j7uy5 | May 26, 2008I'm harping on the same string. A month ago, I
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2008/05/poisoning_ourselves.php">noted
how it was not necessary for terrorists to figure out how to poison us.
Our own companies are doing it for them. Now, our
government is doing a heck of a job to make it easier for companies to
poison us, and to get away with it.
As noted by the former WaPo reporter, Ed Bruske, the USDA is no longer
keeping track of pesticide use. Formerly, the USDA published
an annual report a chemical usage in agriculture. It was the
only comprehensive, reliable…
j7uy5 | May 25, 2008
I am not sure that it would make sense to grow artichokes, if the
garden were serving to supply food in a crisis. But we are not having a crisis yet, so we can have fun.
Artichokes are good, but the amount of food you get, per unit
of garden, is not great.
The artichoke was sort of an impulse buy. I thought it was an
attractive plant. Perhaps there will be a trend to make
gardens both attractive and edible.
This photo was first converted to "black and white" (actually
grayscale) because it seemed that it might look good that way.
Then I gave it a sepia tone, but did not really like…
j7uy5 | May 25, 2008Despite a chorus among citizenry and punditry to end oil company
subsidies, it turns out that yet another has been foisted upon us.
What is worse, it was created under the guise of a populist
program:
Households will spend about $90 billion more this
year on gasoline if fuel prices remain at current levels, according to
a forecast by economists at Credit Suisse Holdings in New York. That
will consume about 80 percent of the more than $110 billion in rebate
checks the government is sending out.
So most of the rebate money will end up in the pockets of big oil.
It will not boost spending…
j7uy5 | May 24, 2008Sleepdoctor (Michael Rack) alerts us to a new pharmaceutical product in
development: BGC20-0166. He doesn't say a lot, except to
dismiss it out of hand. That is appropriate, but I thought
I'd add a bit of explanation.
His post:
Saturday, May 03, 2008
href="http://sleepdoctor.blogspot.com/2008/05/pills-dont-cure-obstructive-sleep-apnea.html">Pills
don't cure Obstructive Sleep Apnea
The life sciences company BTG is developing a pill that will supposedly
treat obstuctive sleep apnea:
BGC20-0166 is a novel combination of two marketed serotonin modulating
drugs being developed…
j7uy5 | May 22, 2008
alt="ResearchBlogging.org"
src="http://www.researchblogging.org/images/rbicons/ResearchBlogging-Medium-White.png"
align="left" border="0" height="50" hspace="3"
vspace="3" width="80">I have to admit, I
retain some skepticism about the concept of
href="http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/04/seasonal_affective_disorder_th_2.php">Seasonal
Affective Disorder. Research such as the topic of
this post helps, though, to lend some credibility to the concept.
It is true that exposure to bright light therapy (BLT) can alleviate
symptoms of SAD. That alone would seem to verify the…
j7uy5 | May 21, 2008Politics: ON NPR today, they were talking about
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90696947">the
"mistakes" of the Clinton campaign. I was annoyed
by that. Framing the issue in that way implies that a) the
race was hers to lose, and b) the outcome is not really up to the
voters. The discussion implied that if a candidate runs a
perfect campaign, then that candidate will win.
I'd like to think that the voters will choose the candidate they want,
unless a grievous error is made.
Another news item caught my attention. In commemoration of
the anniversary of…
j7uy5 | May 14, 2008I realize that in the spectrum of boneheaded moves by the
Administration, this one is not the most extreme. Still, it
was a pretty dumb thing to do.
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/washington/13tsa.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all">Blunt
Federal Letters Tell Students They're Security Threats
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: May 13, 2008
WASHINGTON -- A German graduate student in oceanography at M.I.T.
applied to the Transportation Security Administration for a new ID card
allowing him to work around ships and docks.
What the student, Wilken-Jon von Appen,…
j7uy5 | May 12, 2008A while back,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/11/sherwin_nuland_a_history_of_el.php">Gred
Laden and
href="http://ectweb.blogspot.com/2007/10/video-of-lecture-on-electroconvulsive.html">Dr.
Shock independently linked to a remarkable video.
In it, a famous author-surgeon-professor reveals that he had
had an episode of severe depression. Moreover, he underwent
treatment with electroconvulsive therapy. It worked, he got
back to work, and went on to have a distinguished career. The
video can be seen here --
href="http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/189">Sherwin Nuland…
j7uy5 | May 11, 2008Make echinacea tea, fairly strong. Refrigerate it.
Get some 100% pomegranate juice. Refrigerate that.
Wait until cold. Mix together in 1:1 proportion.
Drink.
There is no particular reason for this, other that simply to have the
experience.
j7uy5 | May 10, 2008There is an interesting article put out by Associated Press, authored
by Seth Borenstein. Mr. Bornstein suggests that scientists
are increasingly expressing an interest in running for office.
