New Video: N95s have some amazing tech inside them
Added 2020-06-18 13:14:32 +0000 UTCA number of exciting projects (new ways to visualize atoms!!) have been sidelined to do some more COVID-related videos...
Thanks as always for your support,
Henry
Comments
New research about vitamin D and respiratory viruses, including COVID-19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdc7T2UTHBI
Nicholas Sterling
2020-07-20 01:52:46 +0000 UTCThanks!
Henry Reich
2020-06-26 18:08:29 +0000 UTCThanks for the video and the message at the beginning. As you were responding to Yoav; it is a scientific issue and not only a political one. Great work, I hope you're doing alright in this pandemic, and I'm looking forward to your next video!
Ted
2020-06-25 07:05:21 +0000 UTCThanks for the video.
Hitoshi Yamauchi
2020-06-19 20:31:00 +0000 UTCThanks - I've seen a number of papers about Vitamin D as a driver, and I don't dispute that vitamin D likely has an effect. What I think we need to question is (at least in places like the US), WHY would vitamin D be different among these populations? Ok, at first glance you might say "melanin & high latitudes", which doesn't seem racist (even if it is race-determined). But you can dig deeper: why hasn't anything been done about vitamin D deficiency discrepancy already, since it's been known about for a long time? Are the "recommended daily values" of vitamin D intake based just on white research subjects? Is vitamin-D fortified milk designed for whites, or blacks? (I don't know the answer, but I would be willing to be a lot that it was designed & tested for & by whites). I would bet that if vitamin D were a widespread medical issue for whites (as opposed to blacks), there would be a lot more focus on it, the way the medical system focuses on screening for and treating skin cancer, for example, which is a melanin-driven medical issue that has negative effects in the opposite direction. Not to mention that many of the people we're talking about were brought to high latitudes against their own will (aka as slaves or fleeing race-based violence & discrimination in the southern US?). I think the main point is that, yes, there are mechanisms like vitamin-D that might account for immediate trends in COVID, or rates of imprisonment, or wealth, or whatever, but we need to be aware of the next level down, WHY those mechanisms are that way in the first place. Other likely drivers of COVID risk include history of access to healthcare, nutrition, place of work, etc - none of these is on the face of it racially biased, until you appreciate the racial biases that are present (at least in the US) in all of the systems that determine these things. Why do black people work more "essential" ie service-industry jobs than whites? There is a systematic historical racist bias at work there, too, which we are now seeing as a higher rate of COVID exposure for blacks.
Henry Reich
2020-06-19 17:27:47 +0000 UTCAdditionally... the Jews after the holocaust (which I have gathered is who you're referring to) received extensive reparations: the country of Israel was created, Germany contributed financially to jump-starting the Israeli economy, etc etc. I'm not saying that rights the wrongs, but it is a big difference from how reconstruction/Jim Crow/segregation etc have gone for US blacks.
Henry Reich
2020-06-19 15:48:30 +0000 UTCI don’t feel patronized to. You don’t speak for me.
Max Byrd
2020-06-19 15:01:32 +0000 UTCI guess all the rest of us are staying.
Daniel Armesto
2020-06-19 05:28:47 +0000 UTCOh, and you might be interested in this review of some research relating to the possibility of a link between vitamin D status and COVID-19 outcomes. https://youtu.be/bDt6ca2WF3Y?t=299
Nicholas Sterling
2020-06-19 03:28:10 +0000 UTCThanks, Henry -- I will check them out.
Nicholas Sterling
2020-06-19 02:27:03 +0000 UTCYoav, I'm sorry to see you go, but you are obviously free to do so. That said, my ancestors also ran to the US to escape persecution (quakers in the 1600s in England, and Jews in the late 1800s in eastern Europe), and managed to do just fine for themselves, but they were white, and the social and economic systems of the US were not stacked against them, the way they are and have been for centuries literally (& in law, at many times) stacked against black Americans. Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, redlining, voter suppression, prison industrialization, police bias - all of these things have been shown by evidence to impede the existence of a level playing field for non-white people. Sure, some non-whites managed to succeed in spite of the handicap, but that's because they were exceptional, not the norm - proportionally blacks & other people of color have been literally and metaphorically held back in the US.
