oracknows | October 6, 2007I know I've said before that I don't really "get" the whole cephalopod thing that P. Z. has, but I wonder if he's heard of this little thing:
Monday, October 8 is Unofficial International Cephalopod Awareness Day.
Certainly, I hadn't.
oracknows | October 6, 2007...for the Indians to advance to the ALCS.
I know, I know, long time readers know that I'm a Detroit Tigers fan. Sadly, after dominating their division during the first half of the season, my hometown team took a late season plunge right out of playoff contention, much to my dismay.
Fortunately, there is one other.
I lived in Cleveland for eight years before I headed to Chicago in the mid-1990s. During that time there, I saw a team that was once considered a joke make it to the World Series in 1995. I became a fan and to this day retain a soft spot in my heart for the Indians--except when…
oracknows | October 5, 2007Don't forget, once again the time is fast approaching. Soon yet another installment of the Skeptics' Circle will be upon us. In fact, it's less than a week away and due to land at Infophilia on Thursday, October 11. So, if you're a blogger and regularly (or even not-so-regularly) like to apply the scientific method, skepticism, and critical thinking to dubious claims, send the Infophile a submission to the carnival! Contact and deadline information is here, and guidelines for submission are here.
Once again, if you're a blogger want to host an edition of the Skeptics' Circle yourself, drop me…
oracknows | October 5, 2007Some readers have been sending me links to this article on CNN.com entitled 5 Alternative Medicine Treatments That Work. Unfortunately, Your Friday Dose of Woo took up the time that normally would have gone into given this article the lovingly Respectfully Insolent⢠treatment that this utterly credulous article so richly deserves and that you, my faithful readers, demand. Fortunately Mark over at denialism.com has taken the time to fisk this one in detail. Does that mean Orac has nothing more to say on this article?
You know the answer to that one. Mark just made it so that I can restrain my…
oracknows | October 5, 2007Over the last 15 months that this regular Friday feature has been in existence, I've come across some real doozies in the world of woo. Who could forget, for example, quantum gyroscopic theories of homeopathy? Or the DNA activation guy? Or the "no plane" conspiracy theory of 9/11? Or a certain disgusting "feedback loop" for curing cancer? A few others stand out from the pack, like Healing Sounds and Dr. Emoto, as rare examples of just the right amount of superficial plausibility married to over-the-top craziness to be memorable.
This week's installment might just be one of these. It is truly…
oracknows | October 4, 2007Given my post yesterday about the strange things people like to stick up their nether regions, it makes perfect sense to revisit a man who has his head up his ass: David Irving. It's pretty funny to see that his former comrades are none too happy with some of his recent statements:
A famed Holocaust denier is revising his revisionist thinking -- and the move is opening up a rift among his fellow travelers.
David Irving, who was released from prison last December in Austria after being convicted of Holocaust denial, recently announced that he is rethinking his position on the fate of European…
oracknows | October 4, 2007I've made no secret how much contempt I have for Kevin Trudeau, whom I have likened to David Irving, at least with respect to his respect for the truth. He has made many, many millions of dollars selling books with titles like Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About and its followups, in which he claims that there are "natural" cures for all sorts of diseases that the usual cabal of big pharma, the AMA, and the FDA are keeping away from you--yes, you!--in order to protect the profits of big pharma and the hegemony of us "conventional" physicians. Obviously, Trudeau is a total hack…
oracknows | October 3, 2007I really would have liked to have sampled this Thai restaurant's nam prik pao.
Maybe next time.
oracknows | October 3, 2007Yes, it's true that PZ probably gets ten times the amount of crank e-mail that I do. It's also true that, because he has the most popular ScienceBlog, his readers have a tendency to put extra effort into their "correspondence" with him. But I do occasionally get the long, rambling screed from an alternative medicine aficionado or a tirade from a Holocaust denier telling me that Hitler was actually a really great guy who couldn't possibly have ordered the extermination of European Jewry. But, what am I to make of this e-mail? (Below the fold):
From: Adam Smith
To: oracknows@gmail.com
DateOct…
oracknows | October 3, 2007One of the stranger aspects of being a general surgeon or a colorectal surgeon can be summed up by this abdominal X-ray (click on the picture for a bigger image):
Yep. From time to time, every general surgeon will be called upon to pull something out of someone's ass. It's not super common, but common enough that pretty much every general surgeon's seen a few. In the case above, it would appear that the offending object is an aerosol can. I know what you're probably thinking first: Why? I also know what you're thinking next: How? (As in: How on earth did he get that up there?)
