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Will Halley's Comet lose its sparkle?

Google is celebrating Edmund Halley's birthday today, so it seemed like a good time to mention something that's been on my mind. It's about life, wonder, and celestial bodies. Halley's Comet is somewhat unique, being the only short period comet visible to the naked eye. "Short period" here is something of an astronomy-centric phrase, given that it only appears every 75 years. I think a big part of the magic of Halley's Comet lies in the breadth of that period. It's just about the length of a human life, which means if you remember seeing the comet, you're unlikely to live long enough to…

Science Showdown: Goldacre vs Drayson

Prepare yourselves for a seismic science showdown! In the reeeeeed corner: the man from Le Mans, Britain's very own Minister for Science, the Lord Paul Rudd Drayson! In the bluuuuue corner: the Rational Radical, Benjamin "Bad Science" Goldacre! After a crossing swords on Twitter, the two agreed to go head-to-head in a no-holes-barred meeting of minds. Details have been released: fight night is Sept 16, 7pm at the Royal Institution. Attendance to this match is FREE, details on how to attend are in the press release issued by BIS below the fold: Science reporting: is it good for you?…

Why do we tolerate celebrities preaching scientific nonsense?

Over at the Guardian's Lost In Showbiz, Marina Hyde continues her campaign to steal my heart, this time by lancing those celebrities who confuse their ability to secure a table at the Ivy with the authority to talk sensibly on matters of science. We're looking at you, Madonna: Behold, the most serious challenge to the Royal Society in that august body's 350-year history - the medical musings of Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Stella McCartney. These women are not just singers, or actresses, or fashion designers. They are distinguished professors at the University of Celebrity, and are coating…

Happy Darwin Day!

I thought I'd include a picture of the young Charles Darwin, since we are celebrating his birthday today. That's him in 1816, when he was 6 or 7 years old, with his younger sister, Emily Catherine Darwin. And then I started wondering about that other person in the picture. Darwin's sisters were an extremely important influence on his life, and I don't know a heck of a lot about her; Darwin had four sisters and one brother, Erasmus, and most of the biographies say quite a bit about the older brother who preceded him to university, but the sisters seem to be background noise. It seems…

Herbal Tinctures: now with more "?/4 ??? ?"

I spotted this yesterday, from the February-March 2009 issue of the Organic Lifestyle Magazine. Perhaps it didn't render correctly, or maybe my browser has a wry sense of humour. Bryan Shillington (Journeyman Herbalist) says: All of our formulas are available to the public. If we lose business and gain competitors, so be it. We need more herbalists and natural healers in this horrid world of huge pharmaceutical companies and pill pushers in white coats. Be the family herbalist. Be your own doctor. maybe if enough of you make your own herbal preparations, we'll drive them out of…

Cash and Community College Football . . . and Academics

If you thought American colleges and universities were all about thugging it up and diagramming the Z-scheme, you'd be surprised to learn how big of a deal football is. Heck, if you were to visit some universities on Saturday afternoon in autumn, you'd be surprised to learn that you were on the grounds of an institute of higher learning. And it's not just the four year colleges and universities that can be called Football-U. California has the best public university system of any state in the US. Multiple University of California schools are ranked as top national universities. On top of that…

Speaking of the Devil

My last post was rather negative, and I tried my damnedest to not come across as an asshole. I think it's important to realize, however, that as cool as evo-devo is, it won't revolutionize evolutionary biology until it can be extended beyond animal body plans. Carl Zimmer commented that studies on social microbes may just make that extension. Lo and behold, PLoS Biology has published an essay on cooperation among microorganisms. It's very accessible to a general audience and open access, so you have no excuse not to read it. The article is so readable (without requiring expertise in…

Saving the Name of Drosophila melanogaster

The Drosophila genus is paraphyletic. That means there are species nested within the phylogeny of the genus that belong to other genera. Or, in other words, there are species descended from the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all Drosophila species that belong to different genera. If that doesn't make sense, just look at the tree. A paraphyletic genus is a no-no in taxonomy. There are two ways to deal with the problem. First, the genera nested within the Drosophila phylogeny can be redesignated into the Drosophila genus. That's not going to happen because the genus is too freakin' big…

Is it Time for the Gibbs Number?

