Links - 14th January 2020 (2)

When is the best time to eat a banana? - "eating a greener banana might have some slight added health benefits. That’s because it contains just a tiny bit more of a starch called resistant starch, which humans can’t digest but is loved by your good gut bacteria... Americans (and Europeans) had to learn that it was okay for proper ladies to eat phallic fruits, Koeppel says. In the late 1800s, postcards of nicely dressed ladies eating bananas were distributed all over. Other photos showed proper Victorian ladies cutting bananas with a knife to get rid of the embarrassing shape."

The real reason Father Christmas wears red and white - "Gift cards and vouchers do not help as much as one might hope: they are often unredeemed, or resold online at a discount. If you must buy a gift card, note that vouchers for lingerie sell well below face value on eBay, but vouchers for office supplies and coffee hold up pretty well.Wishlists fare better. Research suggests that recipients are generally delighted to receive an item they have already specified. Givers may be deceiving themselves to think an off-piste gift will be more welcome."
Addendum: "Many people will tell you that the modern Santa is dressed to match the red-and-white colours of a can of Coke, and was popularised by Coca Cola's advertising in the 1930s.A good story, but the red-and-white Santa himself wasn't created to advertise Coca-Cola - why, he was touting the rival beverage White Rock back in 1923.Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was the one who was invented as a marketing gimmick.The modern Santa Claus is actually much older, a patchwork character woven together from different sources... Clement Clarke Moore... who penned the line "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" in 1823 - did as much as anyone to create the American idea of Santa Claus, the red-robed patron saint of giving presents to everyone whether they want them or not... Prof Joel Waldfogel, an economist and author of Scroogenomics, has been able to track the impact of Santa on the US economy back across the decades.By comparing retail sales in December with sales in November and January, Prof Waldfogel has estimated the size of the Christmas spending bump all the way back to 1935, the era of the Coca-Cola Santa.In fact, relative to the size of the economy, Christmas spending was three times bigger then than now. What is an everyday indulgence today would have been a once-a-year treat back in the 1930s.Prof Waldfogel has also compared the US Christmas boom to other high-income countries around the world. Again, perhaps surprisingly, the US's December spending boom is not particularly large, relative to other countries... In the US, for every $1,000 (£790) spent across the year, only $3 is specifically attributable to Christmas. After all, you would have lunch anyway, pay your rent, fill your car with petrol and buy clothes to wear. However, for certain retail sectors - notably jewellery, department stores, electronics, and useless tat - Christmas is a very big deal indeed"

What prohibition's failure means for the legalisation of cannabis - "probably the most famous economist in the world - Irving Fisher.It was Fisher who notoriously claimed, in October 1929, the stock market had reached "a permanently high plateau".Image copyright Getty ImagesNine days later, came the huge stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.As for parties, the best that can be said for Fisher was he was a generous host.As Mark Thornton records in The Economics of Prohibition, one of Fisher's dinner guests wrote: "While I ate right through my succession of delicious courses, [Fisher] dined on a vegetable and a raw egg."A fitness fanatic, he avoided meat, tea, coffee and chocolate.He didn't drink alcohol either, and was an enthusiastic supporter of prohibition, America's ill-fated attempt to outlaw its manufacture and sale, which began in 1920.It was a remarkable change - the country's fifth-largest industry was suddenly made illegal.Fisher predicted it would "go down in history as ushering in a new era in the world, in which accomplishment this nation will take pride forever".He added he couldn't find a single economist willing to oppose the policy in a debate.In fact, prohibition turned out about as well as his prediction about the permanently high plateau: historians typically regard it as a farce. The roots of prohibition are generally traced to religion, perhaps laced with class-based snobbery.But economists had another concern: productivity.Wouldn't sober nations outcompete those with a workforce of drunks? It was so widely flouted alcohol consumption decreased by only about a fifth. It finally ended in 1933, when one of Franklin D Roosevelt's first acts as president was to re-legalise beer, bringing cheering crowds to the White House gates. Fisher certainly seems to have happily taken some liberties with figures. He claimed, for example, prohibition was worth $6bn to America's economy... Evidently Fisher started with reports from a few individuals a stiff drink on an empty stomach made them 2% less efficient. He then assumed workers habitually downed five stiff drinks just before work, so multiplied the two by five and concluded alcohol lopped 10% off production.Dubious, to say the least."

