They had observational data from 381 people. The seven are a preliminary study to find the causal direction of the correlation observed in the bigger group. Seven isn't a lot, but it's decent for a preliminary look supporting something seen in a larger group.

Except that it's quite difficult to measure either side of that equation.

Both.

To study the effect of NAS in humans, we examined the relationship between long-term NAS consumption (based on a validated food frequency questionnaire, see Methods) and various clinical parameters in data collected from 381 non-diabetic individuals (44% males and 56% females; age 43.3 ± 13.2) in an ongoing clinical nutritional study. We found significant positive correlations between NAS consumption and several metabolic-syndrome-related clinical parameters

Finally, as an initial assessment of whether the relationship between human NAS consumption and blood glucose control is causative, we followed seven healthy volunteers (5 males and 2 females, aged 28–36) who do not normally consume NAS or NAS-containing foods for 1 week. During this week, participants consumed on days 2–7 the FDA’s maximal acceptable daily intake (ADI) of commercial saccharin

An observational study that people who consume artificial sweeteners tend to be heavier, have lower waist to hip ratios, higher blood glucose, etc. doesn't tell you whether eating artificial sweeteners does that or vice versa. An experiment where you take people and put them on artificial sweeteners does. So they took their observational correlation and did a (preliminary) experiment to find out what direction the causation is.

Sand.

Saccharin, sucralose, aspartame, sucrose and glucose were the primary groups tested. Decreases in glucose tolerance were observed between the artificial sweetener groups and the sugar groups.

As a secondary experiment, they used the saccharin group to investigate the mechanisms because it showed the strongest effect. It's possible that saccharin works by a different mechanism than the others, and I suspect they'll investigate that possibility in the future, but the primary finding applies to all the sweeteners tested.

According to the article, the effect was transferable to other mice via a fecal transplant. So even if your probiotic yogurt happens to contain the right strains (it probably doesn't) then the existing bacteria are likely to just convert the new ones. Of course, if your yogurt is artificially sweetened (many are) then the bacteria are stewing in the artificial sweeteners while on the shelf, which they also showed caused them to change.

What you're describing is a random number generator with a key to initialize it. Some of the good ones might be good enough (or might not). Anything you can keep in your head is going to be crap and fairly easily breakable. Either way, you're still better off to just exchange regular secret keys at your meeting, which can be concealed in a variety of ways. Even real one time pads can be fairly easily concealed - a "blank" USB key, for example.

You didn't say so, but I'm assuming you're encrypting your message using the book page as a one time pad, then obscuring it using steganography. If someone sufficiently motivated were after your criminals, they could break that. Steganography isn't much protection when someone knows there might be hidden messages. And your one time pad, while one time, isn't random. Book pages have quite a bit of structure.

Any structure in a one time pad makes it vulnerable. To the point where people have gone to great lengths to construct them using the best random numbers obtainable, from devices ranging from antennae monitoring the ionosphere to quantum devices.

One time pads have been, and probably are, used extensively. You send a bunch of random data to someone via some secure method, which is usually very slow (like hopping on an airplane with a DVD full of random numbers on your person). You can then exchange messages securely using a convenient and fast channel, such as e-mail. See the utility there?

Companies have been paying the post office to shove stuff in my mailbox for years. That actually causes physical annoyance, as I have to shovel it into the recycle bin and then toss it. Then there are those crazy people who hand out free samples on the street. I don't have to take it, but I still have to see them.

Whoever tagged this "first world problems" was dead on.

Then turn off automatic downloads. You can't hit a switch that says "download everything!" and then call it "jammed down your throat" when your phone does what you told it to and downloads the free song someone gave you.

I saw the fuss on Facebook and went to check. No U2 song. It was listed as something I could download if I wanted to. Whoopty doo.

A consensus is a bunch of people who share an opinion. You can have a consensus of scientists, but not a scientific consensus. Crichton was right (about that): science is about consistent, reproducible results, not opinions or consensuses. Politics often involves consensus.

Climate science doesn't care how many people, scientists or not, vote for a particular hypothesis. Climate politics do, and that's what's involved when we try to decide what to do. Unfortunately, people confuse the two.

A consensus is a bunch of people who share an opinion. It has nothing to do with right or wrong.

Why would the cops say the woman attacked the man if they only got there in time to see the man attacking the woman?

Have to agree with the other guy who replied to you - when I took it, pure CS was sort of an applied math degree with a bit of engineeringish stuff like operating systems theory and digital design mixed in. From what I hear, it's now hard to find that, and most CS programs have turned into software engineering, at best.

Maybe women just don't want to slam energy drinks and sit in front of a screen in a cubicle seventy hours a week. I've always suspected they were smarter than men.