Paul Erdos was an extremely prolific and mobile mathematician who has left a legacy in academia in the form of the Erdos Number -- a count of your "academic distance" from Erdos. Anyone who published a paper with Erdos has an Erdos number of one (Erdos, himself, had a number of zero), people who published with anyone with an Erdos number of one have an Erdos number of two, and so on. It's a point of pride for a mathematician or other researcher to have a small Erdos number. There is no widely recognized equivalent of the Erdos number for the life sciences. Given the diversity in the field, it…

Studying Cancer from an Evolutionary Framework

Carl Zimmer has an article in the upcoming edition of Scientific American that looks at cancer from the perspective of evolutionary biology. The most obvious parallel is that of cancer cells within an individual modeled as an evolving population: Rare mutations, for instance, may cause a cell to lose restraint and begin to multiply uncontrollably. Other mutations can add to the problem: They may allow deranged cells to invade surrounding tissues and spread through the body. Or they may allow tumor cells to evade the immune system or attract blood vessels that can supply fresh oxygen. Cancer,…

A Lame Duck Screwing The Environment

During Clinton's 11th hour, he initiated a number of policies that protected the environment; some of those regulations have remained in force, including the protection of almost 60 million acres of roadless areas. According to an article in Nature this week (and the OMB Watch, a Washington DC-based advocacy group), Bush is gearing up to do the exact opposite. On the list for potential midnight rollouts of new [anti] environmental regulations include the following: 1) New environmental regulations for factory farms. The EPA says that the regulations would curb the amount of nitrogen,…

Ben Carson did experiments on tissue from aborted fetuses

The paper leaves no room for ambiguity. Note that there's nothing at all wrong with this -- the use of fetal tissue in these kinds of experiments, and many more, is ubiquitous, and it is not obtained by magic, but by the ethical donation of fetal material from abortions and miscarriages and stillbirths. I don't object at all to Carson having participated in this kind of research. I do object to him now declaring that it is unethical in all circumstances. Oh, wait. Except he's suddenly backpedaling in all kinds of directions. The Washington Post picked up Gunter’s story and contacted Carson…

Pet Psychics (again...)

More psychic pets! Wooo... aren't you excited? I uhh... am? by Craig Hamilton-Parker Does your pet read your mind, see into the future, know the time or can find you wherever you are? Professional TV psychic, Craig Hamilton-Parker, believes many pets have psychic powers. Here he reveals the evidence and has designed some simple experiments to test your pet's paranormal potential. Hmm... It's almost like he's one of those people who calls himself by his own name... weird. But not quite as weird as the whole pet psychic idea to begin with. Scientific research is slowly beginning to…

I nuked Morris, Minnesota

You can bomb your hometown too! Just put your location into that link, and it'll show you the area of devastation if your town were hit by the Hiroshima bomb. Here's the effect if the nuke went off at my house: I was a bit disappointed, actually. All that happens to Cyrus is broken windows? The area of firestorms and gross destruction is totally within the bounds of where I routinely walk every day. It somehow seems so much smaller than I imagined. Then I read the story of this photo, which was taken a few minutes after the detonation, 6 miles away. Yet even given the delay between the…

About that Alzheimer's 'cure'…

You may have seen the hype. GAME-CHANGING CURE FOR ALZHEIMER: THE NEW DRUG, NEW BREAKTHROUGH. Next Best Thing To Alzheimer's Cure: Solanezumab May Delay Onset Of Dementia By 30%. Have scientists found a drug to stop Alzheimer's disease? I'm going to have to pop your balloon. Someone knowledgeable actually looked at the study. I searched the internet; there was a conference in the United States. I searched the website and found a press release: it seems that Lilly has funded research. EXPEDITION and EXPEDITION2 are published placebo controlled trials of solanezumab, which did not reach…

Who is the next great science communicator?

This post was co-authored with Eric Berger, science writer at The Houston Chronicle. It's been nearly two decades since Carl Sagan, the great science communicator, died. Since that time public trust in science has eroded, and no one has emerged as Sagan's clear successor. At the same time popular culture is littered with faux science ideas, from anti-vaccination fervor to documentaries on mermaids and mega-sharks. What the world needs, then, is a great communicator of science who can connect with large audiences, liberal, moderate and conservative, to help explain what science is, and the…

Lamest pareidolia ever? Satan appears on a bathroom tile in Budapest

It's no secret that I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia. The various shapes and contortions the human mind can impose on clouds, stains, pancakes, trees, toast, Lava lamps, toilet seats, and even medical imaging tests never ceases to amaze me. We are pattern-seeking creatures, and our brains will go to great lengths to impose familiar patterns onto objects. Sometimes, however, I have to call 'em as I see 'em, and this bit of pareidolia is just lame: Satan on a bathroom tile: A family abandoned their bathroom fearing it had been possessed by the devil after an image of Satan appeared…

Where The Cooties Go To Die

OK, so you are vacuuming the house, and along the way, you suck up a couple of spiders, some spier eggs, a beetle or two, and as the cat or dog walks by, you figure you're probably sucking up some fleas and flea eggs, and so on and so forth. SO you know all these cooties are now in the vacuum cleaner bag. When you are done vacuuming, you put the vacuum cleaner away. The thought is in your brain... all these creepy crawlers are now going to slowly work their way out of the vacuum cleaner and go back to their crawly creepy business. But you stop yourself from thinking further about it and…

