Sandbox
Knitting needle conversion
Paul Alper sent a link to this table which gives conversions for sizes of knitting needles:
He observes, "The U.S. designation increases as the diameter goes up while the Canadian goes down. To add to the mystery, the sum of the U.S. and the Canadian adds to 14. Mostly."
Nuts and death
Association of nut consumption with total and cause-specific mortality
by Ying Bao, M.D., et al, New England Journal of Medicine, 369:2001-2011, 21 November, 2013
Submitted by Paul Alper
Trouble at the lab
Economist, 19 Oct 2013
The subtitle of this article announces, "Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To an alarming degree, it is not."
Weak statistical standards implicated in scientific irreproducibility
by Erika Check Hayden, Nature News, 11 November 2013