Despite how obtuse the current administration views are, this has been true for decades. The churn of new papers and hype around medicine/biotech is nothing new.

Says nothing about endemic reproducibility crisis of the social sciences.

Since student loans have been basically guaranteed (bankruptcies can’t erase student loan obligations, in an attempt to push rates lower) and tuition steeply rose, academic institutions’ ratio of administrators to students has skyrocketed to a bureaucratic mess, leading to a flywheel of higher education costs and incentivizing research for money’s sake over impact to the field.

Real impact would be reproducing notoriously iffy studies, but that doesn’t bring in the dollars.

> The entire academic world is being forced to publish or die as governments look to measure results from the science they instead get what is measured and everyone has to embellish the importance of what they found and always find positive results.

It sounds like they're running it like a business.

It is entirely their fault. If no one agrees to do performative research, the problem will be solved.

The problem is some people prefer an academic lifestyle in exchange for doing performative research.

Yes there are other actors eg politicians demanding performative productivity, but mostly it’s the inmates running the asylum.

Academia is one failed western institution amongst many, and those failures are ultimately directed by the actions of the individuals that comprise those institutions.

Publish or perish is more about status & careerism within academia than any sort of govt forcing function. If you don't publish, you are invisible to your peers and your career stagnates, regardless of the govt funding environment.

Is there a way I can search for the studies that recently got approved? Somehow setup an alert for it?

KPIism is the death knell of modern society. In the 90s and 2000s this mantra of "measure and improve" took hold like a virus. It is in all instances I observe a rats race where everybody just starts to look for the cheat-codes instead of "doing-the-right-thing".

Arguably America is the pinnacle of this right now, where (many) politicians and (many) business leaders now feel justified do whatever's legal just to score points. I would argue this type of thinking was birthed in the UK though under Thatcher who as a first step removed the general trust in (civil servants in her case) your fellow human beings. Blair then came up to replace that trust with KPIs.

We need to get back to a world where we trust people to do the right thing - without measuring their success in short-term KPIs.

What about "Sensodyne Pronamel"? There is usually someone in the comments raving about its effects.

Did you tried :D ?

Everyone knows that teeth are luxury bones in the US. The market just isn't there for fancy treatments. The ultra-wealthy just get their teeth replaced with perfect veneers anyway.

> stem-cell-based tooth replacement

Really? This sounds more like someone's plan to get grants to research stem cells than someone's plan to repair (or replace) teeth.

We already have a natural ability to grow new teeth that replace existing ones. Everybody does it... once. Where's the research into getting it to happen again?

Also the aspect of shooting in neuro toxins close to the brain when doing these procedures

I'm surprised how many low-hanging fruit issues are still not solved. So many dentists use cold or tap water for their rinse sprayer despite the fact that many people have temperature sensitivity issues with their teeth. Having lukewarm water would be trivial but I've yet to go to an American dentist that does it.

Seeing SLA 3D printers at my dentist's office was pretty cool. Apparently they use them for a variety of fixturing and jigs, and have a workflow that includes a handheld scanning unit that SLAMs to generate a solid model of the patient's teeth.

    > there have been real advancements

Cancers have had extremely effective new treatments developed for in the last ten years.

Depending on the type of cancer, we now have cures or treatments that stave off death for years.

My wife has a rare type of cancer with not much research thrown at it, and even her type of cancer went from a median time of survival measured in months to several years.

Tooth regrowth is something I was really hoping for. I abused one of my molars. After years of efforts (repeated fillings, a crown) to stave off losing the tooth it finally had to come out last month. Now I'm waiting for the bone graft to "take" before getting an implant. I was hoping I'd waited long enough for tooth regrowth to become "a thing" but I have not.

(Should have taken better care of it when I was younger and not ignored the massive hole that was growing in it. Chalk it up to a bad dental experience as a child and 25+ years of avoiding dentists as a result...)

I am confused by this comment about HIV/AIDS. Is it cynical? Are you confused why we have not "cured" HIV? I grew up during the AIDS Crisis. It was awful. People were dropping like flies. Today, you can be "technically" HIV positive, but test negative, give birth to HIV-negative children, and have unprotected sex (and not infect your partner). As far as I am concerned, the battle has been won. It is a miracle in my eyes.

i thought the first two have had huge improvements in the last decade?

+ Male birth control

+ Alzheimer’s cure

+ Hair regrowth

While a cure remains elusive, HIV treatment is now extremely effective. Antiretroviral shots can keep people symptom free indefinitely.

Cancer treatment varies by type of cancer but many have dramatically improved outcomes.

HIV/Aids have made huge progress and so did cancer. Also "cancer" isn't a single disease, they're quite different.

- hair regrowth

Many people are not honest about how much they floss, and those who do often don't floss correctly. We have a well understood mechanism for how tooth decay and gingivitis happen, and it's clear clinically that flossing can address these more effectively than brushing alone can. Furthermore, the subjective reduction in bad breath means harmful oral bacteria are reduced, which could have benefits beyond oral health.

Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any harm from flossing. At least from my anecdotal experience there are positive bad breath ramifications. (I've also been conditioned, by flossing regularly, to feel like my mouth is "cleaner" after flossing, to the point that it feels bad if I don't.)

This is the key issue. There is zero doubt whatsoever that flossing is essential, and the fact that the empirical evidence is equivocal shows the limitations of science to prove even the most obvious things.

Any chance you would be willing to summarize the research or provide information on some relevant studies? I've always been skeptical about flossing and would like to learn more.

I hear so many counter-logical ideas proposed with "scientific evidence". Poorly designed studies and P-Hacking has ruined the publics trust in science. I highly doubt flossing is a net negative for almost anyone.

tbf, it does require a technique otherwise you risk just pushing plaque underneath your gums

Where? Source please?

Wait what? Please share

I don't know if this is everyone's experience, but you get a distinct feeling of smoothness after using it, unlike any other toothpaste. Since NovaMin reacts with saliva to remineralize the tooth you'd imagine it's a stronger bond than directly filling up crevices with nanohydroxyapatite, and studies seem to [slightly] confirm that.

I just learned about this 5 mins ago and did some basic research. Here's what I found:

- Sensodyne Repair and Protect contains 'NovaMin' (possibly only in some markets; check the ingredients!)

- NovaMin is the brand name for calcium sodium phosphosilicate

- It reacts with saliva to form a physical layer of hydroxyapatite on your teeth

- This layer blocks the tubules that trigger pain from temperature and such

- It also supports remineralization (how exactly?)

I used to use sensodyne for cold-sensitive teeth, but they changed ingredients to include something I’m now allergic to. Or I recently developed an allergy to whatever their unchanged ingredients are.

I have yet to find a replacement for it.

I'm not sure what the takeaway is here? If I read that correctly, they only found one study and just reported their results? Is that because there are literally no studies on this worldwide? I find that very hard to believe.

I know there's value to recording the selection process and all that but it's a little funny to have a review that ends up only including one study: at that point just give me a link, not a paper.

Admittedly it's possible I've been bamboozled

That sounds like that movie "the breast men"

These doctors pioneered silicone breast implants.

Eventually side effects happened, and they tried to prevent those patients from coming forward.

Later, it all came out... and all the patients just came back to them and paid for breast upgrades to the next generation saline implants.

What are the disadvantages of having all the shocks go fully into the jaw?

I’m so very glad someone got the reference. What joy I get from watching Mortimer in action.

_Fine,_ I will rewatch 2 hours of Bob Mortimer clips of Would I Lie to You? instead of doing real work.