This week we learn about online dating, marathon runners, and pizza.
- People tended to eat less pizza when it was cut into small slices and served on a large table.
- Ask Useful Science: Bicycle weight and marathon runners
- Wilber, R. L. & Pitsiladis, Y. P., Kenyan and Ethiopian distance runners: what makes them so good?
- Hoffman, K. M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J. R. & Oliver, M. N., Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites.
- Some medical students still think black patients feel less pain.
- The Ethiopia/Kenya Running Phenomenon. Runner’s World (2014).
- Fisher, M., Why Kenyans Make Such Great Runners: A Story of Genes and Cultures.
- Interview: Accurate science or accessible science in the media – why not both?
- Thorough screening of romantic partners online does not lead to more successful dates. This may be because online profiles emphasize searchable attributes (like religion), while daters would prefer to screen people by experiential attributes (like sense of humor).
Jaan Altosaar
Jaan's undergrad is in Maths & Physics from McGill in 2013; his name is weird because he's Estonian-Canadian. He's a Physics PhD student in machine learning at Princeton and Columbia. He founded Useful Science in 2014 and gets excited about the societal impact of artificial intelligence, Roberto Bolaño books, meditation, and making science useful.
Michael Gaultois
Michael is hunting a PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, and is a big fan of fountain pens, smoked gouda, M.C. Escher, and high fives. His interests have taken him to collegiate service organizations, RC helicopters, organizational management, start-up companies, world travels, and scientific endeavours.
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Conrad Jackson is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studies how culture changes over time, and the impact of cultural change on human cognition and behavior. Outside of research, he enjoys traveling and long-distance running.
Ian Mahar
Ian is a postdoctoral researcher at Boston University, studying neuropsychiatric features of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other neurodegenerative conditions. He did his PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, doing neuropsychiatry research in the McGill Group for Suicide Studies at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. He also does science writing and outreach, and his primary interests for all three are how the brain regulates emotions, and what happens when this regulation goes awry.
Kevin Neibert
Kevin graduated from McGill with a PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics, specializing in Nanotechnology. In his spare time he reads & writes about science in society. He also works with video game developers as a science media consultant at Thwacke! to help to make games smarter.
