Allergy

Allergy prevention – the European guidelines

Here is an ad for our new paper on infant feeding and allergy prevention

… although all authorities agree that breast milk is the food of choice for infants, the evidence that it prevents allergic outcomes is contradictory, with different studies showing, protection, no effect and even increased risk…
… due to inconsistency of findings, there is no clear-cut evidence that the early use of cow’s milk hydrolysate exerts a preventive effect Continue reading Allergy prevention – the European guidelines →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Genetics

Born to run

There was a news item in the Jan issue of NGR

Born to run? A DNA test to identify future sports stars. The latest personal DNA test to hit the US market, from Atlas Sports Genetics in Colorado, promises to “determine if a child would be best at speed and power sports such as football or sprinting, or endurance sports such as running”

What a nonsense! It would be even deleterious if anybody would be influenced by any genetic test to decide on physical fitness.

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Software

Justice for Alan Turing

Petitions #10 has the full details:

2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before … we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing … Continue reading Justice for Alan Turing →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Software

Thunderbird 3 – finally with tabs

As I could now get an update for my quicktext plugin, I finally switched to Thunderbird 3. I like the new clean interface and the immediate access to many folders.

screenshot

The only question that I have – is there any way to force the “new email window” into a tab?

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Software

Internet neutrality

A new Science paper is worried about internet neutrality:

… Researchers who support “network neutrality” have become worried that the Internet may lose its innovative edge. They are concerned that control could be shifting from the edges of the Internet toward the service providers at the center, which would allow the providers to have “gatekeeper” capacity and would contradict the Internet’s “end-to-end” principle . This core tenet states that control over information flows should take place, to the extent possible, at the end points of the network…

While politicians are still debating on that issue, Continue reading Internet neutrality →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025
Uncategorized

Mere exposure effect, peppermints and your next experiment

Only recently I learned about the “mere exposure” effect (author’s website) / paper)

Participants named landmarks shown on photographs. In two experimental conditions, the photographs also unobtrusively showed posters depicting the logo of either a lemon candy or a peppermint candy; in a control condition, no posters were shown. Later participants could choose between the two products as a reward. Participants who had been exposed to the lemon logo and control participants chose the lemon candy more frequently, whereas for participants who had been exposed to the peppermint logo, this preference reversed: they chose the peppermint candy more frequently.

I think that’s a great study. I am wondering, however, about the impact on current science. Continue reading Mere exposure effect, peppermints and your next experiment →

 

CC-BY-NC Science Surf accessed 30.11.2025