Olivia Judson offers this: grasshoppers that have to take measures to avoid spiders grow more slowly and lay fewer eggs than grasshoppers in spider-free zones. In areas of Yellowstone where wolves are abundant, female elk give birth to fewer young. … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: September 2009
Death at sea
I did a story for Crosscurrents about the strange season we’ve been having off the California coast. In it – mea culpa – I sin by saying some of these animal deaths are natural while the “dead zones” are not. … Continue reading
Surgery versus therapy
If you carefully squint at the top right corner of this picture you’ll see me running the upper North Fork of the Kaweah. I love kayaking. But as a kid I popped my right shoulder out doing it – a … Continue reading
David Brooks calls some attention to that Goldhill article. He’s saying – look: enough with futzing with the window treatments, we’ve got to do something about the sinkhole under the corner of the house. I feel the same way, and … Continue reading
People think doctors are all-knowing
Just got off a call going over the release of a poll by the Campaign for Effective Patient Care. The biggest takeaway for me was this: 65 percent of people in California think that their medical care is backed up … Continue reading
How health care killed David Goldhill’s dad
The Atlantic recently published a great piece of contrarian thinking on health care. David Goldhill points out that all the incentives in our medical system encourage more treatment – and that’s making us sicker (plus, it killed his dad, or … Continue reading