Number needed to treat

Source: Your Medical mInd

It is not what it means when the doctor says "By taking a statin pill, you’ll reduce your risk of a heart attack over the next ten years by as much as 30 percent.”. It is not mean that out 100 your risk of h-a reduced by 30%. Doctor here uses 'health literacy' lingo and particularly "Number needed to treat".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_needed_to_treat

Female's ability to fight pathogens

Source: 'Why we get sick'

According to this book we (including doctors) misunderstand defense mechanism against infection as disease. Author gives example fever, diarrhea and menstruation. In fact diarrhea's case is easy to spot. Some people experience diarrhea after drinking rather acidic coffee. In this situation corrective role of diarrhea is obvious.

Book dwells lot in to menstruation. According to book, menstruation liquid is tuned for fighting pathogens and is low in nutrients(so as to not to waste good things). Morphologically, female reproductive tract (F tubes, ..cervix, vagina) is not made for upstream but for down stream traffic. Only thing that defies this traffic rule is sperm, a potential carrier of pathogens. According to the book, the rate of menstruation for a species (note, not for individual) is proportional to the rate of sexual activity. Seems menstruation in other mammals is far less compared to humans because former's frequency of sex is far less compared to that of humans.

Is Natural selection looking out for us?

Source: 'Why we get Sick' book

Natural selection does not take long term well being of species in to account. Looking out for species would require 'group selection'. Example for 'group selection' is a bird choosing not to eat and thus opting for  death so that species survives. Basically the gene, actor in Natural selection cares for its well being not that of beholder. This implies that natural selection does not always result in healthy species. Richard Dawkins implies the same in his book 'Selfish Gene'.


According to this book Natural selection does not over engineer or go for perfection. We can see this in our spine. Back problem is like cough, everyone has it. According 'The aging spine' book our spine starts degenerating as early as 2nd decade.

Uranium used in Hiroshima came from a stock pile kept in a vegetable oil factory located Bayonne bridge located in NY and NJ border. Source of this uranium was Congo and owner was Belgian business man waiting for potential customer for stock pile.

https://fopnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/staten-islands-tainted-edge-geologic-city-report-3/

specification of war

Recently I heard a talk about definition of war. We also hear the phrase 'rules of war'. This post puts those two togather.

It seems there are two definitions for war: 'Industrialized war' and 'Non-industrialized war'. Popular opinion is that Industrialized war is lawful. US Govt. often makes this point while justifying drone and Iraq war. I want to go back to colonial times of occupation of India by UK. During those times UK was able to defeat Kings in Indian states using their superior fire power. UK used gun powder and Indian kings were using swords. Going by modern definition of war, UK and India were using 'Industrialized war' and 'Non-industrialized war' strategy respectively. And UK could have justified colonial occupation as legal war, though it sounds absurd in hind sight.

So the definition of war is not clear as black and white, especially given that US has not taken part in World court.

Golden Hard and Light molding paste.

I have used both hard and light molding paste.
Hard molding paste creates harsh texture. The edges are too pronounced and create shiny rounds when photographed.

Light molding paste creates much smooth texture. You could dilute Light molding paste to make the texture smoother.