is in a great position to take on lots of service tasks, and at my current institution that is most certainly how things are done. This division of labor ideally frees the ECRs to focus almost exclusively on doing their research, which I think they should definitely...

The Word is No

This article in IHE reminded me of an important point I'd like to emphasize in this here blog:If you are interested in a research careerAnd someone asks you do something that does not directly help your research careerJust say No!This is yet another critical survival skill that often goes unmentioned. Sometimes it is difficult to tell what helps your research career and what doesn't, but in the end, it's going to be the quality and...

Does Dietary Saturated Fat Increase Blood Cholesterol? An Informal Review of Observational Studies

The diet-heart hypothesis states three things:Dietary saturated fat increases blood cholesterolElevated blood cholesterol increases the risk of having a heart attackTherefore, dietary saturated fat increases the risk of having a heart attackTo evaluate the second contention, investigators have examined the relationship between blood cholesterol and heart attack risk. Many studies including MRFIT...