Friday, February 10, 2006
Bad News for Lemmings
STI's get lots of attention, and many people have reacted by not going all the way as quickly. It turns out, however, that maybe going just a little of the way with lots of partners could be dangerous too: an Australian study suggests that French kissing lots of different people raises teens' risk of meningitis. From the write-up, I don't buy much of this study - for starters, there are some wired mentions of religious participation that raise bias/methodology flags for me - but if anyone has the actual publication I'd love to see it.
From the department of ...duuhhhh..., researchers at Columbia University have found that people rate songs they perceive to be popular more positively than unpopular ones. The interesting bit is that the effect is not absolute - the group that didn't see popularity ratings tended to be more positive to the same songs as the influenced group. Hmm.
UPDATE: Having read the paper, I still am unsure I buy the idea that, even if kids could be convinced to do less kissing, it would really reduce their risk of meningitis. Equally significant effects were found for having visiting friends' houses daily, and sharing a bedroom was an even stronger risk factor. So go ahead and make out!
From the department of ...duuhhhh..., researchers at Columbia University have found that people rate songs they perceive to be popular more positively than unpopular ones. The interesting bit is that the effect is not absolute - the group that didn't see popularity ratings tended to be more positive to the same songs as the influenced group. Hmm.
UPDATE: Having read the paper, I still am unsure I buy the idea that, even if kids could be convinced to do less kissing, it would really reduce their risk of meningitis. Equally significant effects were found for having visiting friends' houses daily, and sharing a bedroom was an even stronger risk factor. So go ahead and make out!
