Shows
Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsHookworms: Can parasites improve your health?What if you could treat your prediabetes with . . . worms? Regina and Kristin dive into a surprising early-phase clinical trial on hookworm therapy—that’s right, intentionally infecting yourself with parasitic worms—to treat metabolic conditions. They dig into the biological rationale (inflammation, abdominal fat, and gut immunology), the clever study design (hello, Tabasco sauce!), and the statistical chops behind this phase 1B trial (block randomization, missing data, and nonparametric hypothesis tests). Along the way, expect self-experimenting scientists, worm sex, poop analysis, and the world’s nerdiest aphrodisiac: a well-documented protocol. Statistical topicsRandomized controlled trial (RCT)Primary a...2025-05-051h 08
Under the Influence with Jo PiazzaSunday Nice Things: Normal CurvesDropping a great new podcast in your feed today. Normal Curves is a podcast about sexy science & serious statistics. Ever try to make sense of a scientific study and the numbers behind it? Listen in to a lively conversation between two stats-savvy friends who break it all down with humor and clarity.
Professors Regina Nuzzo of Gallaudet University and Kristin Sainani of Stanford University discuss academic papers journal club-style — except with more fun, less jargon, and some irreverent, PG-13 content sprinkled in. Join Kristin and Regina as they dissect the data, challenge the claims, and arm you wit...2025-04-271h 06
Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsAlcohol: Are happy hours good for your heart?Does a daily glass of wine really keep the cardiologist away? It’s a claim we’ve all heard: light to moderate drinking is good for your heart. But is it science or just a convenient excuse for happy hour? In this episode, we dive into the history behind this claim, discuss the challenges of observational studies and statistical adjustment, and explore attempts at randomized trials and natural experiments to get to the bottom of this boozy debate. Grab your drink—or maybe don’t—and join us! Statistical topicsStatistical AdjustmentRegressionResidual and Unmeasured ConfoundingRandomized TrialsMult...2025-04-211h 05
Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsThe Red Dress Effect: Are women in red sexier?Wear red and drive men wild with lust – or so says scientific research on color’s role in human mating. But can a simple color swap really boost a woman’s hotness score? In this episode, we delve into the evidence behind the Red Dress Effect, from a controversial first study in college men to what the latest research says about who this trick might work for (and who it might not). Along the way we encounter red monkey butts, old-Internet websites, the Winner’s Curse in scientific research, adversarial collaborations, and why size (ahem, sample size) really does matter. ...2025-04-071h 08
Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsVitamin D Part 2: Good for more than just your bones?Can you really sit on your couch, pop vitamin D pills, and shave seconds off your 5k? Touted as a miracle cure-all, vitamin D is claimed to slash cancer and infection risks while boosting mood, cognition, and athletic performance. But does upping your vitamin D really make you healthier and happier? In this episode, we’ll follow the epidemiologic evidence—from clues in petri dishes through randomized trials. Along our journey, we’ll encounter chocolate-fueled Nobel Prizes, rock stars, pasty Brits, and a tangled mess of promiscuous variables.Statistical topicsecological studiesecological fallacycorrelation is not causat...2025-03-241h 09
New PodcastsNormal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious Statistics Culture, Society, Science
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Looking for an antidote to all the bro-casts out there? Normal Curves is flipping the script on how we talk about scientific research. Professors Regina Nuzzo (Gallaudet University) and Kristin Sainani (Stanford University) discuss papers like a journal club does — except with more fun, less jargon, and some irreverent, PG-13 content sprinkled in. In the first full episode, they tackle the infamous Sweaty T-Shirt Study. Do pheromones really drive attraction? Is sexy sweat a myth? Or is the truth… kind...2025-03-1302 minNormal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsVitamin D Part 1: Is the Deficiency Epidemic Real?Is America really facing an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency? While this claim is widely believed, the story behind it is packed with twists, turns, and some pesky statistical cockroaches. In this episode, we’ll dive into a study on Hawaiian surfers, expose how shifting goalposts can create an epidemic, tackle dueling medical guidelines, and flex our statistical sleuthing skills. By the end, you might wonder if the real deficiency lies in the data.Statistical topicsdichotomizationnormal distribution standard deviationresearcher biasesconflicts of intereststatistical sleuthingMethodologic morals“Arbitrary thresholds make for arbit...2025-03-101h 23Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsPheromones: Is sexy sweat the key to genetic diversity?Sweaty t-shirt dating parties, sex pheromone dating sites, choosing your dating partner by sniffing them up — wacko fringe fads or evidence-based mating strategies? And what does your armpit stain have to do with your kids’ immune systems, or hormonal contraceptive pills, or divorce rates? In this episode of Normal Curves, Kristin and Regina reach back into the 1990s and revisit the scientific paper that started it all: The Sweaty T-Shirt Study. They bring a sharp eye and open mind, critically examining the study and following the line of research to today. Along the way, they...2025-02-2457 min
Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsNormal Curves: Who are we and what is this podcast about?Welcome to a lively conversation about science that's like a journal club, but with less jargon, more fun, and a touch of PG-13 flair. In this introduction, Professors Regina Nuzzo and Kristin Sainani share how they met in graduate school, what they’ve been doing since then, how they’ll choose edgy topics and journal articles to dissect, and a bit about what makes them tick. Join them for their fresh, engaging take on scientific studies, data analysis, and statistical sleuthing. Kristin and Regina’s online courses: Demystifying Data: A Modern Approach to Statistical Understanding Cli...2025-02-1713 minNormal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious StatisticsNormal Curves TrailerNormal Curves is a podcast about sexy science & serious statistics. Ever try to make sense of a scientific study and the numbers behind it? Listen in to a lively conversation between two stats-savvy friends who break it all down with humor and clarity. Professors Regina Nuzzo of Gallaudet University and Kristin Sainani of Stanford University discuss academic papers journal club-style — except with more fun, less jargon, and some irreverent, PG-13 content sprinkled in. Join Kristin and Regina as they dissect the data, challenge the claims, and arm you with tools to assess scientific studies on your own.2025-02-1302 min
PT Inquest288 Common Errors in Strength and Conditioning Meta-Analyses On this episode we were joined by special guest researcher Dr. Kristin Sainani from Stanford University. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Common Errors in Meta-Analyses and Meta-Regressions in Strength & Conditioning Research. Kadlec D, Sainani KL, Nimphius S. Sports Med. 2023;53(2):313-325. doi:10.1007/s40279-022-01766-0 Due to copyright laws, unless the article is open source we cannot legally post the PDF on the website for the world to download at will. Brought to you by CSMi – https://www.humacnorm.com/ptinquest ...2023-04-1851 min
Breaking Beta | The Science of ClimbingBetter Call Paul | Are Your Statistics Even Significant, Bro?In this episode, Kris and Paul discuss statistics and their significance with data analyst and fellow Power Company coach, Dale Wilson. He explains his views on statistical models, p-values, and more — and breaks down how we should be looking at all this data as climbers.