Believe me,…
oracknows | October 2, 2007I knew it!
I knew it was just a matter of time until arch-Holocaust denier David Irving emerged from whatever rock he's been hiding under ever since he was released after his prison term in Austria for having denied the Holocaust, decided he wanted to be in the limelight again. Back in December, I made a little bet about just how long it would take Irving to mount a comeback tour. I guessed weeks. I was wrong. I'll give Irving credit; he held out nine months before making a play for vindication:
Ten months ago he was languishing in an Austrian jail, less than halfway through a three-year…
oracknows | October 2, 2007Last week, I wrote about an overhyped acupuncture study that purported to show (but didn't, really) that acupuncture is more effective than "conventional" therapy in the treatment of low back pain. This story reverberated through the Internet and blogosphere as "proof" that acupuncture "works" when in reality the study was very weak evidence of any effect due to needles being placed into the skin and only showed that meridians are a meaningless concept (i.e., the finding that sham acupuncture was just as effective "real" acupuncture). If acupuncture does do anything, this study was pretty…
oracknows | October 1, 2007I've written a lot about dichloroacetate, a.k.a. DCA (my last post here, along with links to my previous posts), the small molecule drug that burst onto the scene after Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta published a paper in Cancer Cell in January describing strong anti-tumor activity in preclinical models (in this case, a rat model) of several different cancers.
Scientifically, DCA is interesting because, unlike many previous chemotherapeutic agents, it targets the energetics of the cell, specifically an alteration in cancer cells known as the Warburg effect. This is an idea…
oracknows | October 1, 2007One of the best retorts to the claims of faith healers is the simple question: If faith healing works such miracles, why has there never been a documented case of faith healing regrowing an amputated limb? Now that would be truly miraculous. That would make even a curmudgeonly old skeptic like me sit up an take notice.
Now, a woman named Carole Miller McCleery-Greene is claiming just that; so I had to check it out.
When I came across this Carole's site on a mailing list, I originally filed it away, thinking it would make a good installment of Your Friday Dose of Woo. Then I thought about it.…
oracknows | September 30, 2007Some of these are hilarious, and, no, it wouldn't be a good idea for these couples to do the hyphenated name thing. If you have any more real life examples, post 'em in the comments for the amusement of all!
(Via Advice Goddess, who should know that less than two weeks ago I stayed at a hotel on Big Beaver Rd. in Troy, MI.)
oracknows | September 30, 2007Here's another item I saw at the local Barnes & Noble last night. I almost bought this calendar, so amused was I by it. In retrospect, maybe I should have bought it.
I don't recall ever seeing a calendar like this before. Not for Bill Clinton, and not for Ronald Reagan. It's a testament to just how badly our current President has screwed up. It even includes a page for the first 20 days of 2009, right up to the very end.
oracknows | September 30, 2007I think the title says it all. Perfect!
Whoever wrote the book sure knows her potential readers!
oracknows | September 29, 2007It's Saturday afternoon, time for a break from science as I attack the disaster that is our backyard. In the meantime, let's rock out for a few minutes:
I'm not a huge KISS fan, but the above song is the absolutely best song that KISS ever did in their entire career--and it's an ode to my hometown, to boot! It just plain rocks out.
Enjoy!
oracknows | September 29, 2007Science and medicine are beautiful things. The range of knowledge and research that can be encompassed under their rubric is truly astounding. Indeed, some scientists have all the luck. Some scientists seem to have all the luck. Some scientists seem able to latch onto the best projects:
London, England (CNS) - There is one scientist who is using his knowledge of anatomy to help Hollywood look even more perfect.
Patrick Mallucci has thoroughly researched pictures of celebrity women to compile images of the best looking breasts. His work is supposed to help plastic surgeons create the perfect…
oracknows | September 28, 2007Because if you're going to make health claims and claim to treat patients, you should be held just as accountable as any physician:
A Carson City "anti-aging" doctor has pleaded guilty to malpractice for failing to diagnose an elderly patient with the cancer that ultimately killed him.
It is Dr. Frank Anthony Shallenberger's second discipline by the Nevada Board of Medical Examiners in 12 years.
Shallenberger's plea last week regarding patient David Horton's care came on the heels of the board's dismissal of another family's complaint related to Shallenberger's treatment of their sister,…