I have seen the first user looking here for the BMJ Christmas edition already 2 weeks ago — clearly the annual highlight in the biomedical world since 2000. But only today, the 2007 issue is being online. As a former recumbent owner, I can assure you that Professor Shuster’s observation is correct. Even with my folding bike in the Munich S-Bahn I get many responses from the public, usually technical questions by men but also price inquiries by women. I have only doubts about his interpretation of testosterone levels ;-)
I also liked the airport security screening study
Since 1969, only 2000 people have died as a result of explosives on planes, yet the US department of homeland security spends more than $500m annually on research and development of programmes to detect explosives at airports … Furthermore, the cost of airport security ($9 per passenger) is 1000 times higher than for railway security ($0.01 per passenger), even though the number of attacks on trains is similar to that in planes
Risk size has nothing to do with risk perception in particular in some politicians. Nevertheless airport security is definitely good here in Munich. Don’t miss also the marathon
results for 3 292 268 runners on 750 separate days encompassing about 14 million hours of exercise. There were 26 sudden cardiac deaths observed … Because of road closure, an estimated 46 motor vehicle fatalities were prevented.
So at least from a society view, there is absolutely no risk from running a marathon, yea, yea.