The involvement of scientists in politics is not new. Think
of Ben
Franklin. But many have been involved from the
sidelines. Franklin, for example, did not hold an elected
position until the end of his life. (He was President of the
Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania 1785-88.)
From the
href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080509/ap_on_sc/campaigning_scientists;_ylt=…
j7uy5 | May 8, 2008One thing about hospitals, is that they
href="http://www.energybulletin.net/43514.html">use an awful
lot of
electricity. We already know about some of the
challenges
that will occur in health care in the post-peak-oil era; I wrote about
that in
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2007/10/peak_oil_and_health_care_chall.php">October
2007.
...Petroleum scarcity will affect the health system
in at least 4 ways:
through effects on medical supplies and equipment, transportation,
energy generation, and food production...
One way this will affect medical care is that it will…
j7uy5 | May 5, 2008The urge to fisk is an omnipresent danger for all bloggers.
Usually I am strong. Usually I resist.
But this essay on World Net Daily got my fisking neurons all
in a twitter. It's by David Kupelian, and it's a World Net
Daily Exclusive! (Because no one else would print it.)
href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63093">
href="http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=63093">How
Hillary will lead America into hell
Posted: May 02, 2008
As November's election nears, some otherwise
right-thinking conservatives and Christians, unhappy with GOP…
j7uy5 | May 4, 2008Dinah, writing at Shrink Rap, got
href="http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/05/02/meanness-and-psychiatry-dont-mix/?mod=WSJBlog">mentioned
in the Wall Steet Journal, of all places. Her post "
href="http://psychiatrist-blog.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-therapist-is-creep.html">My
Therapist is a Creep" caught the attention of their health
blogger, Scott Hensley.
j7uy5 | May 1, 2008In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it was noticed that
there were cuts in the budget to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The rationale was that we needed to shift more funds to the
global and perpetual war on terror.
At the time, I said that "the terrorists" won't have to bother trying
to poison us. Our own companies would do it for them.
Yup.
href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-epa-official-resigns_webmay02,0,4655733.story">TRIBUNE
EXCLUSIVE: EPA's top Midwest regulator forced out
Mary Gade, based in Chicago, says Bush…
j7uy5 | April 28, 2008The Ubuntu craze is sweeping SciencBlogs:
href="http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2008/04/tech_note_ubuntu_linux_804_har.php">Aardvarchaeology,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/thescian/2006/11/ubuntu_for_your_parents_uncles.php">Scientific
Indian,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/02/ubuntu_804_the_hardy_heron_is.php">Greg
Laden,
href="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/2008/03/yet_another_gentoo_defector.php">Corpus
Callosum, even
href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/the_ways_children_let_you_down.php">PZ's
kid.
At SB, we strive for…
j7uy5 | April 23, 2008Everyone's
anatomy has little quirks. One of mine, is the length of the
roots
of my wisdom teeth. They go down halfway to Sulawesi.
When
I was in college, I had to have two of them extracted. The
oral
surgeon told me they were "difficult extractions."
Magnanimous as
he was, he gave me a prescription for Tylenol #3. Which is
what
they give you when they want you to think you are getting something
that will work, even though they know perfectly well that it is
completely useless.
So I went back to the house where I was
renting a room. There was this strange guy there.
Things
like…
j7uy5 | April 21, 2008
title="The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness"
alt="" src="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/images/misc/B1013.jpg"
align="left" height="226" hspace="2" width="132" class="inset">
A
while back, a guy named Lyle Rossiter wrote a book, The
Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.
I haven't read the book, so this is one of those posts that
is less than fully authoritative. Perhaps someone who has
read it can point out any errors I might have made.
The book was published by Free World Books, LLC, which is not exactly a
marketing powerhouse. In…
j7uy5 | April 16, 2008“Doctors think, ‘Well, of course
she’s depressed — she’s dying of breast
cancer,’” he said.
I do see that kind of response sometimes, not just with regard to
terminally ill patients. The physician does not think the
depression should be treated, because it is felt to be an expected
response to the situation.
If I even show up in an emergency department with a gunshot wound in my
abdomen, I sure hope the doc doesn't refuse to treat it, saying "of
course he's bleeding to death, he's been shot in the spleen."
The fact is, some patients with terminal cancer do develop major
depression. But…
j7uy5 | April 15, 2008Here at ScienceBlogs, we've regularly posted about the thorny issue of
antibiotic overuse, and the subsequent antibiotic resistance.
This is a good example of evolution in action; it's also a
good reason why we need to study and understand evolution.
But antibiotic resistance is not the only such example. The
same principle applies to herbicides and weeds.
Naturally, a good example comes to us courtesy of
href="http://www.monsanto.com/" rel="tag">Monsanto,
the company that
href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805?printable=true¤tPage=all…