Quite Interesting

Unfortunatley, high paid celebrities like Stephen Colbert, gets lots of vacation time. I do not, so while Colbert was off air, I found another show to help me unwind, and it was great because I could watch it and be productive at the same time.

QI (quite interesting) is a British television show that challenges our "common sense" knowledge. Two episodes caught my attention when it comes to research.

The first, "Geometry,"  talks about the common belief that horizontal stripes make people appear thinner than vertical stripes, however according to researcher Peter Thompson from York University, not only is this false, the opposite is true: horizontal stripes make people appear thinner. You can find the first conversation on the topic from 1:50- 5:13, and a conversation with Peter Thompson from 7:25-8:47. It's a bit lengthy, but informative and hilarious at the same time!

The second episode that caught my attention was "Illness." In this episode, they did not talk about a particular study done, but they discussed some important information about research studies in general. The conversation starts about the Placebo Effect, a very well known and supported effect in research. They also bring up some faults of commonly cited research, including that sometimes research is poorly done and not reliable, or the researcher does what they call "cherry picking" where they only report the trials that support what the researcher wants to report, and ignore the rest. It is important to keep these things in mind when we read research or hear about cited studies. You can find the relevant portion at 7:42-11:44 min.