Swedes miss Capri after GPS gaffe - "A Swedish couple in search of the isle of Capri drove to Carpi, an industrial town in northern Italy, because they misspelt the name in their car's GPS"

Quebec denies French citizen's immigration application because chapter of thesis was in English - "Émilie Dubois had everything she needed to settle in Quebec long term. A French citizen, she applied to come to the province after completing a PhD at French-language Laval University in Quebec City.But the provincial government refused Dubois's residency application because one chapter of her thesis was in English.In a letter sent to Dubois earlier this year, the Immigration Ministry said the 31-year-old French native had not demonstrated she had the level of French required... "I have a diploma from a francophone university, the first in Canada. I'm a French citizen, too, and I did all of my studies in French"... Dubois then passed a French test recognized by the ministry and sent the results to the government"
No one can claim this is racism

Study: Red-light cameras don't seem to improve safety

Poll Finds Latinx People Don't Like to Be Called Latinx - "nearly half (44 percent) of Latinx people polled preferred the term “Hispanic,” which someone (maybe Elizabeth Warren?) should probably tell them is extremely problematic due to its imperialist origins. Twenty-four percent of respondents preferred “Latino/Latina” (also problematic); 11 percent preferred the name of their country of origin; 7 percent preferred their country of origin plus “American”; 6 percent preferred just “American”; 5 percent preferred “Chicano/Chicana”; and just 2 percent of respondents preferred with the term Latinx.This was steady across all demographics. “We went into it with the hypothesis that awareness was going to be lower than social media makes it seem,” says Mario Xavier Carrasco, the co-founder of ThinkNow. “We didn't think it was going to be as low as it is. We also thought that it was going to be significantly more popular among young people, and it's not. There's no significant difference there.”In fact, the researchers found that just 3 percent of respondents under 35 preferred “Latinx” and 97 percent preferred anything else. (Clearly, the progressive media establishment and the Democratic candidates for President have a lot more educating to do.)... "Hispanic Americans face plenty of challenges. The last thing we need are progressives 'wokesplaining' how to speak Spanish." As for the presidential candidates, Carrasco thinks they should probably examine their intentions: "If their intention is to signal an embrace of a progressive term and not necessarily to reach out as broad a voter base as possible, then [using Latinx] is smart, he said. "If their intention is to reach out to as many Latino voters as possible, it's not smart.""
How sad, that they're not woke enough to recognise how they're being damaged by the gender binary

Why is India's pollution much worse than China's?

The case for more private health care in Ontario - "“They say, ‘We don’t want to be like the States. I think most people would agree with that,” Whatley says. He adds, however, that many people don’t realize Australia and some Western European countries have free universal health care but also allow a small amount of privately funded care — and wait times in those places aren’t nearly as long as in Ontario... A 2016 study from the Commonwealth Fund, a U.S. think-tank, provides some backing. It asked thousands of people in eight Western nations — including residents of several Canadian provinces — how long they typically wait to be seen in hospital. Ontario’s wait times were higher than those of all eight countries surveyed: 24.5 per cent of Ontarians reported having waited four hours or more to see a doctor in a hospital emergency room; just 1.5 per cent of respondents in France, 3.3 per cent in Germany, 4 per cent in the Netherlands, and 7.9 per cent in the United Kingdom said the same thing. Ontario also lagged behind all eight countries in wait times for non-emergency surgeries and specialist treatment.A 2017 German study examining disparities between that country’s public and private systems offers more evidence that two-tiered systems can be more efficient for all. Privately insured patients, who make up approximately 11 per cent of the population, wait on average a day and a half for non-emergency MRIs; publicly insured patients wait on average just under five weeks. In Ontario, wait times for non-emergency MRIs average eight weeks (and in several regions stretch beyond 12 weeks). Another possible benefit of private payment: it could make the public system more accountable, Whatley explains, because people would have something to compare it against. “In Sweden, they have a wait-time guarantee where, if the public system can’t provide you with your hip replacement in a certain amount of time, then the public system will pay for your hip replacement in the private system,” he says. “It’s actually driving access.” And while advocates of single-payer health care may contend that allowing some people to pay privately for treatment would cause a mass exodus of doctors from the public to the more lucrative private system, that hasn’t happened in Germany... As it stands, many wealthier Ontarians are already paying for private care — they’re just doing so in other countries. The Fraser Institute estimates that between 22,352 and 26,513 Ontarians sought non-emergency medical care outside Canada in 2016. Labrie says that if those people had been allowed to spend their money in Ontario, it would have generated new taxable economic activity... Ontario could opt to allow and tax private medical services and plow the proceeds directly into the public system to alleviate wait times"

Genetic and Environmental Influences on Cognitive Abilities in Extreme Poverty - "To improve global human capital, an understanding of the interplay of endowment across the full range of socioeconomic status (SES) is needed. Relevant data, however, are absent in the nations with the most abject poverty (Tucker-Drob & Bates, 2016), where the lowest heritability and strong effects of SES are predicted. Here we report the first study of biopsychosocial gene–environment interaction in extreme poverty. In a sub-Saharan sample of early teenage twins (N = 3192), we observed substantial (~30–40%) genetic influence on cognitive abilities. Surprisingly, shared environmental influences were similar to those found in adolescents growing in Western affluent countries (25–28%). G × SES moderation was estimated at aˋ = .06 (p = .355). Family chaos did not moderate genetic effects but did moderate shared environment influence. Heritability of cognitive abilities in extreme poverty appears comparable to Western data. Reduced family chaos may be a modifiable factor promoting cognitive development."

