{"id":1923,"date":"2012-02-18T10:57:49","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T15:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=1923"},"modified":"2012-12-04T14:46:51","modified_gmt":"2012-12-04T19:46:51","slug":"so-youre-on-vacation-at-a-science-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/02\/so-youre-on-vacation-at-a-science-conference.html","title":{"rendered":"“So you’re on vacation at a science conference?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Heck yeah I am! \u00a0Here are some quick highlights from my first day at the AAAS Annual Meeting<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fifty Years of the Pill: Risk Reduction and Discovery of Benefits Beyond Contraception<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

How could I skip this session given the topic\u2019s recent prominence? \u00a0According to the panelists, the non-contraceptive side effects of the pill are varied. \u00a0It is prescribed to women with certain risk factors for ovarian cancer, because it lowers their chance of incidence. \u00a0It\u2019s also used as treatment for Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and an assortment of other endocrine disorders or diseases that are exacerbated by certain hormone balances.<\/p>\n

The panelists also went \u00a0over some big studies on the Pill and risk of stroke or other cardiovascular problems. \u00a0It sounded like hormonal\u00a0contraception does<\/em> raise the risk of these events (especially if you smoke) but the magnitude of the change was small enough to be inconsequential. \u00a0Think getting an x-ray every few years when the dentist checks in on your wisdom teeth.<\/p>\n

This should sound familiar if you remember my last post on\u00a0contraception\u00a0and statistics<\/a>. \u00a0Going from one case for every 100,000 women to two is a 100% increase, but we don\u2019t really care. \u00a0The risk for some of the ailments the researchers were looking at were so small that they had to do case-control studies<\/a> just to find enough affected women to give their analyses some oomph.<\/p>\n

Case-control studies aren\u2019t as ideal as randomized treatment (which is seldom possible with a well-established medicine) and they\u2019re also seen as a little worse than cohort studies (where you don\u2019t assign people to different treatments, you just see which they choose for themselves and then track them over time). \u00a0In a case-control study, you recruit people with whatever disease you\u2019re studying and an appropriate number of unaffected people and see what proportion of each group were exposed to whatever treatment you\u2019re looking at (in this case, the Pill). \u00a0It\u2019s a little less reliable than the other two, but if the disease you\u2019re studying is really really rare, you\u2019re stuck with this methodology. \u00a0You can\u2019t assume anyone<\/em> in your randomized treatment groups or cohort will contract the disease otherwise.<\/p>\n

Though after all that fun, one of the panelists still<\/em> talked about the Pill dropping the risk of ovarian cancer for some subset of women by 50% and didn\u2019t talk about the baseline at all. \u00a0I really need to become a statistics superhero when I grow up.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Global Science and Public Good in the 19th Century: Meteorology, Tidalogy, and Magnetism<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a cool lecture by Laura Snyder, author of The Philosophical Breakfast Club<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0She was talking about the first \u2018big science\u2019 project \u2014 when William Whewell coordinated scientists and governments around the world to get accurate, synced-up measurements of the tides. \u00a0Prior to this effort, information on the tides was\u00a0possessed\u00a0only by harbor masters, who charged ships\u2019 captains for the data. \u00a0Because the measurements and projections were decentralized, scientists couldn\u2019t make use of it until Whewell\u2019s big trawl.<\/p>\n

After his analysis, the British Admirality began publishing tide tables of its own. \u00a0I asked the presenter if the harbor masters tried to prevent the government from undercutting their niche, but she said not to her knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Analogy in Applications of Mathematics and Statistics to Other Disciplines<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The next time anyone says you can\u2019t trust the theory of evolution because it can\u2019t be tested experimentally, point them toward Richard Lenski\u2019s 20+ year<\/em> experiment with E. coli<\/a>. \u00a0He\u2019s been tracking mutations and adaptation in bacteria for well over 20,000 generations. \u00a0And he can freeze colonies every few thousand iterations so he can go back and reexamine the lineage or just take them out of storage and see if they progress the same way as their children. \u00a0Definitely one of the best science talks I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"
Lenski\u2019s lab with a small fraction of the petri dishes they must run through in a year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Also, there were two<\/em> papers on data visualization at this panel! \u00a0One of which was heavily focused on topology<\/em>. \u00a0My cup runneth over.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heck yeah I am! \u00a0Here are some quick highlights from my first day at the AAAS Annual Meeting: Fifty Years of the Pill: Risk Reduction and Discovery of Benefits Beyond Contraception How could I skip this session given the topic\u2019s recent prominence? \u00a0According to the panelists, the non-contraceptive side effects of the pill are varied. 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