Weird Science and Shoddy Science Reporting

Scientists find "brain evolution gene" !!!

Looking at 49 areas that have changed the most between the human and chimpanzee genomes, Haussler zeroed in on an area with "a very dramatic change in a relatively short period of time."

That one gene didn't exist until 300 million years ago and is present only in mammals and BIRDS, not fish or animals without backbones. But then it didn't change much at all. There are only two differences in that one gene between a chimp and a chicken, Haussler said.

But there are 18 differences in that one gene between human and chimp and they all seemed to occur in the development of man, he said.

Apparently one of those 18 differences encodes for the "not cool to hurl crap" gene.

TV can numb pain for kids!!!

A University of Siena team studied the level of pain reported by 69 children aged between seven and 12 as they gave blood samples; KAZINFORM is quoting BBC News.

Some were distracted by their mothers during the procedure, some had no distraction and some watched cartoons.

Those who watched TV reported least pain, the study - published in Archives of Disease in Childhood - said.

I guess they weren't watching Dancing with the Stars.

Many people believe even the most far-fetched movies about human reproductive cloning are based on fact!
(Hat tip somnilista, FCD)

Thirty-three films were analysed by Cormick and bio-tech researchers, including The Island, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, The 6th Day and Jurassic Park. It looked at the comic Austin Powers films and schlock such as The Clonus Horror and Replikator: Cloned to Kill.

Few of the 33 films portray human cloning as anything other than dangerous and uncontrolled: "The general attitude to cloning is that science is unnatural and abhorrent in some way. One of the recurrent themes was that cloning was being practised by immoral scientists with no regulations.

Adding insult to scientific injury, less than 30 per cent of films portray scientists and cloning accurately, the study finds. To remedy this, scientists have employed lobbyists and consultants in Hollywood to try to get a more accurate portrayal.

Uh, since when can scientists afford lobbyists and consultants????