- Here's a really good post by statistician/blogger Andrew Gelman on how a recent headline-grabbing study about pollution and health in China. This was followed shortly by the related "Statistical significance and the dangerous lure of certainty". Gelman's blog also has one of the smartest set of commenters out there (along with the crowd on Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog)
- Self-explanatory title: "Medical procedures may be useless or worse" (Nicholas Bakalar in the NYT's Well bog)
- "Bill Gates on His Foundation's Health and Education Campaigns" (and on why he doesn't build rockets)
- The latest on Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa cells (which came from her without her permission) that have had such a big impact on biological research.
- Amanda Taub of Wronging Rights proposes a Bechdel Test (background on that if you're not familiar) for movies and TV about Africa: "if a movie or TV show is set in Africa, then it should (1) have at least two African characters, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about a topic other than poverty, disease, or violent conflict."
- Finally, for some good laughs (and some good commentary) follow @AidWorkerHulk on Twitter. An example:
HULK'S MAIN PROBLEM W/ AID SECTOR GENERALLY REQUIRING A FEW INITIAL UNPAID YEARS IS BARRIER CREATED FOR GRADUATES FROM LOW INCOME FAMILIES
— AID WORKER HULK (@AIDWORKERHULK) August 10, 2013