j7uy5
Posts by this author
February 4, 2007
Part five comes at the start of the second quarter. I am eating
burritos made with soy, phytoestrogens be damned. Half the beer
is gone. Started the game with 0.66 liters. Now down to
about 330ml. Goes well with the capsaicin.
Finally seeing a decent bit of football. Bears' defense is…
February 4, 2007
Author realizes he overwrote pt 2 with pt 3. Part 2 is lost
forever. Wow. That is more interesting than the game has
been so far. I've eaten all the guacamole. There was too
much garlic in it.
Oh, the game. Another fumble. That makes what, three
fumbles and one interception, and the first…
February 4, 2007
Author getting bored. Turn attention to menu. Eating fresh
guacamole from Arbor Farms, drinking Pilner Urquell, from Plzen
Czech. Some people claim that it is the original pilsner, and
that it is the best beer in the world. Could be.
Oh, the score is 7 to 6, and the Colts just recovered a…
February 4, 2007
I almost never watch football. But this year it is being
broadcast in High Definition TV. Looks great on my 36cm
screen. Pregame show was colorful and totally uninspired.
The coin flip: the Bears win. That's the tenth coin flip in a row
won by the NFC team. Commentator notes that the odds…
February 4, 2007
Yesterday, both
href="http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2007/02/lavender_and_tea_tree_oils_may.php">Abel
and I posted about the unexpected effects of lavender and tea-tree
oils: they've been implicated as causing gynecomastia in boys.
href="http://www.blogpulse.com/search?query=gynecomastia…
February 3, 2007
Regular readers know I am not globally opposed to the use of various
natural products. Even so, I do, from time to time, point out why
we need to be cautious about some herbal or alternative medicine
products. A good case in point was reported recently, pertaining
to breast enlargement in young…
February 3, 2007
It recognition of the lifetime achievements of
href="http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/02/molly_ivins_edu.html">Molly
Ivins, I propose that the term "
href="http://www.slate.com/id/76886/">Bushism" be replaced with
"Shrubism." But I'm not the decider when it comes to the…
February 2, 2007
This morning, or noon, or whatever, I read Jonah's post at The
Frontal Cortex,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/02/the_nfl_and_mental_illness.php">The
NFL and Mental Illness. It is a tragic story, but there is
one thing about it that I want to comment upon, regarding the reported…
February 2, 2007
This is just strange. Not profound, just strange. The same
newspaper on the same day carries two headlines on the same subject:
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/business/02cnd-jobs.html?ex=1328072400&en=c3b7312ad38409ce&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">
Jobs Growth…
February 2, 2007
I almost wrote about this yesterday: a pair of articles indicating that
the FDA is getting more serious about protecting people:
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001496.html">FDA
Revamps Process for Safety of Drugs After Approval
href="http://www.…
February 1, 2007
It's not
really funny, but...
class="ccIcn ccIcnSmall">
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">
src="http://www.flickr.com/images/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif"
alt="Attribution" title="Attribution">
src="http://www.flickr.com/images/cc_icon_noncomm_small.gif…
January 31, 2007
We've lost one of the great journalists of our time: Molly Ivins.
She died after her third round of treatment for breast cancer.
The photo above is from The Nation, one of our premier
progressive publications.
href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070219/molly_ivins">I
Remember Molly…
January 30, 2007
And what an unflattering light it is.
It occurs to me that often, when I write about the pharmaceutical
industry, I have something negative to say. Really, my thoughts
are not all negative. It's just that it is easier to come up with
criticisms when responding to news items.
Anyway, this…
January 27, 2007
...the
USA has not gotten all of its highly-enriched uranium back.
As reported in a special report in the Chicago Tribune, the
USA had a program in the '50's and 60's called "Atoms
for Peace." Initially, we supplied low-grade uranium fuel to
countries that pledged to not develop nuclear weapons…
January 26, 2007
In response to a question, where can I sign up for a clinical trial
on...?
