oracknows | May 1, 2007...is right here at the latest installment of one of the longest-running blog carnivals out there, Grand Rounds. This time the host blog is Shrink Rap. Head on over and sample the delicacies of medblogging.
oracknows | May 1, 2007I'm a bit late on this, given that the blog went live yesterday, but far be it from me not to welcome denialism blog to the ScienceBlogs universe. It's a promising new blog that in its couple of months of existence has already made an impact in the skeptical blogosphere. Also, Mark Hoofnagle, one of the bloggers responsible for it, has become a regular commenter around here.
I may not always agree with Mark and Chris about specific cases of what constitutes "denialism" (most of the time, but not always), but I do like their blog. Besides, if I ever agreed with everything a blogger wrote, I'd…
oracknows | May 1, 2007There are times when, as a scientist, I look at an idea and its execution and simply stand in awe. It's particularly satisfying when it's a relatively simple idea that could conceivably do a lot of good for a lot of patients. Oddly enough, whether it's because I've been out of the loop or because it hasn't garnered that much attention in the blogosphere (not even here in ScienceBlogs), but I only just heard of it now. It's a new drug in phase II clinical trials that has the potential to obviate or reverse the effects of a wide variety of genetic mutations that cause human disease:
A pill that…
oracknows | April 30, 2007As a male, this bit of woo from Serbia causes me pain just to contemplate it. I'm not sure if it's true or not because--well--I have a hard time believing that anybody can be this stupid. It has the whiff of urban legend about it. However, one underestimates the stupidity of men in their quest to solve sexual problems; so it's possible that this is true. Just don't tell Bora; I don't know if he could stand that this happened in Serbia, if it actually happened:
A Serbian man who went to a witchdoctor in search of a cure for premature ejaculation rather foolishly took the shaman's advice, viz:…
oracknows | April 30, 2007Now here's something you don't see every day. Nature Neuroscience has weighed in about the pseudoscience that claims that mercury causes autism. Based on British experience with animal rights activists, it points out a parallel that I hadn't considered before:
The idea that autism is caused by vaccination is influencing public policy, even though rigorous studies do not support this hypothesis. Legislators are right to take into account the concerns of parent groups and others directly affected by autism, but policy decisions should be based on hard evidence rather than anxiety. More…
oracknows | April 30, 2007Andrew reminds me that today is a very special day. Yes, indeed, it's the day that everyone who detests fascism should celebrate:
Fuehrerstodestag! (Otherwise known as "Dead Hitler Day.")
Yes, 62 years ago this hour, Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer of the Reich, finally cornered, his nation in ruins, offed himself in his bunker in Berlin as the Red Army was relentlessly advancing on him. After over 12 years in power, he had plunged the world into the largest war ever fought, resulting in the deaths of millions upon millions of people, and his exterminationist anti-Semitism had resulted in the deaths of…
oracknows | April 29, 2007Thanks to a reader commenting in yesterday's post, I've been made aware of a truly brilliant summation of creationism of both the young earth and intelligent design variety:
Exactly.
oracknows | April 29, 2007I don't often do this, but every so often I come across a question that I need help deciding. What's the use of having a moderately popular blog (alas, 3,000 visits a day do not constitute an "immensely popular" blog) if I can't sometimes use it for my own nefarious purposes, right?
The question is simple, and, I expect, one that many of my readers have experience with.
My wife and I have been contemplating getting rid of our land line telephone and going just with our mobile phones. One of the reasons we're contemplating this is that Verizon just keeps increasing the price for basic service…
oracknows | April 29, 2007I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Certainly it's a bad thing that another physician is diving head-first into the pseudoscience that is "intelligent design" creationism and making a of himself in the process.
On the other hand, at least this time it's not a surgeon:
A Columbia medical professor made his case for scientific acceptance of "intelligent design" last night and found himself taking fire from his peers for his view.
John Marshall, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia, argued in front of about 100 people in a University Hospital…
oracknows | April 28, 2007After the Virginia Tech shootings, as you may recall, a lot of people started using the shootings as a convenient excuse to start pontificating about their favorite cause or to attack their most hated enemy, be it secularism or even vaccines. In fact, politicians, pundits, and just plain annoying whackjobs are blaming the rampage on so many different hobbyhorses, that there's even a blogger keeping a running tally, which is up to 72 so far.
A few days ago, I thought I had uncovered the lowest of the low, where a white nationalist besmirched the name of one of the heroes of that horrible day,…
oracknows | April 28, 2007Students cheat on exams. There's just no getting around it. No matter how secure teachers think they've made their examination processes, there will always be a subset of students who try to find a way around any security procedures and give themselves an advantage, either by hook or by crook. These days, technology is making it even harder to prevent such cheating:
Devices including iPods and Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a shirt collar to give them away, school officials say.
