Research idea: alcohol and handedness

Left-handed respondents over 50 years old drink more often than right-handed respondents in a recent study. If any teen risk data includes handedness, that would be an interesting research project.

Sexually transmitted infection postdoc

As my time on the CDC's STD postdoctoral fellowship draws to a close, Cake Wrecks featured an appropriate cake (above).

New study on the determination of different suicide attempters

People with guns in the house are more likely to commit homicide or suicide, according to hundreds of studies in the injury prevention literature. This difference exists even for households that have owned a gun for years, which means that in most cases, the gun was not bought for the purpose of a homicide or suicide that happened years after purchase. The common interpretation of the data is that many people have impulses that might lead them to homicide or suicide, but those who have a gun available can carry out their impulse quickly and easily, so are more likely to do so. By contrast, the suicidal/homicidal impulse does not last long enough for people to actually go and specially buy a gun for the purposes of carrying out their impulse.

Now a study finds that people who attempt suicide by gun are only moderately more likely to attempt again and successfully kill themselves. It may be the case that in many of the gun attempted suicides, the suicidal attempt was just the fulfillment of an impulse facilitated by gun access. If a gun were not available, certainly some people could be determined enough to actually go out and apply for a gun permit and then get a gun, but for many people the impulse would dissipate, and they would not have carried out the impulse.

Other suicide attempt methods associated with only moderate likelihood of a later successful suicide are gassing, jumping from a height, or drowning, and those with low likelihood of successful suicide are cutting and poisoning. Those with high likelihood of successful suicide are hanging, strangulation, or suffocation.

Likely gender is also involved. Cutting and poisoning are more common among women, and women are less likely to be successful at suicide.

The hypothesis about impulse being the cause of gun attempted suicides implies that most of the methods with low or moderate chance of successful later suicide are easily accessible and implemented, and indeed many involve materials easily available and could conceivably be carried out impulsively. The methods with high likelihood of later suicide also involve easily accessible materials, but may involve psychic costs that make them difficult to implement.

In short, I think the Supreme Court may have just increased the suicide and homicide rates by allowing more people easier access to guns that can be available quickly and easily enough to fulfill an impulse that would otherwise dissipate.

Sarah Palin has a new ad featuring women who, the ad implies, are traditional, sensible moms who know best. The ad makes vague statements like "We don't like the direction this country's going," as the camera lingers over blonde, brunette, grey, and white-haired daughters, mothers, grandmothers, of all shades of white, and even one in a wheelchair with "Don't Tread On Me" on the wheelchair's back. That sure sends a message, but I darn well hope that was completely unintentional. Right?

13 year old girl performs abortion with a pencil

So many things wrong in this news story: in Pennsylvania, a state requiring parental consent for abortions, a 13 year old girl pregnant by her 30 year old "boyfriend" attempts to perform an abortion with a pencil, goes into labor, boyfriend buries the stillbirth or baby in a plastic shopping bag in the woods, and girl goes into hospital.

Things wrong:
1. Sexual coercion of minors often happens in families where parents just aren't paying attention. Parents are so out of the picture here that this 30 year old "boyfriend" has been with this girl for 1 year.
2. Even in the best of cases, adolescents have undeveloped judgement. Where teens will not involve their parents, doctors are the next best alternative. Not allowing doctors as an alternative, teens turn to their own judgement. Adolescents' brains aren't fully developed, so they may not see consequences of their actions.
3. Shady characters like pedophiles have poor judgement. This fellow may even be a murderer if baby was born alive, and yet the boyfriend is the only adult acting in this story. A legal abortion would involve doctors and nurses.
4. Finally and most importantly, illegal abortions are dangerous. On top of the trauma of pregnancy which is usually unsafe for a 13 year old, she had to be hospitalized.

Laws have to work at the borderlines. Most pregnant minors are 17 or so, many parents are supportive, and most teens tell their parents about their pregnancies, but 12 year olds do have sex and get pregnant, and often it's in crazy cases like this where the parents are just not paying attention. In my 8th grade class of 70 children in the best-funded school district in Illinois (at the time), we had 1 pregnant girl, and same in the year before us class of 60 children, a pregnancy rate of about 3% for those two years.

In Utah, a similar case of a woman asking to be attacked in order to induce abortion created a new anti-abortion law.

Could this case possibly cause Pennsylvania to alter its abortion laws so that parental consent was no longer required? I wish, but somehow it seems unlikely.

Parent sex education

A recent XKCD notes that parents may need to teach their parents a lot more about sex now that there are internet popup ads. While it's a funny exaggeration of the situation and it seems to be a new situation, it does illustrate the age-old truth that kids always know more than adults think, making it clear that all the time discussing whether to teach contraception in schools is a waste. A study that I did found that most Southern Baptists surveyed in church Sunday School learn about birth control and STD prevention from their schools and from their peers. Take away the schools, and you are left with peers. And internet pop-up ads.

Quantitative work is not mysterious

Some are impressed by quantitative skills. Those of us who were math and physics majors (or in my case, both) are more realistic. Monday's xkcd gives a secret trick in the mouse-over box that pops up that all math and physics majors learn. For those who haven't figured it out, I'm glad that there's a comic strip to reveal the secret.

Also, a few weeks ago, there was a good xkcd about the attitude of some science types towards about interdisciplinary work.