*Additional studies/resources mentioned in this episode:
Scientists rise up against statistical significance by Valentin Amrhein, Sander Greenland, and Blake McShane; published in Nature 567 (305-307), 2019.
800 scientists say it’s time to abandon “statistical significance” by Brian Resnick; published on Vox; March, 22, 2019.
Systematic review of the use of...2022-06-0151 min
Stats + StoriesAcademic Writing for Everyone | Stats + Short Stories Episode 227Rosemary and John both have a passion for teaching. Their experience with classes ranges from mentored studies with a few students, to face-to-face classes with close to 100 students. Recently online classes that might be held synchronously or asynchronously with classes somewhere in between. What if you wanted to offer classes too many more students, who might be based anywhere around the world. Teaching at scale is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Kristin Sainani (née Cobb).
Kristin Sainani(née Cobb)(@KristinSainani) is a professor at Stanford University. She teaches statistics and writing; works on st...2022-04-1408 minStats + StoriesThe Statistical Detective | Stats + Stories Episode 226No matter how careful a researcher or statistician is there's the possibility that an error made exists in reported data. The trick as a reader is figuring out how to identify errors and then understand what they might mean. Learning how to be a statistical detective as a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Kristin Sainani.
Kristin Sainani(née Cobb)(@KristinSainani) is a professor at Stanford University. She teaches statistics and writing; works on statistical projects in sports medicine; and writes about health, science and statistics for a range of audiences. She authored the health c...2022-04-0726 min
Everything Hertz120: How false beliefs spread in science (with Cailin O'Connor)Dan and James chat with Cailin O'Connor (University of California, Irvine) about the how false beliefs spread in science and remedies for this issue
Here's what they cover:
Why should psychologist scientists learn about the philosophy of science?
Cailin's new preprint on error propogation that she co-authrored
Boyd and Richerson's "Culture and the Evolutionary Process" book
Episode 91 with Kristin Sainani that discussed magnitude based inference
Christie Aschwanden on Magnitude Based Inference
The Misinformation age, co-authored by Cailin
Cailin's paper on the retraction of scientific papers
With Scite, you can be alterted whether a given paper has...2020-11-1647 min
Sports Biomechanics Lecture SeriesLecture 27 - Kristin Sainani - Tips for Scientific WritingLecture 27 of the Sports Biomechanics Lecture Series #SportsBiomLS 2020-09-0400 minSports Biomechanics Lecture SeriesLecture 20 - Kristin Sainani - Statistics in Sports ScienceLecture 20 of the Sports Biomechanics Lecture Series #SportsBiomLS 2020-07-0300 min
Café com NanoExpresso 6 - Conversando com leigosNo expresso dessa semana, o William Leonel (@wl_leonel) fala sobre seus constantes questionamentos sobre como conversar com leigos. A conversa teve inspiração em um webinar da American Chemical Society chamado "Talking to the Lay Public" ministrado pela professora Kristin Sainani da Universidade de Stanford.
Entre em contato conosco em:
E-mail: contato@cafecomnano.com
Twitter: twitter.com/cafecomnano
Instagram: instagram.com/cafecomnano/
Facebook: facebook.com/cafecomnano/
Membros nesse programa:
Bruno Lima – twitter.com/BHRLima9
William Leonel - tw...2020-05-0811 minEverything Hertz91: Shifting the goalposts in statistics (with Kristin Sainani)We chat with Kristin Sainani (Stanford University) about a popular statistical method in sports medicine research (magnitude based inference), which has been banned by some journals, but continues to thrive in some pockets of scholarship. We also discuss the role of statistical inference in the current replication crisis.
Links and info
What is magnitude based inference and how did Kristin get involved in this?
The response to Kristin’s critiques
This is really an issue of small sample sizes
Kristin’s Coursera course on scientific writing
The readability of scientific articles is decreasing
The role of stat...2019-09-021h 03