Before May 14, 2020, Texas reporting of coronavirus test mixed results from two different kinds of tests: the PCR tests and the antibody tests. The PCR test looks for the presence of the genetic material of SARS-COV-2, it answers the question: “Is the patient infected and contagious?” The other kind, the antibody test, looks for […]
Remdesivir is an experimental antiviral drug made by the company Gilead. Designed to act against the RNA driven RNA polymerase enzyme in RNA viruses, it was initially tested on Ebola. Since coronaviruses are also RNA viruses, Remdesivir is expected to work on them, too. Published in The Lancet: Clinical trial of remdesivir in adults with […]
On 5 Sept 2018, the NCAA Research team tweeted out this chart : It reports the average core high school grade point averages (GPA) among NCAA Division I freshman student athletes. So, a bit of a background – the National Collegiate Athletics Association governs just about all collegiate athletic programs in America, and the Division […]
I ignited a fierce debate a few months back by simply asking: “the higher you jump, the more force you land with, right? (Yes, it’s a trick question)” I posed the question shortly after the McKibbin Brothers released their video on dealing with knee pain, and a trainer was explaining that you could land with […]
In an earlier posting on detecting the signs of pseudoscience, I quoted an article which mentions unfalsifiability as a property. This is actually a pretty good early test for understanding if something is science-based, and attends to a common misunderstanding about the scientific process. Whenever the phrase “scientifically proven” is used, your critical thinking alarm […]
In a recent discussion with BJ Leroy of USA Volleyball, I encountered a paper by Bailey et al (2018) published in the open access journal Frontiers in Psychology, titled “The Prevalence of Pseudoscientific Ideas and Neuromyths Among Sports Coaches“. Since the journal is open access, the paper is readily available to download and read. The […]
The story in the Atlantic. When extinction is spoken about, it’s almost exclusively in terms of land based vertebrates, usually mammals, which form a tiny portion of the biodiversity of the planet. And even that attention is heavily skewed towards “charismatic megafauna” – animals that are cute and big enough to be visible. But it’s […]
View this post on Instagram One of the problems with “fitness” as an industry: its ties with supplements. And people can’t be bothered to learn the science. #healthisrelative #improveonyourterms #growth #learning #mistakesareok #trainugly #nomiracles #noshortcuts A post shared by Doc Ricky (@doc.ric.ky) on Dec 15, 2017 at 9:19am PST Most people obsessed with BCAAs don’t […]
Vaccination Exemptions in the USA The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) publishes a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, and in it they track the vaccination rates in different states for children enrolled in kindergarten, and an interesting table is the report on the rate of exemptions from vaccinations, as well as the reason […]
This article has moved to a new location. Wilson, the sporting goods company, posted an ad on Instagram declaring DURING A MATCH, VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS ON AVERAGE JUMP 300 TIMES. The ad is accompanied by an illustration that depicts female beach volleyball players, which implies that this number applies to beach volleyball specifically. This number appears […]