Nov. 24, 2018
Hello friend! Welcome to Scrap Facts.
I'm a reporter covering health and science with insatiable curiosity. I love everything I learn, not all of which gets its own story. Each week, I'll bring you some of my favorite facts that I picked up on the job or while out living life.
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This week was Thanksgiving in the US. Instead of the usual round up of facts, I present to you an abridged list of things I am grateful for:
The US Government Accountability Office for shining a light on bogus supplements even before other organizations do.
The team at Georgia Tech that figured out that wombats have colons with varying degrees of elasticity to make uniquely square poops.
+1 to Patricia Yang, the mechanical engineer and head of this team, who emailed me past me deadline to tell me that wombat poop is also some of the driest poop on the planet, with less than 50% water content.
+1 to David Hu, Yang’s lab leader, who has won an Ig Nobel Prize for his work on classifying the speed of mammal urination, and who also published a piece this week on the unique hairs on cat tongues that help them groom themselves.
Epidemiologists, for tracking how demographic shifts will change how global disease burdens develop over time.
Scientists who pursue work that stays on the fridge for decades, but eventually gather enough evidence to prove that their original hunch is worth investigating.
Human research participants. These men and women are one of the main reasons behind the major medical advancements today.
+1 to neuroscience research patients. If you’re reading a paper that talks about cell activity in human brains (not information taken from an fMRI, which looks at blood flow in the brain to indirectly gauge activity), you’re probably reading work done by people who were undergoing monitoring neurological monitoring as part of their treatment for epilepsy. These patients have electrodes placed on their brains—a procedure way too invasive for otherwise healthy participants— to watch for seizure activity. While they’re undergoing monitoring, they graciously perform a few thinking tasks for neuroscientists simultaneously.
Thanks to these particular participants, neuroscientists have been able to study the place cells that help us make mental maps, what happens in the brain when we blink, and how phosphenes (the colors you see when you apply light pressure to your closed eyes) could hold clues for depression treatment, among many other lines of work.
Vaccines. If you haven’t already, get your flu shot.
My team at Quartz. I work with a team of journalists committed to explaining complicated aspects of the future through words, data visualizations, and videos. It is truly inspiring to work alongside a group of brilliant people so committed to this kind of public service.
+1 for editors, for taking a first draft (sometimes with with embarrassing typos) and working with us writers to make it something we’re really proud of.
Charts, for being there when words don’t do information justice.
You, dear friend <3. Because the only thing more fun than learning about the weird and wonderful world around us is sharing it with others.
That’s all for now. Stay curious, friend! <3
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