111–120 of 148 posts
Personal anecdote getting an airthings that reminds me to open the window (along with a pushover api setup) has probably been the biggest productivity improvement in 10 years.
In studies of pollution and impacts on health, the confounding factors often have a larger impact on the health outcome than the pollutant, such as particulate level, and therefore significant control of confounders is required to estimate any impact on the health outcome. The strong effect in this study is highly suggestive of a confounder rather than a real effect from particles or other pollutants and therefore would require a much better study design to support tacking action at a policy level with an expectation of a huge impact.
Fine to put filters into improve overall air quality but just not with the benefit rationale suggested in this study.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but I also think the extreme results from this study aren't going to hold up to further research. there already is further research. and the results do seem to be holding up. the study you're quoting from is the one linked in the 2nd paragraph of the article. this is from the 3rd paragraph: > But it’s consistent with a growing literature on the cognitive impact of air pollution, which finds that everyone from chess…
> there already is further research. and the results do seem to be holding up. You’re conflating different results. The results of the headline study are dramatic in ways that aren’t holding up. The test score increase happened after a single year of putting air filters in class rooms. That’s minimal exposure to purified air for a fraction of the day, 5 days a week, for less than a year of classes. The other studies…
Are they? Several towards the end of the list are specifically about short term day-to-day effects across a range of situations.
> There’s a footnote that says many weren’t even used.
Quite damning if true.
> they didn’t even detect the VOCs they were trying to filter before they started filtering
That is confusing the reasoning that led to the company footing the bill versus what was being looked at here. The lack of VOCs is actually in the author's favor as it eliminates "exposure to atypical VOCs" as an otherwise fairly severe confounding factor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller. All research is met on HN by people who know better and will tell you why it's flawed. There isn't a greater collection of expertise in the history of the world than on HN. Edit: I meant to add: What value can we find in this research? It wasn't published as scripture, the perfect answer to all our problems. It's one study of some interesting event…
> Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller. The reality of any underpowered study could always be “larger as well as smaller”. This statement doesn’t add anything to the conversation. The mistake is pivoting around poorly structured and underpowered research. > All research is met on HN by people who know better and will tell you why it's flawed. This is a misunderstanding. People who know…
For example
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ina.12042
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0668.2010...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
CO2 is a proxy for many other gasses. Cheap CO2 sensors sense volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and use those to estimate CO2. Many of those gasses do impact cognitive performance. It's not obvious to me why CO2 would, but if CO2 is going up, so is everything else we breathe out. CO2 where I am is somewhere in the ≈400ppm-1000ppm range -- 0.04% or 0.1% -- and it's pretty inert. I'm not sure what harm it does. If it…
Rising co2 levels I believe are nowhere near the differential inside vs outside when windows are closed. There’s lots of reason to believe that rising co2 specifically lowers cognitive performance - our brains work on o2 and our body actively works to expel co2 as a waste product - increasing co2 levels means the body has less O2 available and has to work harder on co2 expulsion for survival instead of powering the b…
1) CO2 levels have risen from under 300PPM in 1860 to over 400PPM right now -- by around 150PPM -- with a rise of about 25PPM per decade for the past four decades.
The difference in CO2 levels in my bedroom with windows open and closed is a couple hundred PPM (500-800ppm range in my bedroom, with windows open and closed, respectively). I can definitely feel a difference in performance if I don't let in fresh air. It's more than climate change (300ppm versus 150ppm range), but not big-O more, and climate change is on-track to get there in another few decades. Conference rooms might be over 1000ppm, but it still big-O similar.
2) CO2 levels are measured in parts-per-MILLION. That argument simply doesn't make sense. The atmosphere is 21% oxygen. Crowding out oxygen is simply not an issue. Critically, from personal experience, if I have some dry ice in a room, I generally don't suffer.
People run into problems when CO2 levels reach a out 5000 ppm over many hours. Even the most dense conference rooms don't hit that.
Many air filters are generating annoying sounds. You get better air, but the distraction by the constant noise of the filter might be more than counter productive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
do younger children have weaker immune systems?
Not as much as their immune systems haven't been around very long and seen as many diseases.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not as much as their immune systems haven't been around very long and seen as many diseases.
I was under the impression that younger kids had stronger immune systems for that reason, which is why the common wisdom is to expose your kid to as much as possible when they're young, because it's easier for them to fight it off and later rely on resistance?
A good overview of the allergy situation is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
Though that article goes into more about young human immune systems too. TLDR: Yeah ... it's complicated, but the evidence seems to, just maybe, lean towards more exposure being better. So, you're right, I think?
Anecdote: Our daycare was a plague ship right after covid 'ended'. None of the kids had any immunities, and they made up for it in a hurry. Man, what a terrible year. As a result, the daycare got a grant to get N-95 air filters installed and those UV lights that Chinese restaurants tend to have in the bathrooms. One per room. What. A. Difference. The infants and kids coming up are not nearly as sick, and when they do…
I wonder how much of the improvement was due to reversion to the mean. When bringing everyone back, you would expect a sharp peak of infections which would decay to normal levels after a while - filters or not. I'm sure they do still have some positive effect though.
Rigorously: no way to tell now, the time has passed.
Likely: you're right. But what little staff is there from pre-covid says that they have helped a lot too.
Reality: here's $500/wk and my kid, in return I get really sick for a year no matter what.