palmd
Posts by this author
April 8, 2009
Blake has pointed out to me that my feedburner feed isn't working, so I'm changing back to the scienceblogs feed. If you use rss feeds, please change your settings accordingly. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.
April 8, 2009
The Times is reporting that health care workers actively assisted in the torture of CIA detainees overseas. This, as you might imagine, sickens me.
Many of us have seen movies or read spy novels where a doctor stands by as someone is tortured, monitoring their condition and telling the…
April 7, 2009
Remember last week when I told you about this guy over at HuffPo who was all excited about an experiment on spooky distance healing? Remember how the "study" used glorified Scientology E-meters and ginned up the negative data to make it look good? Remember how this guy abused the word quantum…
April 6, 2009
I don't know what it's like to be autistic. I don't know what it's like to raise an autistic child. For this knowledge, I have to rely on others, and there are plenty of talented bloggers out there who write about these experiences all the time. What I do know is that there is a cadre of autism…
April 3, 2009
Well, HuffPo does it again. No other mainstream news outlet brings the stupid on health news like Arianna. Take today's vapid article on vitamin supplementation.
Let me remind all of you amateur biologists that vitamins, discovered over a hundred years ago, were found to be "vital" to health.…
April 3, 2009
Open Lab is a project that collects all the best science blogging of the year, kills a few trees, and prints them all together in something called a "book". Of course, I am featured in Open Lab 2008 (with 49 of my closest friends), and I'd love to be this year as well.
Here is how you submit a…
April 2, 2009
I don't get anywhere near the time I'd like with my daughter. We have, to say the least, rather divergent schedules. For a while I was getting her up in the morning, but my schedule is demanding that I get up earlier, and she's not so happy about that. This morning I got lucky, though.
This…
April 2, 2009
We're being far to easy on our medical students. In the old days, when giants walked the Earth, medical students wore sackcloth and lived in the anatomy lab with the cadavers. They didn't have time to do something as frivolous as writing.
Well, they are doing just that. Some rather clever med…
April 2, 2009
"You know the moon landings were ginned up on a Hollywood sound stage, right?"
"Hey, how come it's so hard to get the Truth out there about the 9/11 attacks being staged by the CIA/Mossad?"
"I don't know why they think I'm crazy; the aliens really did probe my anus."
We hear crap like this all the…
April 1, 2009
I have this friend. Wait, let me backtrack. I have this other friend, his name is Danny Dan. We pretty much grew up together, but lost touch as adults. A couple of years ago, I was at the mall with my little girl, and I saw a kid with a name tag from the same school as my kid. On the tag was…
April 1, 2009
My friend Isis wrote today about her immigrant past, and it reminded me a bit about mine, although a generation removed. Last year I wrote a little piece about rediscovering family, and today I'd like tell you a little more detail about their immigration.
My grandfather Phil came from a town…
March 30, 2009
This war taking place in our nation's medical schools and academic medical centers. Orac at Respectful Insolence has been tracking this trend, as have those of us writing at Science-Based Medicine. It is a war between those who feel that medicine should continue to be based on science and those…
March 27, 2009
Pope Benedict, the former head of the same Church body that ran the Inquisition, has done it again. He just committed an act which is morally equivalent to involuntary sodomy, and did it to an entire continent.
Africa, the epicenter of the AIDS pandemic, sometimes seems to have not all that much…
March 26, 2009
The best way to prevent sexually transmitted infections is the proper use of condoms. That being said, it's not the only way to prevent STI's. Abstinence is one way, but it involves an amputation of sorts---the removal of a critical human behavior. Another amputation (of sorts) that prevents…
March 26, 2009
My first blogiversary at scienceblogs.com came and went on March 20th, and I failed to eat cake. Oh well, next time I'll remember party favors.
March 25, 2009
Whatever you think of its political reporting, no other mainstream media outlet can bring the stupid like the Huffington Post, especially with regards to medical reporting. Its most famous contributors include antivaccinationists like David Kirby and Robert Kennedy, Jr., and kumbaya therapy…
March 24, 2009
The current insanity at JAMA has been well reported elsewhere (also see these links: here, here, here, and here). I'll give you a thumbnail sketch. A professor from a small university wrote to JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) to let them know that an author of an…
March 23, 2009
There's nothing like the sound of a little kid laughing. It's not just a sound, but an experience of the entire body and mind. They lose control---often of the bladder, and without shame. Anything sets them off---a joke, a pratfall, a burp (and everyone's favorite, the butt-trumpet).
We had a…
March 22, 2009
I was invited to speak on Atheist Talk this morning, a radio show put on by Minnesota Atheists. Stephanie Zvan did the interview, and she's quite good. The show is available as a podcast, and today's show had little to do at all with atheism (in fact, in all the times Stephanie and I have…
March 21, 2009
Janet and I have another bloggingheads discussion up. We talk about ethics, alternative medicine, and her prostate. Go and watch.
March 20, 2009
My recent post on head trauma got me thinking. The practice of trepanation (the drilling of holes in the head) is thousands of years old. While looking up information on the practice I came upon this woodcut.
The engraving is, I believe, from 16th century England. Over at wikipedia, editors…
March 19, 2009
I played hooky from the office this morning. My hours have really been weighing down on me, and with my recent back injury, I really wanted a break.
Then my wife begged me to take our daughter to school. And stop at the store. And find the shopping list in her car. I was unhappy. I made her…
March 19, 2009
That would be a good descriptor for an average summer blockbuster, but really, it's just to catch your attention so that I can send you over to my friend Isis's place. She's talked a major academic science organization to match her to give a scholarship to a promising young scientist. How will…
March 18, 2009
I often write about "cult medicine", that is, medical practices that share many characteristics of cults: they are based on faith, they follow charismatic leaders, they separate people from their money---you know, like The Church of Scientology. The COS has everything going for it---a religious…
March 18, 2009
How can a seemingly trivial head injury kill you?
To answer this, you need a little anatomy.
Your brain is a pretty important organ, and is well protected. It sits inside a thick armor (the skull) and floats cushioned in a bath of cerebral-spinal fluid. It's surrounded by several layers of…
March 18, 2009
A frequent commenter on the conscience issue has raised a lot of questions on an recent post. He seems somewhat frustrated that I don't understand his point. What I think he doesn't realize is that I do understand his point all too well---he is just wrong. Here is an example:
You also still haven'…
March 17, 2009
I've written a number of times how blindingly stupid and irresponsible Deirdre Imus has been. Now, Don Imus has revealed he has prostate cancer, and he is apparently surprised. According to ABC News, "he was surprised by the diagnosis because he had been following a healthy diet for the last…
March 17, 2009
Apparently there's been a problem with the commenting function on the blog. I think this is fixed, so if you've been trying to comment and haven't been able to, try again, and if you have a problem, email me at palmd [at] 1 x10^100 mail.com.
March 16, 2009
Over at Neurotopia, Scicurious has been doing some terrific writing about depression. Mental illness is a topic I've written about many times, so I was inspired to look into the vault and see what kind of goodies I had back there. Well, since I truly loathe people who dole out dangerous medical…
March 16, 2009
I woke up yesterday morning feeling almost rested, but something was missing. During the week, I don't have time to have coffee at home, but on the weekend, I love to brew a pot and slowly enjoy it while reading my Sunday feeds, writing, or putting together the PalCast. On this morning, I was to…