Ray Comfort Caves to Islamic Terrorists (but the joke's on him)

In a recent blog post, Krazy Kristian Guy Ray Comfort (the "Banana man") notes that atheists are planning a billboard campaign that will point out the barbaric nature of passages from the Christian and Muslim texts. He goes on to note that anyone who offends Islam is likely to get their heads cut off, and he tastelessly uses a photograph of a living, smiling Daniel Pearl (who was beheaded by his terrorist captives in 2002) to make his point. Comfort goes on to say that Atheists may be captured by people of Islamic faith and beheaded, and that would be bad for the Atheists. Therefore, he…

Edward Wilson is doomed

Wilson wrote a nice book, The Creation(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), in which he argued that Christians should be leaders in good stewardship of the earth. Now some religious leaders have spoken out against such activities. The Catholic church is babbling about an antichrist. An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year's Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is "a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist". After all, as we all know, when Christ returns he will be an isolationist industrialist who will rip…

Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People

Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People is the book that the recently published article in Seed Magazine, which was in turn recently banned in an Illinois school is mainly about. Here is the Publishers Weekly overview of the book: This brilliant and accessible work of biological criticism has the potential to revolutionize the way readers conceive of gender and sexuality in the natural world. Roughgarden, a professor of biology at Stanford University and a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, argues that the diversity of gender and sexuality one…

Sputnik: The greatest thing to ever happen to America

It does not matter what you believe about god, creationism, science, evolution, whatever. If you were raised in a society in which there is an evil enemy that you are convinced intends to arrive some day on your country's shores, take over your government, impose a new social order, marry your sister, and so on, then when this evil foreign government sends the first warning shot in this war and it is an unprecedented and amazing feat of science, then suddenly you love science. You pay taxes to fund science. Your idolize science. You start demanding that science comes to the rescue. One…

What is the sound of one hypothesis clapping?

Read the following text. As you read it, try to empty your mind. When you encounter grammatical errors or jargon that is impossible to understand, do not try to translate what you are reading. Rather, become one with the obscurity. Read slowly, thoughtlessly, with emptiness of purpose, as though the words were entering your eyes, traveling through your head, and leaving through your ears. The ultimate understanding will be achieved when you reach the end of the abstract and have understood nothing: ... a repost ... Recent neuroimaging studies have identified a set of brain regions that…

Amazing stratigraphy in a Mars crater

This oblique view shows geological layers of rock exposed on a mound inside Gale Crater on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/USGS It is easy to forget how important impact craters are on planetary history on a planet like Earth with dynamic continental movement, wind and water erosion, and a short memory. But we are reminded when we look at the research coming out of Mars. Gale Crater is about the size of Connecticut, and within the crater is a huge mound, several thousand meters high, which expose a time-deep sequence of layers demonstrating dramatic changes in…

Desperately seeking skepticism

This has been an annoying week on the old blog. In fact, I can't remember the last time we had an infestation of antivaccinationists this persistent and prolonged in a while. Heck, even one of the "big kahunas" of that blogospheric repository of all things antivaccine, Age of Autism (Dan Olmsted) showed up in the comments to spew non sequiturs about the Hewitson "vaccinated versus unvaccinated" monkey study (I'm devastated he apparently read my discussion of that very study) and misleading claims about measles. I guess that's what mentioning Dr. Offit with anything other than a sneer does; it…

I hate Michigan Nazis

Jake and Elwood hated Illinois Nazis. I hate Michigan Nazis. Actually, I hate all Nazis, but I especially detest Nazis from states I've lived in, such as Ohio, New Jersey, and Illinois. But worst of all are Michigan Nazis, because it's my home state, and even worse than that are Detroit Nazis, because that's my home town. I was born there and lived there until I was around 10. I will always have an affinity for the city, no matter how down and out it is. And there's a Nazi in Detroit now trying to take advantage of the crappy economy to recruit to his hate cause: On a dead-end street along…

The 84th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle has landed...

...at Archaeoporn. And it's a good one too, served up in a straightforward, no-nonsense style. As much as I like the sometimes wild creativity some hosts bring to hosting the Circle, there's definitely something to be said for a well-organized, well-introduced, "just the facts, M'am" sort of presentation, and that's what we have here. That, and lots of good skeptical blogging served up for your browsing edification. March your way through the links at the 84th Meeting of the Skeptics' Circle, and you won't be disappointed. Next up to host is Andrea's Buzzing About:. Her shot at hosting the…

