BayaWeaver - Slashdot User

Good Cholesterol (HDL) is not all that it's cracked up to be 0

Submitted by BayaWeaver on Thursday May 17, @12:13PM

BayaWeaver writes "We have been told for a long time that there's good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) and good cholesterol lowers the rate of heart disease. However, the New York Times reports that a just published article in The Lancet has shown that people genetically endowed with higher levels of good cholesterol (HDL) do not have decreased heart attack risk. Also, tests of HDL-boosting drugs by Roche and Pfizer have failed to lower heart attack risk. So it looks like we should ignore 'good' cholesterol and just concentrate on lowering bad cholesterol with diet, exercise and statins if we want to reduce the risk of heart attacks."

New species of human from China? 0

Submitted by BayaWeaver on Wednesday March 14, @01:54PM

BayaWeaver writes "These are exciting times in anthropology.
Recent analysis of fossils first discovered in China in 1979 indicate that a human-like species may have co-existed with modern humans as late as 11,500 years ago. This presumably new species has been nicknamed Red Deer Cave people because of their apparent taste for the extinct giant red deer. Compare this finding with the "hobbits" discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 which are also thought to have been around until 12,000 years ago. Similarly, the Denisovans discovered in 2010 were co-existing with modern humans in Siberia about 30,000 years ago. It is also interesting that the sensational, high-impact is published in open access PLoS and not the traditional pay-walled journals like Nature and Science."

Comment: Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score 2) 559

by BayaWeaver on Saturday February 11, @05:08PM (#39007161) Attached to: Global Christianity and the Rise of the Cellphone

But what about the Fourth Crusade when the Byzantines themselves were attacked and Constantinople - the richest city in Christendom - was sacked, looted and raped by the western Crusaders? It was so awful, shameful and painful that 800 years later Pope John Paul II thought it necessary to apologize for it. There was nothing "good" about that one.

Comment: Re:Then what? (Score 1) 164

by BayaWeaver on Sunday January 15, @07:37PM (#38709070) Attached to: Apple To Release List of Companies That Build Its Products Around the World

I'm aware of their use of Foxconn from past articles, but how come I don't see Foxconn on the list linked in this article?

Yes, it is. See Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (Foxconn)

Comment: How about a Google + Amazon merger? (Score 1) 140

by BayaWeaver on Sunday September 25 2011, @06:13PM (#37510202) Attached to: Amazon To Launch Kindle Tablet?

That will create the ultimate anti-Apple. Amazon's store is the only one right now that can compete with Apple's App store and if that becomes the de facto Google Android store, that will mean the first real competitor to the iDevice/App Store ecosystem. And Google's cloud + Amazon's cloud will be mother of all clouds too.

Comment: Where can I get the PDF of the original paper? (Score 1) 228

by BayaWeaver on Saturday September 24 2011, @12:16PM (#37502240) Attached to: Australian Aboriginal DNA Suggests 70,000-Year History

I don't have a Science subscription. Nature gives open access to human genome papers but unfortunately Science does not.

Comment: Winston Churchill's Father - Google vs Bing (Score 0) 179

by BayaWeaver on Thursday November 12 2009, @03:44AM (#30070124) Attached to: Bing To Use Wolfram Alpha Results

Simple query of a well-known statesman. Google gets it right with its very first response. Bing doesn't seem to know what I want. Alpha doesn't have a clue.

Google 1 - Bing 0

Bing and Alpha have a lot of catching up to do. And Google doesn't blink even when I get the spelling wrong as in "Winston Chrchill's Father"

Comment: Christopher Marlowe wrote it! (Score 1) 185

by BayaWeaver on Wednesday October 21 2009, @03:38AM (#29820339) Attached to: Plagiarism-Detection Software Confirms Shakespeare Play

Wrote it.

Comment: Christopher Marlowe write it! (Score 0, Troll) 185

by BayaWeaver on Wednesday October 21 2009, @03:35AM (#29820321) Attached to: Plagiarism-Detection Software Confirms Shakespeare Play

Shakespeare was the conduit through which Marlowe published his works after he (Marlowe) had to "disappear" through a faked death. Marlowe was a wanted man because of his outspokenness and involvement in the plots and intrigues of the Elizabethan age. The facts about Shakespeare's life that can be determined with absolute certainty make it unlikely that he could be the writer of the great plays, sonnets, and poems that are ascribed to him.

Comment: Re:Myhrvold, sigh (Score 1) 152

by BayaWeaver on Wednesday September 09 2009, @01:13AM (#29362137) Attached to: Intellectual Ventures' Patent Protection Racket

I can't understand why he is doing this. Surely he is rich enough to afford to have noble principles and values and doesn't have to resort to such distasteful methods to enrich himself. And he is also a very smart person. Surely his time and money can be better spent actually implementing useful ideas. Or maybe this is his way of showing how absurd and unfair the current patent system is to goad people into taking action to reform it?