terrasig
Posts by this author
December 8, 2006
As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.
In yesterday's Wall Street Journal (sub req'd, but I'll quote extensively), Stacy Meichtry wrote on an Italian Roman Catholic religious order whose cancer research laboratory, owned formerly by Pfizer, has recently entered partnerships with this and…
December 7, 2006
We last spoke in September about the case of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor unjustly imprisoned in Libya for the inconceivable charge of intentionally injecting 426 children with HIV at Al-Fateh Hospital in Benghazi. These health care workers are guilty of nothing other than…
December 6, 2006
In a note of sad irony, I am finishing a chapter in Thomas Hager's excellent, The Demon Under The Microscope, on the elixir of sulfanilamide deaths in the US in 1937. A specific formulation of this truly miraculous antibiotic at the time was associated with over 100 deaths from renal failure.…
December 5, 2006
Now here's a wreath that won't create controversy or get the homeowner's association after you!
If you're agonizing over what to get for that hard-to-figure relative, how about a personalized gift wreath for the holidays?
The idea: create your own memorWreath (PDF here).
A nicely personalized…
December 3, 2006
Yesterday, Revere (Effect Measure) threw down the gauntlet challenging those critical of alternative medicine to examine work done at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 2000 on the medicinal properties of chicken soup.
The news release cites work that a chicken/vegetable soup, but not…
November 30, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, November 30, 2006
CONTACT: NIH News Media Branch, 301-496-5787
NIH ANNOUNCES MORE THAN 50 AWARDS IN THE PATHWAY TO INDEPENDENCE PROGRAM
Five-Year Grants Foster Transition to Research Independence
Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., director of the National Institutes of…
November 30, 2006
One of PharmMom's first jobs, before or around the time I was born, was as secretary for a Pfizer drug sales rep back in the golden days of the pharmaceutical industry (1960s). Doc Bushwell and I have been going back and forth the last couple of days on my post regarding Takeda Pharma's…
November 28, 2006
My subscription to US Food and Drug Administration missives usually returns horrific or, at least, disturbing cases of food or drug recalls.
However, I never knew 1) that processed, prepackaged turkey and cheese sandwiches normally contain anchovy flavoring and, more surprisingly, 2) that some…
November 28, 2006
With more than half of my life in the South and the West, there's still no taking the Jersey out of the boy:
What American accent do you have?Your Result: The Northeast
Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you…
November 27, 2006
Direct-to-consumer drug advertising is an unusual art form, even for those who consider advertising to be art.
So why is Abe Lincoln in the kitchen with a talking beaver and a chessboard??
This imagery is the latest in the fight among prescription sleep-aids, brought to you in this case by…
November 26, 2006
Via Will's Clicked, a Spanish TV show on science and technology demonstrates the "shear-thickening" property of a non-Newtonian fluid (i.e., where rapid application of forces causes the fluid to behave like a solid).
Pretty cool - watch what happens around 1:49 when one of the hosts stands still…
November 22, 2006
This was going to be a funny post until I saw this video, provided by the Cary, NC, Fire Department via our local newspaper.
With the storms up and down the US East Coast today and tomorrow (and frickin' snow in Georgia and South Carolina), our local public radio station just ran warnings to those…
November 22, 2006
I read yesterday with joy the post by fellow ScienceBlogger, Alex Palazzo (The Daily Transcript), on his disbelief that autism advocates are selling oral supplements of yeast RNA. The pseudoscientific rationale is that RNA might chelate divalent cations (i.e., mercury) in a less toxic fashion (i.e…
November 20, 2006
Long ago in a place far away, I was a full-time pharmacy professor. I love pharmacy students, almost as much as I love medical and nursing students. But, to me, pharmacy students were special because they would one day be the frontline health professional seen first by the majority of the public…
November 17, 2006
"It's shameless," says David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at University College London. "Medicines work or don't work, and they should be labelled accordingly," he says.
