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Tyler Black, MD

@tylerblack32

11 Sep

Relieving news out of Japan - the spike of suicides seen in women in the fall of 2020 has dissipated and since April of 2021 suicides are similar to 2018 levels.

/1

When taking both male and female suicides, levels in the past few months have been at record lows.

/2

Japan's suicide reporting has led to many western reports of the impact of the pandemic, however it should be pointed out that the pandemic in Japan has never been worse, and Japan is in its fifth lockdown.

/3

Read 4 tweets

Tyler Black, MD

@tylerblack32

10 Sep

1/ Today is #WorldSuicidePreventionDay, & soon #TruthAndReconciliation day, so lets talk about Indigenous Suicide.

Most organizations will talk about the frequency of white suicide, but, male or female, youth Indigenous suicides are as/more common and poorly discussed.

2/ In the US, Indigenous suicide in BOYS & YOUNG MEN is as common as the well-discussed "middle age white men" group, and late in life we see the escalation of white suicide.

In women, INDENGENOUS GIRLS and YOUNG WOMEN have as high a suicide rate as the middle age white peak.

3/ In Canada, Indigenous suicide is THREEFOLD more common than non-Indigenous suicide. And for Inuit, NINEFOLD. For Inuit men in Inuit Nunangat, the risk is THIRTYFOLD higher in the young adult age group.

Read 12 tweets

Tyler Black, MD

@tylerblack32

8 Sep

A Thread with Nuance!!

Because the media is obsessed with Japanese suicide data ("suicidal" Japan is a lazy, one-sided trope in Western news), I'd like to add nuance.

First, here are the graphs for who suicides in Japan for the past 5 years, to February 2021! /1

If we zoom into the men, we can see that there was a decrease in early 2020, an increase at the end, and things are back to normal-ish for 2021. In fact, 2021 is a record low for January and 2nd lowest for February. /2

If we zoom into the women, we can see that there is again an early mild decrease followed by a SUBSTANTIAL increase at the end of 2020. Though things are still elevated in Jan-Feb 2021, much less so and hopefully on the way to normalizing. /3

Read 16 tweets

Tyler Black, MD

@tylerblack32

3 Sep

Anti-masking (& worried) parents:

With very few (and legitimate) exceptions, your child is ok with masks, and has no problem wearing them. Most kids adjust to masks perfectly and love playing with others, talking to people, and cruising around with them.

/1

I have worked with, played with, and chatted with hundreds of kids in masks during the pandemic, & have specifically asked how they feel about the mask situation. Almost uniformly, no matter age, there is a shrug and a "it helps others"/"it's safer" and then we work/play/talk.
/2

I hear lots of "i'm glad i get to play with my friends again" & "i don't mind"s. Without the filter/hovering of parents, there is a lot of "it bothers my mom & dad more than it bothers me."

I have had some kids tell me they don't like them, but they know they should & its ok

/3

Read 6 tweets

Tyler Black, MD

@tylerblack32

3 Sep

THREAD: #astrophotography "stacking"

If you're following me you've seen pictures of amazing nebulas and galaxies from space.

How can I take this dark portion of the sky and get a nebula out of it? From the ground? From light-polluted Vancouver?!

Physics to the rescue! /1

In #Astrophotography, cameras & randomness of light sources in space filtering through the atmosphere produce noise.

But! The photons of space are there! So we do something called "Stacking".

Here is one 90-second exposure of the Iris Nebula. EW! barely looks like anything. /2

However, here is 5 x 90s images stacked together. as the noise is random, and the signal coming from space is constant, as we add more images, we start being able to separate the signal from the noise.

See how there is more nebula visible now? /3

Read 10 tweets

Tyler Black, MD

@tylerblack32

1 Sep

Why am i taking a telescope picture of my tablet? It's a process in #astrophotography of taking "flats". See every telescope/lens/filter/focus combination has different light properties, and if i take something that is pure white, the computer can tell the defects.

/1

This is what my "flat frame" looks like. Instead of being pure white, you can see a fading away from the center (what we call "vignetting")

/2

So if I don't take a flat frame, my picture would have a faded corners appearance, like so

/3

Read 5 tweets

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