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 19:10:11 +0000 UTCPerhaps the opening screen should have said "this is largely a result..." Either way, here are some more useful articles/publications on this topic. And I agree that a science educator who's not a white physicist is probably a better voice for this kind of subject matter... https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/06/16/race-gaps-in-covid-19-deaths-are-even-bigger-than-they-appear/ https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/racial-ethnic-minorities.html https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/30/865413079/what-do-coronavirus-racial-disparities-look-like-state-by-state
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 19:03:44 +0000 UTCThere might be an opportunity in this 13% vs 34% disparity for a science educator of some ilk (perhaps not physics). If we look at other potentially fatal diseases and see a 2.6x greater death rate among black Americans, then that supports the thesis that this is all due to racial injustice. If we see a similar disparity among other groups that we think suffer racial injustice, like hispanics, that would also support the claim. If we do NOT see similar numbers, then we would have to explore THAT disparity. With regard to the hypothesis that vitamin D is also a factor, if we see no such disparity in other high-latitude countries where there is little racial injustice, that would suggest that vitamin D does not play a strong role. Likewise if we still see great disparity in low-latitude countries where people with dark skin are not typically vitamin D-deficient, then that too weakens the argument that vitamin D is a factor. Moreover, there is a huge difference in melanin production among those who identify as black; is the mortality rate constant across them? How about across hispanics, some of whom are quite light-skinned, while others are quite dark-skinned? How do the statistics differ between the northern states and the southern states? That would be a very interesting video to watch.
Nicholas Sterling
2020-06-18 17:54:21 +0000 UTCNow, if you don't mind, I have bills to pay, so I am done here. Take it for what it is and decide as you wish - it is a free country you have the freedom to post whatever you want. As for your channel, your viewers equally have the freedom to fund or defund you based on your scientific integrity. Which up to now I did not find lacking. But here we are. You carve your own life, make your own decisions - don't blame anyone else for your failing, well no one but yourself.
Yoav Matia
2020-06-18 17:37:50 +0000 UTCJust two generations ago, my family mostly murdered enslaved and had all their possessions robbed from them. My family ran from prosecution, established itself, and got back on its feet. The system is not racist, claiming so is an intellectually lazy argument - clickbait. Allowing for your scientific conclusions to be driven by a political narrative or ideology - poisons the well! It is akin to truncating your experimental results to fit the narrative you want to push without reporting why! It does not line-up with the rigor of the scientific method and is one of the core reasons the "non-scientific" are losing faith in the honesty of scientists. Don't patronize your listeners, If your opinions are wanted we will ask for it. But here, in this form, just present the science. Which, by the way, you do very well, and all applause are due.
Yoav Matia
2020-06-18 17:23:13 +0000 UTCJust to be clear, my point was that saying that the 13% vs 34% disparity "is a result of systemic racial inequalities in the US" is too strong a statement. I think it is easily argued that racial inequality is a *factor*, and I think we all would like to see that improved, but saying that it is the *cause* is a much stronger statement that would be much harder to defend.
Nicholas Sterling
2020-06-18 17:08:55 +0000 UTCI don't see this channel as a business transaction. I see it as a learning channel. And, as Henry said, scientist are people, it is important that we also learn about people to be better scientists and improve our scientific understanding of the world. Racial and gender biases impact how we see the world and the questions we ask. If we don't include examining ourselves as part of our studies, we will not be the best scientist we can be. As for politics, I wish science could be politics free, but by the definition of politics that will never be the case. I believe humans are hardwired to use power and status as a necessary shortcut to the impossible task of forming an informed opinion on every topic.
Raul
2020-06-18 16:36:58 +0000 UTCYeah, YT has - unfortunately - always made clear they are trying to be more like TV, and any ancillary material (annotations, embedded links, descriptions, etc) are not guaranteed to be supported universally or indefinitely into the future... the video itself is the only sure bet...
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 16:27:21 +0000 UTCWhich is a separate issue i should take up with YouTube, but getting their ear is basically impossible
Max Byrd
2020-06-18 16:25:52 +0000 UTCFor reference, at least on my YouTube TV, video descriptions (other than the title) are basically missing. In video text is better, just not flashing.
Max Byrd
2020-06-18 16:24:45 +0000 UTCThanks for sharing your thoughts, how to make the footnotes work best for everyone is something that I regularly consider and think about (even discussed the ones in this video with Aatish who helped research and write the video). It's helpful to know what the experience is like on other devices, that's something I don't think about as much because I don't have a TV!
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 16:21:40 +0000 UTCCan't these extra info be put in the description for the video? I agree with Max that it creates a feeling that I am missing something when the text flashes by too quickly to read. It breaks the flow. (It also makes me feel old, because I imaging younger people can "get it" at that speed.)