Heat camera at Edinburgh attraction spots tourist's breast cancer - "there is no scientific evidence to suggest they are effective tools in screening for breast cancer or other medical conditions"

Disabling One Gene Allows You To Eat As Much As You Want Without Gaining Weight - "the single gene, known as RCAN1, acts as a feedback inhibitor for all kinds of metabolic processes and the production of body heat. After disabling this gene from the mice, they curiously discovered that they become were resistant to diet‐induced weight gain. Effectively, their metabolism was given a supercharge, allowing them to “burn up” more calories."

'I've tried everything': Living with fishy body odour caused by a rare condition - "Rather than a personal hygiene issue, the root of Ms Ramasamy’s condition is a metabolic disorder known as trimethylaminuria or TMAU.The odour is caused by an accumulation of trimethylamine (TMA), which is produced in the intestine when certain types of food are digested, explained Dr Tan Ee Shien, senior consultant at the genetics service department of paediatrics at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital.Normally, the body produces an enzyme that breaks down TMA. But owing to mutations in the FMO3 gene, which prevents the enzyme from working properly, the body is unable to do its job. As the level of TMA builds up, it is released through the person’s sweat, urine and breath instead...
"What made it worse was not everyone can smell the odour," said Ms Ramasamy. "The doctors who saw me couldn't.""

Rationally Speaking | Official Podcast of New York City Skeptics - Current Episodes - RS 242 - Keith Frankish on “Why consciousness is an illusion” - "'Here is an analogy. In the Middle Ages, people thought that sometimes people were possessed by demons. And I guess some people sincerely thought they themselves were possessed by demons. This maybe was very convincing to them, the first person perspective.Now let's say modern clinical psychiatry comes along and gives quite a different explanation of what's happening. And now, do you say “That's what demons really are”? That they really are schizophrenia, or whatever characterization modern psychiatry gives of it?Or do you say, "No, stop thinking about it in terms of demons altogether. This isn't an explanation of what demons really are. Thinking in terms of demons is just the wrong way. Don't even start there. Start with this other conception"?And that's kind of what I'm asking to do. Because so long as you try to pass off some sort of cognitive explanation as an explanation of phenomenal consciousness, the realists won't be happy'"

BBC World Service - The World This Week, The Syrians move back in - "[On Catalonia] Advocating for constitutional change is not illegal in other countries. But in Spain, the optics seem to suggest it could land you in jail."

BBC World Service - The World This Week, The future of computing? - "[On Thailand] ‘[The] Royal Consort seems to be the latest in a long line of close associates whose relationship with the king has come to quite a tricky end’
‘One of the leaked cables from the US Embassy that was published by WikiLeaks mentioned that very few people stay close to the king for very long because he's notorious for flying into rages and purging people that were formerly close to him. So he's on his fourth marriage now. His first wife was a member of the royal family. She was humiliated and divorced. His second wife was a former actress who was banished in 1996 with her four sons who now live in the United States. They were accused of various crimes and they’ve never been able to come back and return ever since. His third wife was divorced recently, and almost all of her family were jailed. Her three brothers were jailed. Her parents were jailed. Her uncle was jailed. So the king has a habit of behaving very cruelly towards women in his life who have displeased him. And the new consort is the latest victim of them.’
‘There are videos online of the king shopping in the supermarket in Germany and celebrating the birthday of one of his poodles. Is there a sense that the king might be spiraling out of control? And is there anyone within the court who can guide him back to a more conventional kingly path?’
‘There've been several videos shared of the king in Germany where he spends most of his time. He's been filmed wearing unusual clothing for a Thai monarch, wearing crop tops and fake tattoos. And it seems probable that he's chafing against the restrictions on royalty in Thailand and when he's abroad in Germany, he likes to be able to wear what he wants and do what he chooses. But really the issue isn't the King’s choice of clothes. The bigger issue is that it seems that nowadays the king has almost total control over Thailand. The Thai monarchy is allegedly a constitutional monarchy where the king doesn't have real power. But in practice, we've seen him taking over a lot of Army units. He's in personal control of a huge number of troops. And all of the senior military leadership in Thailand are loyalists to the king and support him. So there seems to be nobody who can stop him. He has managed to establish almost absolute power in Thailand. And this is what worries so many Thais, because they can see Thailand slipping back to the era of absolute monarchy, which was supposed to have ended more than a century ago.’"