Professor Colquhoun is quoted in today's New Scientist in response to the first registration of an herbal product (arnica…
November 16, 2006
Over the last several days, Dr. RW, Orac, and Joseph (Corpus Callosum) have been discussing the virtues, or lack thereof, of a national medical student association espousing the coverage of integrative, complementary and alternative medicine (ICAM) modalities in the medical curriculum.
Our SciBling…
November 13, 2006
Both Dr. RW and Orac have great posts this week on the dichotomy of critical thinking skills espoused by the American Medical Students Association (AMSA), a US national medical student association. Most interesting is their support this week of a PharmFree Day on 16 November whose nobel goal is to…
November 11, 2006
Some Saturday morning humor that literally had me laughing out loud, as only The Onion can do (foul language, but I think even PharmMom will appreciate this):
Frito-Lay Angrily Introduces Line Of Healthy Snacks
"Weren't Sun Chips healthy enough for you, you goddamn hippie bastards?" Carey added.
November 10, 2006
Readers of this near-weekly feature have been the beneficiaries over the last few weeks of the wisdom from my scientific and wine colleague, Erleichda.
Now with the feature back in my hands, I am now realizing that one difficulty in keeping up is finding wines of value that are widely accessible…
November 10, 2006
While sitting at Chez Pharmboi tonight preparing the belated Friday Fermentable, I picked up our Nov 2006 issue of National Geographic. Therein, is a superbly-written, photographically-dense article by SciBling colleague, Carl Zimmer, entitled, "A Fin is a Limb is a Wing: How Evolution Fashioned…
November 8, 2006
Natural products is an interesting field of science since various parts of it appeal greatly to different segments of the general public.
Hence, we are very excited and honored to be recognized by the culinary functional foods and nutraceuticals blog, Eating Fabulous, written by Ruth Schaffer at…
November 8, 2006
All I was doing yesterday was answering our webhost-wide "Ask A ScienceBlogger" query about the most notable local election races in our respective communities. I was taken aback by getting more traffic on my displeasure with Durham DA, Mike Nifong, than on any other topic since I last asked…
November 7, 2006
This press release just in from NIH is entitled, "Stephen E. Straus, M.D. becomes senior advisor to NIH director," but what it really means is that a change in leadership is occurring at NIH's alternative medicine arm, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM).
Straus…
November 7, 2006
We've been out-of-town for a few days but the election day "Ask A ScienceBlogger" requested that we note a local election of special import.
One cannot live in the North Carolina Research Triangle area without being aware of the polarizing re-election campaign for Durham district attorney, Mike…
November 3, 2006
Another Wine Escapade: Valle du Lot
by Erleichda
Sweetpea and I enjoy hiking as a platform for vacationing (when we're not partaking of some beach spot). We've managed to attract a few likeminded fellow hikers, and are now able to customize our adventurers to suit our collective preferences…
November 2, 2006
Many thanks to my oncology colleague and ScienceBlogs.com SciBling, Orac, for his repeated referrals to my posts as of late. He's been one of my blogging mentors from the genesis of my blogosphere presence and generally ranks #1 or #2 as the source of my referral traffic.
So, in return, let me…
November 2, 2006
Earlier this week during Chris Mooney's NC visit, I noted two articles in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times on reports of caloric restriction (CR) and the possibility that some drugs might replicate the health benefits of CR. The coincidence seemed quite odd, so I suspected that some…
November 1, 2006
Chris Mooney has left the stadium.
NC Triangle bloggers and medical professionals had a great three days visiting with Seed correspondent, ScienceBlogger, and author of The Republican War on Science. Chris' book continues to pay dividends to the point that even James Carville recently invoked his…
October 30, 2006
I've been delinquent in reading other blogs as of late, so I missed last week's arrival of Rick and Patty's new baby, Catherine, at Science, Shrimp and Grits.
Rick is a great chemistry teacher in South Carolina who always has spot-on insights on the state of science education, together with…
October 27, 2006
As Bora has posted, the NC Triangle area is about to be paid a visit by Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science, Seed Magazine Washington correspondent, and ScienceBlogger at The Intersection.
The book signing and lecture events are below but I wanted to invite local folks to a meet-…