It basically means you think your kid is SO SPECIAL that they are basically one of the X-Men. No, really.

I know a few other people were also like "jfc what?!" so hopefully anyone reading who may have been persuaded will have second thoughts.

My friend bought it for me so I'm not sure exactly where she got it. But, it is Portal merch (it says Aperture Laboratories on the other side), so I think you can get it in a few different places. Here it is direct from Valve. I'd bet it is on Amazon and/or ThinkGeek as well.

This is the water bottle I carry every day (well, not this specific one- the picture is from google because I don't have a camera on me)

True story: I got in an argument on here a few years ago with a lady who was insistent that regular dosing with spoonfuls of honey would prevent pertussis.

lol gotta finish that dissertation first, tho.

When I took it, we spent the first week covering Ancient Rome up to the Middle Ages. I don't think we started the main part in the Renaissance, but we definitely got there within the first month of class. You are correct that Euro is generally considered harder. In my high school, Euro was difficult, but people…

My high school had that system too. I didn't take physics (we had o-chem so I took that instead because I'm a giant nerd), but we had the option of taking the AP Calc test, the Pitt test, or both. We could also do Pitt credit for statistics.

Thanks! That's actually why I started commenting here. I get frustrated with popular science reporting, so I like to attempt to help answer questions where I can.

Thanks!! You're encouragement is honestly much appreciated. I'm in the stats and writing phase and it is the part that might break my spirit. I'm excellent at self-motivating with bench work, but the other stuff I'm like "Let's do literally anything else."

Well, I can't really weigh in on the popularity of cooking shows, even male helmed ones, with men. It's just not my area of expertise. I do think there is at least a perception of the shows being more popular among women, but again, I can't say for certain.

It's actually being used appropriately here. BMI, although it has many problems when applied to individuals, works pretty well when looking at larger groups and/or population trends. Again, that isn't to say it is perfect. It just tends to be a measure that works reasonably well for this type of study and can be…

Well, in the nutrition field, understanding why people make the choices they do about food is a very valid avenue of research. I am curious why they chose an entirely female cohort, but that may be related to the exposure they were interested in (cooking shows, certain types of social media, both of which is at least…

That was indeed a super weird way to represent that kind of finding. Especially because for the data they have there (what I presume to be average BMI for each group), a bar graph with CI bars would honestly probably be better. And you can make it in excel, which they clearly used to make the existing graph.

Actually, I think it is more that the conclusions presented here are simplified. First, the study did find that cooking from scratch, in the absence of being a cooking show viewer, was associated with lower BMI. Second, it's a cross-sectional study, which means "in this group of people, at this point in time, this…

It actually isn't. They're reporting on an interaction. I just read over the study and addressed the control group question: link cause I'm too lazy to re-type it.

I just read over the study and posted some notes addressing this and some other questions people had. I'm probably still stuck in the greys, though.

I'm reading over the paper now everyone:

I think this is one of the reasons I actually really enjoy that Worst Cooks in America program. The trainwreck nature* aside, the focus is heavily on the basics that don't typically get covered on cooking shows these days. I'd wager the stuff they make is pretty caloric still, but the emphasis is on learning the basic…

This feels like an appropriate place to mention that there is a Christian movie out right now (at least in places) that is essentially supposed to be the Jesus approved 50 Shades. From what I've heard, it is bonkers. I bring it up here because it is called Old Fashioned, which is, of course, old timey slang for a hand…