November 3, 2015
Briefly
- Cancer cure hype: In a five-day period in June, 36 cancer drugs were described in the news as “breakthrough”, “game-changer”, “miracle” or similar words. Five of them had not yet been tested in humans.
- Similarly , from Vox, on a 2003 study: “They looked at 101 studies published in top scientific journals between 1979 and 1983 that claimed a new therapy or medical technology was very promising. Only five, they found out, made it to market within a decade.” Most promising treatments don’t work: that’s not cynicism, it’s empirical fact. Of course, it’s only with new pharmaceuticals that we find out they don’t work.
- An XKCD comic on Bill Gates’ blog, talking about the importance of being boring and non-innovative to finally finish off polio
- London has a smaller proportion of residents born overseas (37%) than Auckland (39%). So does New York (37%). No real conclusion, just that it’s interesting. (via Hayden Glass)
- “Cartography — what maps reveal about ourselves” from the BBC
- Typically beautiful use of interactive graphics and maps in a New York Times story about ice melting in Greenland.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »