oracknows | July 27, 2007Harvard professor Robert Wood unveiled his newest creation recently, a robotic fly that can be used as a spy, according to this posting on engadget.com. They fly weighs only .002 ounces and has a wingspan of 1.18 inches. Due to light weight carbon joints, the fly's wings beat 110 times per minute and the creature mimics the exact movements of a real fly. Funded, obvi, by the generous folks at the U.S. Defense Department, the little robo-pest has myriad possible uses including surveillance and even monitoring the air for chemical agents. Wood plans to install a battery and a remote…
oracknows | July 27, 2007After all this annoyance I've had lately about homeopaths doing surgery in Arizona (not to mention the licensing of quackery there), I can't forget that the blog carnival bequeathed to me, The Skeptics' Circle, is fast approaching. This week, the host will be none other than fellow ScienceBlogger Dr. denialism blog. Since the Circle is in the family this time around, so to speak, don't forget to send MarkH your best skeptical blogging and then join him (and me) for the carnival next Thursday, August 2.
And, as always, if you're a skeptical blogger aspiring to be the next James Randi and think…
oracknows | July 27, 2007
This sort of thing makes one wonder if the personification of Death should in fact be a cat, although, oddly enough, not a black cat:
Oscar the rescue cat is not simply a welcome feline companion at the Steere nursing home in Providence, Rhode Island. According to a new report in a medical journal he has a remarkable, though morbid talent - predicting when patients will die.
When the two-year-old grey and white cat curls up next to an elderly resident, staff now realise, this means they are likely to die in the next few hours.
Such is Oscar's apparent accuracy - 25 consecutive cases so far…
oracknows | July 27, 2007Time is important. Our life is measured in it, and there's no way to reverse it. How we use our allotted time on this planet is, of course, the most important question that anyone ever faces. But how to measure time? It all seems so obvious, doesn't it? You have years, which are divided into 365 days with a leap year every four years to make up for the fact that a year isn't exactly 365 days. You're good to go, at least for as long a period of time as anyone could expect. That's all you could expect from any calendar, right?
Wrong.
If you're a woo-meister, you know that a calendar could do so…
oracknows | July 26, 2007...or was it?
I'm pretty sure it was.
The dream needed a little bit more of a zingy ending, though, like waking up and finding Bobby Ewing still alive or finding out that everything that happened at the hospital was the fantasy of an autistic boy.
Or something like that
oracknows | July 26, 2007Until the other day, it had been a long time since I had indulged my interest in World War II history. Not surprisingly, a certain anti-Semitic troll appeared out of the woodwork, thus amazing me with persistence, given that it's been at least two months since I've even mentioned the topic. That's a long time to have to wait for an opportunity to leap into the comments here and rail against "Jews" and Zionists while I've been dishing out the usual commentary on alternative medicine, science, clinical trials,
Since he/she/it's here again, I thought I'd mention a story that's cropped up over…
oracknows | July 25, 2007...At least, that's what I most definitely say after reading this account of The rise & fall of the prefrontal lobotomy.
One question that stands out: How could a stepmother force her stepson to get a lobotomy just because she didn't like his sullenness and defiance, even after being told by other doctors that there was nothing wrong with the boy? An observation that stands out is that medicine and surgery are periodically caught up in fads. That's why it's every bit as important to apply evidence-based medicine to the newest procedures and treatments as it is to apply it to alternative…
oracknows | July 25, 2007Yesterday, when I wrote about a death in Arizona caused by a homeopath doing liposuction, what amazed me the most was that homeopaths are licensed in Arizona. Although I alluded to it only briefly in yesterday's post, I was truly astounded at what homeopaths are allowed to do in Arizona. It piqued my curiosity--and horror. Consequently, I decided to delve a bit more deeply into the website of the Arizona Board of Homeopathic Medical Examiners.
There are more horrors in there than I thought. Those of you who live in Arizona should be afraid--very afraid!--about what these quacks are permitted…
oracknows | July 24, 2007
While I'm back on the subject of Nazi Germany, here's a rather interesting tidbit of news about a book that I'll undoubtedly want to read when it comes out:
During the latter half of World War II, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) undertook a massive clandestine operation of which the full, extraordinary details are only now coming to light.
Between 1942 and 1945, a section of SIS - known as MI19 - secretly recorded no fewer than 64,427 conversations between captured German generals and other senior officers, all without their knowledge or even suspicion. The 167 most significant…
oracknows | July 24, 2007Here's a bummer of a bit of information that some elderly Germans are discovering:
Hundreds of elderly Germans are being confronted with the revelation that they were recruited into the Nazi party during the second world war.
Historians researching Nazi party archives in Frankfurt have discovered that a string of prominent Germans were among those automatically granted membership to celebrate Adolf Hitler's birthday.
Writers, a cabaret artist, scientists, journalists and politicians, including former cabinet ministers, are among those whose names are on the list.
According to records, they…
oracknows | July 24, 2007Normally, when I hear such a term as "homeopathic surgery" or of homeopaths doing surgery, I get the irresistable urge to make jokes about it, such as wondering if homeopathic surgery is surgery diluted down to the point where not a single cell in the body is injured or whether homeopathic surgeons make ultra-tiny incisions. Actually, that second quip risks confusing homeopathic surgeons with laparoscopic surgeons, and I'd never do that. I respect laparoscopic surgeons. Laparoscopic surgery is very difficult, and I have the utmost respect for my colleagues who can do complex operations…
oracknows | July 23, 2007The other day, Sid Schwab, surgeon blogger extraordinaire, brought up a question that, I'm guessing, most nonsurgeons wonder about from time to time when contemplating how it is that we surgeons do what we do.
What about bathroom breaks?
Given that most of the surgery that I do is breast surgery, my operations rarely take more than two or three hours. The only time a typical operation that I do takes longer than that is the uncommon times when I am doing a double mastectomy, and even then it's rarely more than a four hour affair. All I have to do is to make sure to hit the bathroom right…
oracknows | July 23, 2007After the invasion of the smoking cranks last week into the comments of the three posts I somehow ended up doing on the topic of secondhand smoke (SHS), the health dangers it poses, and some of the deceptive quote mining used in the service of trying to discredit studies demonstrating a moderate but real risk from SHS , I was ready to move on to other topics. I'll give these guys credit for one thing; they're almost as persistent as the antivaccinationists. Despite my flooding this blog with fluff unrelated to smoking and the hazards it causes (or even, for that matter, medicine or surgery),…
oracknows | July 22, 2007Can anyone explain how something like this might have happened?
Maybe I lack imagination, but I'm having trouble figuring out a plausible explanation.
oracknows | July 22, 2007I'm not sure whether this is reassuring or depressing.
$3590.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online DatingMingle2 - Free Online Dating
So...how much is your cadaver worth?
(Found via Attuworld.)
oracknows | July 22, 2007Yesterday, it was a personality quiz. Today, other ScienceBloggers have been assimilated into the LOL Cat craze. Given that I've had a tangential brush with the craze myself in the past when I posted a bunch of LOL Doctor Whos, and because last week was sufficiently serious, with all the posts about secondhand smoke and DCA, I figure, why not? I'll see which LOL Cat I am too. My only resistance to assimilation is that I'm doing the test on Sunday, rather than "Caturday":
Your Score
: Serious Cat
30% Affectionate, 30% Excitable, 53% Hungry
Hungry for knowledge in any internet…
oracknows | July 21, 2007What do you get when you mix a bunch of octogenarians and nonagenarians with The Who?
You get this:
It's a band called The Zimmers. Members range in age from 69 to 99. I particularly like the mass instrument smashing at the end of the video. I have to admit, however, to the near irresistable urge to respond to the lyric "Hope I die before I get old" with "Too late!"
Even so, I hope I can still rock if I make it to my 80s or 90s.
oracknows | July 21, 2007This one seems to be making the rounds among blogs that I frequent. Given that it's Saturday, when I usually don't post anything that requires serious writing, it's a perfect day to let the sheep in me have free reign and follow the flock, taking this test:
Your Score
: Robot
You are 100% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 42% Brutal, and 28% Arrogant.
You are the Robot! You are characterized by your rationality. In fact, this is really ALL you are characterized by. Like a cold, heartless machine, you are so logical and unemotional that you scarcely seem human. For instance, you are very…
oracknows | July 20, 2007It sure took the FDA long enough, nearly five months, but it finally acted. It finally shut Jim Tassano down, as this notice on TheDCASite.com states:
Two agents from the FDA visited us on Tuesday,July 17, 2007 and ordered that we stop making and selling DCA. Unfortunately, the site www.buydca.com will be shut down immediately.
It is against US government law to sell substances with the suggestion that they are cancer treatments unless they are approved by the FDA.
DCA can still be obtained from pharmacies with a prescription and from chemical companies.
To keep you informed and abreast of…
oracknows | July 20, 2007Here's a rather interesting wrinkle in the regulation of chiropractors. This time, it's New Jersey:
A recent state court decision has hundreds of chiropractors across the state bent out of shape because it sharply limits what they can legally do.
And while the decision is being appealed to the state Supreme Court and state legislators have proposed amending state law to return the field to where it was, changes are not expected for months.
In the meantime, the decision "definitely wiped out a source of income, because we were able to bill for the extremity adjustment before and now we can't…