Raul
2020-06-18 16:19:36 +0000 UTC*striving for more accessibility, not less.
Max Byrd
2020-06-18 16:15:31 +0000 UTCI understand they're footnotes and I really enjoy them, but they are short and pausing is much more difficult on a phone or tv (usually takes more than one click) that's it's very difficult to hit. I'm just asking that maybe we make them longer or something. I really want to read them and I imagine a lot of others do too. I just don't think with many modern YouTube interfaces they serve the same purpose, and maybe we can make them longer, but perhaps a smaller font or something. I think you're giving up a lot of accessibility for a gimmick. Maybe instead of making them purposefully short, you can just mark them with a star or something to indicate they're not important. We should be arriving for more accessibility, not less. I generally consider myself tech savvy and able bodied, and I find these footnotes frustrating cause I want to read them and it's difficult to. For someone with more difficulty, these are downright inaccessible. Please reconsider your stance on these.
Max Byrd
2020-06-18 16:14:53 +0000 UTCNicholas, Thanks for your support. Here are a few other papers, and an article that might be useful to give historical context to racial health & economic disparities. Ultimately, systemic racism is responsible for large income and wealth disparities, educational disparities, health disparities, and for that matter, even if you think Vitamin D & sun exposure matters, there's the simple fact that a large proportion of Black Americans are living in the US because their ancestors were captured, enslaved, and brought to the US against their will, which was quite literally a racist system. These articles are just the tip of the iceberg in the evidence - this is not an issue of being "woke" - it is a scientific issue. White media has suppressed & twisted history & facts about the civil war, jim crow era, and more. I highly recommend watching "13th" on Netflix for more background as well. Science articles: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1047279720301769 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002934320304113 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425844/ History article (equally important for setting context): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ Henry
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 16:12:45 +0000 UTCIt does seem likely that "systemic racial inequalities in the US" have *something* to do with the bias in COVID-19 deaths, but as a representative of science to the general public, I really wish you would be more careful. As we all know, correlation is not causation. Other factors completely unrelated to prejudice are also quite plausibly factors in the disparity in outcomes. For example, there are data that strongly suggest that vitamin D status plays a significant role in how severe the course of the disease can be, and of course if you have dark skin and are living in, say, New York, you are very likely to be deficient in vitamin D unless you are supplementing. The elderly do not absorb vitamin D well and tend not to spend as much time outdoors, so vitamin D status may be a factor in the age disparity as well. Kids tend to spend more time outdoors, and they have a greater ratio of surface area (which determines vitamin D generation) to volume (which determines the bodily need for vitamin D), which may help to explain why kids tend to do well. Furthermore, pre-existing conditions like diabetes are also significant factors in COVID-19 outcomes, and it would be unscientific to pretend that the disparity in diabetes prevalence is entirely a result of food deserts, having nothing to do with demand. Henry, at a time when many people seem predisposed to blame race for everything, when things seem so obvious to some that asking for evidence seems almost offensive, we need our science educators to remind us that evidence-based reasoning is the only way to get to the truth. We don't need you to be woke -- we need you to be clear-headed in your messaging.
Nicholas Sterling
2020-06-18 15:37:52 +0000 UTCSorry! The flashing text is mostly footnotes or info that we don't think most people really need to see. At least on a phone you can double tap on the left side of the screen to go back a few seconds, but I understand the difficulty of navigating if you're not on a computer.
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 15:14:07 +0000 UTCYoav, Thanks for your support, though I respectfully disagree. Scientists are people, science is done by people, and throughout history those people have mostly been white people. Science, as an institution, has a fraught, racist, history.
Henry Reich
2020-06-18 15:12:36 +0000 UTCHi Henry, I love your channel, and as you can see am a Patreon. But, our business transaction is such that you make scientific content and want to support your efforts. Please avert from pushing political agendas.
Yoav Matia
2020-06-18 14:44:09 +0000 UTCCan we /please/ abandon the use of auxillary text being flashed for half a second, requiring pausing to read? Now that I do most YouTube consuming on my phone or smart TV, actually pausing it to read it is much more difficult then in the past, as pausing and repositioning is much more difficult on these devices. This was previously very common on the Minute channels, and is becoming more and more frustrating. Can we do something different?
Max Byrd
2020-06-18 14:17:36 +0000 UTC