The answer is: go to www.clinicaltrials.gov,
to find out. For example, if you search on "Transcranial
Direct Current Stimulation", you get
href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct/search?term=Transcranial+Direct+Current+…
January 26, 2007
I tend to be skeptical of causes or organizations that include the word
"truth," as in
href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth">Swiftboat
Veterans for Truth.
But I suppose that if one side does it, the
href="http://scienceblogs.com/worldsfair/2007/01/…
January 26, 2007
Fibromyalgia
is a disorder of chronic generalized muscle pain and joint stiffness
with the presence on physical exam of at least 11/18 designated tender
points. (The formal definition is a bit more involved.)
Interestingly, the term was not accepted by the AMA until
1987; the formal definition…
January 25, 2007
Remember
rel="tag">geothermal energy? It was a
popular topic back in the 1960's, particularly among those who were
stridently opposed to the massive investments in nuclear power.
Somehow, though, it was never pursued very aggressively.
Now, there is a massive report published by
href="…
January 24, 2007
Two different news organizations chose two different photos to
illustrate the same event:
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_carter" rel="tag">Jimmy
Carter speaking at
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandeis_University"
rel="tag">Brandeis University, in response to
criticism of…
January 23, 2007
Great idea: create a "volunteer civilian corps" that would give
Americans the opportunity to contribute their valuable skills, to take
the stress off the regular military.
Translation: let's hire mercenaries, who'll think they're getting a
good deal, making $100,000 a year, while getting shot at;…
January 20, 2007
Under-the-Radar Politics
I sure hope this doesn't sound too alarmist, gevalt,
over-the-top, whatever, but I noticed a post on Integrity of
Science that woke me up a little bit - before my coffee was
finished brewing.
(The coffee, by the way, is Trader Joe's Tarrazu; it's made in
a co-op in Costa…
January 17, 2007
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists site is back to normal, only now they have a new, secondary theme.
They are considering both climate change AND the risk of nuclear catastrophe. Based upon their deliberations, they have moved the clock two minutes closer to midnight. The announcement was made…
January 17, 2007
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is one of those trite sayings
that we've all heard "a million times." Certainly, is is
commonplace for persons to have differing opinions on matters such as
the attractiveness of others. Sometimes, though, I've noted a
tendency for peer groups to work toward…
January 17, 2007
The January 12, 2007 issue of MMWR reports on cases of infant deaths due to (presumably) unintentional overdoses on cough and cold preparations. With this being the season that such products are most likely to be used, I thought I'd call attention to this. Many people do not realize that there are…
January 16, 2007
This thing has fascinated me since I was a teenager, when my father had
a subscription to the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_of_the_Atomic_Scientists"
rel="tag">Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists. I read it every
time. They are the ones who keep the famous
href="http://en.…
January 15, 2007
Everyone knows that HIV is American prisons is a huge problem, but we don't hear much about it. There are several reasons for that. For one, prisons are unpleasant places, and for the most part, we don't want to think about what goes on there. For another, many people figure that whatever happens…
January 11, 2007
This was one of Reuters top photos for the day, yesterday. It shows a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070110/ids_photos_wl/r2471213610.jpg">baby
albino alligator. Not only is it an unusual
subject, but
it is a pretty good picture.
A baby albino alligator swims at Sao Paulo's Aquarium…
January 10, 2007
Notice the prominent use of the word "potential." That is
potential as in may or may not ever come to anything. As word
of these potential treatments gets out, we can expect that unscrupulous
persons will try to market things that sound like the potential
treatments I am about to discuss, but…
January 9, 2007
From Reuters:
Horse thinks he's a hound
Jan 8 - A foal who was raised with dogs has become so attached he thinks his mother and father are labradors.
Rather than cantering about meadows with the other horses, Shetland pony foal Rory now spends most of his time chasing sticks and licking bones.…
January 8, 2007
You might think that developing a system for EMR would be fairly
straightforward. After all, some of the things that computers
are
really good for, are the storing, retrieval, and display of
information. But somehow, developing a system that actually
works AND
is easy to use in a hospital…