Motorcycles are racist?

Sure, they're dangerous, but according to Johns Hopkins, motorcycles are more likely to be fatal for black people. Blacks and whites, with similar injuries from motorcycle accidents, have noticeably different mortality rates. Even when they both wear helmets, a white motorcyclist has a greater chance of surviving his injuries than a black one.

I'm not really sure how to interpret the results, although I give credit to the scientists for admitting that more research needs to be done. Although they tried to account for factors like the sex of the motorcyclist, the severity of the injuries, and their insurance status, it was 1.5 times more likely for black victims to die, with even white motorcyclists without helmets having a greater survival rate than blacks with helmets. I don't know if this is institutional bias on the part of the hospital, if black motorcyclists are more likely to have pre-existing conditions, or what.

Personally, I'm not a fan of motorcycles. I've never been comfortable on one. All of this reading about motorcycle-related fatalaties makes me more nervous than ever to even think about riding them.

Widgets

Wow, so I've been blogging for over two years. I had no idea it had been that long. I guess time really does fly when you're having fun.

Looking at this blog now, I see some stuff that I've outgrown, and other stuff that I never really grew into. I'd feel better if I spent some time cleaning things up a bit. I have some ideas about what's working and what needs to go, but haven't made a final plan yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions? What widgets work for you? What has helped your blog, and what just takes up space?

Are Kids Worse Off, or Just More Honest?

This press release from the American Psychological Association has me questioning what they're actually trying to say. I mean, the headline is that college students are "exhibiting" more severe mental illness these days. But does that mean that they're suffering from more severe illness?

What I'm getting at is that just because more college students are reporting (and seeking help for) mental illness now, isn't it possible that there were just as many students in the past who suffered in silence? Let's face it: there's a stigma attached to mental illness, and I think that the current prejudice against mental illness and the people who admit to suffering from it is not nearly as pronounced as it has been in years past. So it's all well and good to call it something like "a shift in the needs of students seeking counseling services," (as John Guthman, director of student counseling services at Hofstra University calls it) but isn't it possible that this is something that they have consistently needed but were afraid to ask for?

Maybe I'm getting wound up about nothing, but I have serious problems with the language used in large parts of the APA's press release. "More students are coming to college with pre-existing mental health difficulties"? Sounds to me like another way of saying "they were like that when they got here!"

KSU does NOT have a gambling problem.

I repeat, KSU does NOT have a gambling problem. I cannot stress that enough. They're just really interested in sports odds.

In a study reminiscent of something from Guys and Dolls or any story that involves hustlers hanging around racetracks with "can't fail" systems, a Kansas State University professor says that there's a way to predict the outcome of some college football games. And it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Well, the contrast between humid and arid regions.

Apparently, this economics professor found that teams from humid regions end up getting their butts handed to them when they play in arid regions. Bookmakers take note. After all, the study was about ways to make the market for sports betting "more efficient," so I'm glad that someone gets to benefit from this state-funded research work, even if it's not starving orphans, cancer victims, or war amputees.

"All Hands on Deck!"

"Screw that, I'm getting mine!"

At least, that's how the exchange goes in "disturbed ecosystems," according to Georgia Tech Researchers. They were looking into whether organisms all try to work together when their ecosystems are under assault, or if it's dog-eat-dog business as usual. It's probably an area of study that's going to be of relevance for quite a while (I'm looking at YOU, gulf coast!).

It was panic in the petri dish as biologists exposed microbes to acoustic disturbances. They looked at how many were killed off when they were in disturbed environments, how many were killed off when they were competing with other organisms for the same resources, and how many were killed off when competing for resources after their environment was disturbed. Rather than both populations of competing organisms declining equally in the third scenario, one group would wipe the floor with the other.

To rephrase that, creatures that are neck and neck in an environment where they have to fight each other to survive no longer remain neck and neck when their environment gets unusually dangerous. That's when the men are separated from the boys, and one group curb stomps their opponents while they're most vulnerable. This is bad news for species diversity, especially when you consider all the ecosystems that we're disturbing...

And this, boys and girls...

Is why we don't get attached to any one particular ideal, mindset, organization, or whatever. I mean, when it gets right down to it, is there anything out there actually worth dying over? Okay, fine, possibly the allies in WWII ending the holocaust, but examples are few and far between.

The University of Texas at Austin has been looking into extremism, and what people are willing to die for. They describe people willing to die for other members of their group as "fused," which is an interesting way of looking at it. Personally, I think it's commendable to be willing to sacrifice yourself to save others regardless of who they are, but this study focused on what people would do for members of their "group" versus people outside of it.

The bottom line? Spainards want Americans dead. That's only a slight exaggeration, but the gist of it is that Spanish college students (who were studied for the project) were more willing to die for people inside of Europe than they were for people outside of it (specifically, America). There were also some interesting follow-up questions about who would be willing to die so that terrorists would get killed that raise some interesting ethical questions and insights into the nature of extremism.

Hopefully, I'll never be in a situation where I face a choice like that in real life.

Beating a Dead Horse: Binge Drinking and Crippled Teens

I'm sure you remember my coverage of Loyola University's last study on binge drinking and long-term health effects. Guess what? They've built on that, and it turns out that binge drinking is (still) bad for you in the long term.

The latest news from Loyola University is that binge drinking messes with your genes. I'm not really clear how this is different from their last study, though. Maybe it's more specific? This time, they've managed to shoehorn teen binge drinking in there, possibly to garner more media attention.

It looks like the 2008 study proved that binge drinking makes for brittle bones. This new study proves that binge drinking messes up your genes. So their hypothesis from the original study, that binge drinking might be messing with your genes, appears to have been proven.