Daniel Lemire's blog

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Science and Technology links (January 12th, 2019)

  1. You can buy a 512GB memory card for $140 from Amazon.
  2. We have been told for decades to avoid saturated fats, the kind found in meat, cheese and butter. After an extensive review, Grasgruber et al. conclude:

Our results do not support the association between cardiovascular diseases and saturated fat, which is still contained in official dietary guidelines. In the absence of any scientific evidence connecting saturated fat with cardiovascular diseases, these findings show that current dietary recommendations regarding cardiovascular diseases should be seriously reconsidered.

  1. Stoet and Geary propose a new measure of gender inequality and conclude…

We found that low levels of human development are typically associated with disadvantages for girls and women, while medium and high levels of development are typically associated with disadvantages for boys and men. Countries with the highest levels of human development are closest to gender parity, albeit typically with a slight advantage for women.

  1. Budish argues that Bitcoin would be hacked if it became sufficiently important economically.
  2. We can use deep-learning software to reconstruct intelligible speech from the human auditory cortex.
  3. Nelson’s research indicates that there will be more calories available per capita in 2050 than today, in all income quintiles, and even in an extreme climate change scenario. However, both obesity and dietery shortages (e.g., vitamin A) will remain a challenge:

We must shift our emphasis from food security to nutrition security.