"It doesn't take long to get out of the loop…
oracknows | April 27, 2007This is a bit science policy wonky, but here's some interesting news from Medical Writing, Editing & Grantsmanship:
My *favorite* new factoid from the NIH ... the oldest "new investigator" to date received his first R01 last year at age ... 82. You go, guy!
On the other hand, a nobel laureate was triaged.
As a low-level scientific peon (compared to any Nobel laureate, that is), I find it nice to know that occasionally even the gods of science have a bump in the road to funding. ("Triaged" means that the reviewers all agreed that the grant was in the lower 50-60% of all the grants…
oracknows | April 27, 2007I've said it once before, but this week's woo compels me to say it again: I happen to love gadgets.
I've been a bit of a technogeek since very early on in my life, with a lot of the things that go along with it, including a major interest in science fiction, awkwardness around the opposite sex, When at their best, gadgets can do things that need to be done and, if well designed, can do them with panache, making drudgery almost fun Then of course, there's the almost Dilbert-like joy males into technogeekery have in one-upping each other, almost like the surgeons I described yesterday one-…
oracknows | April 26, 2007On May 5 New York City will witness what will perhaps be the most unintentionally hilarious spectacle of two fundamentalists making utter fools of themselves:
MEDIA ADVISORY, April 26 /Christian Newswire/ -- After ABC ran a story in January about hundreds of atheists videotaping themselves blaspheming the Holy Spirit, best-selling author Ray Comfort contacted the network and offered to prove God's existence, absolutely, scientifically, without mentioning the Bible or faith. He and Kirk Cameron (co-hosts of an award-winning Christian TV program) challenged the two originators of the "…
oracknows | April 26, 2007When I saw this, I thought it had to be a joke. But it's not:
Doctors in New York have removed a woman's gallbladder with instruments passed through her vagina, a technique they hope will cause less pain and scarring than the usual operation, and allow a quicker recovery. The technique can eliminate the need to cut through abdominal muscles, a major source of pain after surgery.
The operation was experimental, part of a study that is being done to find out whether people will fare better if abdominal surgery is performed through natural openings in the body rather than cuts in the belly. The…
oracknows | April 26, 2007Just when I start to think that maybe, just maybe, I could stop worrying and learn to love the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM, with apologies to Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers), damn if it doesn't go and do something that renews my cynicism about the entire Center. This time around, Dr. RW has turned me on to a proposed project that leaves me scratching my head, Omics and Variable Responses to CAM: Secondary Analysis of CAM Clinical Trials.
Given the nature of the woo to be studied, my first inclination was to start making light of the whole "oooommmmm"-…
oracknows | April 26, 2007Well, it's that time again, time for another foray into battle against the rampant credulity that permeates the blogosphere. This time, your host is a veteran who has hosted two previous Meetings of the Skeptics' Circle and produced some of the most memorable Circles we've had. After two abortive attempts at a format, he's come up with a rather Zen-like method that, I'm sure, a Reiki master would love--were it not for the content, of course. So, join The Pooflinger for the 59th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle.
Next up to host on May 10 is Infophila. Start firing up your keyboard to provide…
oracknows | April 25, 2007Ever wonder what happened to Roger Ebert, who has been absent from the balcony in his Ebert & Roeper Show for quite some time battling cancer?
So did I. I always liked his style and mostly agreed with his movie reviews, but since moving away from Chicago I haven't heard much or watched the show as much, given that it never seems to be on when I'm around to watch TV. Well, wonder no more:
My Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance.
This year I won't be speaking, however, as I await another…
oracknows | April 25, 2007This is the sort of thing that really irritates me.
Shelley, over at Retrospectacle posted a rather nice analysis of a paper that appeared in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture entitled Natural volatile treatments increase free-radical scavenging capacity of strawberries and blackberries. She was skeptical about news reports and press releases about the article, and did an analysis that showed that the paper did not show quite what the press was representing it as showing. In her post, she used a figure from the paper under the "fair use" doctrine to illustrate her point, and…
oracknows | April 25, 2007A lot of readers (well, a couple, anyway) have been asking me about the recent article by Peter Duesberg in the most recent issue of Scientific American entitled Chromosomal Chaos and Cancer. I suppose it's because I'm not only a cancer surgeon (which in and of itself is not enough to qualify me to comment on this topic) but rather because I'm also a cancer researcher and a molecular biologist (which, I submit, does make me qualified to comment on this topic). Peter Duesberg, as you may know, is the controversial scientist who is perhaps the foremost advocate of the discredited hypothesis…