OA and H1N1 Influenza

Quick hit at the end of the week. I've got a couple of posts I'm trying to finish up and post next week. But it's worth noting that the new H1N1 is sequenced and available under the same open access terms as the rest of the NCBI data and contents. All that misery and expense and illness, from this short series of letters. Nature's one hell of a programmer. 1 atggatgtca atccgactct acttttccta aaaattccag cgcaaaatgc cataagcacc 61 acattccctt atactggaga tcctccatac agccatggaa caggaacagg atacaccatg 121 gacacagtaa acagaacaca ccaatactca gaaaagggaa agtggacgac aaacacagag 181…

Why men are more prone to liver cancer

Men develop liver cancer at twice the rate of women in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. Considering that the liver is a non-reproductive organ, this is quite a difference. A research team led by Dr. Arlin Rogers, an experimental pathologist at MIT, looked at the gender differences in hepatocellular carcinoma, a male-predominant liver cancer that is associated with chronic hepatitis. It turns out that: Male and female livers are inherently different, with most of the differences arising during puberty when male livers are exposed to periodic bursts of growth…

New test for authenticity of organic produce

Researchers from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England are using the nitrogen content of fruits and vegetables to detect falsely labeled organic produce. The demand for organic produce has been increasing. This Discovery News article explains that "the higher prices obtained by [organic food] producers provides an economic incentive for a few unscrupulous traders to pass off conventionally grown produce as organic." Several industry-accepted organic food tests exist (organic certification and inspection) but this new test is the first to assess whether produce has been grown…

The Poison Capital of the U.S.

A story in today's Salt Lake City Tribune carries this rather obscure headline: "Poison Death Rate is High." What poison, what death rate, you wonder? Where? And the story deserved better than that because what it says is that residents of Utah die from poisons at twice the rate of people living elsewhere in the country. The national average for poison fatalities - mostly accidents and suicides - is 11 deaths per 100,000 residents annually. In Utah, though, the yearly rate is 21.3 per 100,000. Why Utah, you wonder? Even the state officials aren't sure. The state has its share of unusual…

Librarians: down with the impact factor!

The journal impact factor is a sham and a crock and a delusion, let's just take that as read. (If you don't care to take that as read, which is a healthy and sane attitude—take no one's word as gospel, especially not mine!—start here or perhaps here and keep going.) Using it to judge individual researchers' output, never mind the researchers themselves, verges on the criminal, is my strong belief. I'm not against heuristics, but some heuristics are plain broken, and the journal impact factor is one of those. So it really hurts my heart to see librarians giving this flawed number credence.…

Quick thought: rejecting data or rejecting people?

I'm still buried in translating a presentation into Spanish for Monday and finishing another in English for Wednesday, but here's a small thought to tide folks over, a thought that came to me shortly before my presentation at Access. At the data-curation workshops I've been to, it has been axiomatic that "we can't afford to keep it all." Some fairly sophisticated judgment rubrics have been worked up, often based on the same kinds of judgment calls that special-collections librarians and archivists make when presented with collection opportunities. Is this dataset unique, or could it be…

Wishing it were cold outside...

As the heat drags on in the southwestern United States, I cannot stop dreaming about sledding through the snow. So I checked out the trusty American Physiological Society press releases to see what the animals might be doing in cold environments that I can only dream about these days. In my search I watched a really neat video of Dr. Michael Davis (Center for Veterinary Health Sciences at Oklahoma State University) who works on perhaps one of the "coolest" animals (pun completely intended): sled dogs! Oh, how I envy these animals. Racing sled dogs are incredible athletes as they traverse the…

I love gators!

The oil spill in the gulf has me thinking about gators. Have you ever been to a restaurant in New Orleans and enjoyed the tasty alligator selections on the menu? If not, you are missing out. Although I have to admit, they really do taste like chicken. Anyway, you probably know that alligators are cold-blooded because they are ectotherms. But did you know that their hearts are linked to their ability to digest food? It's true! I was just listening to an interview of Dr. Jim Hicks at UC Irvine conducted by Dr. Martin Frank of The American Physiological Society. Many of us are aware that humans…

Trends & Quick Takes

The penultimate section of the July 2009 Cites & Insights is Trends & Quick Takes--another "occasional" feature, this one for little thoughts that are more substantive than the foolishness in My Back Pages but not substantive enough for their own essays. Realistically, most pieces of this section would work nicely as blog posts--and there is some crossover. When this section appears, it's usually longer than this time around and usually includes a section of "Quicker Takes," each a single paragraph. This one has a trio of items, each triggered by something I saw elsewhere: A note on…

Washington's Attacks on Science "Pervasive"

Political distortions of the scientific process have undergone a dramatic rise in Washington over the past six years, according to the Senate testimony of Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. Gleick's testimony (download - PDF) was provided to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on Climate Change Research and Science Integrity Wednesday. Misuse of science and attacks on scientists, Gleick finds, have been pervasive and categorical. Good, independent science - indeed good information in general - is crucial to making good political decisions…

ScienceOnline2010 - Friday Tours

We are in the final stretch - it is getting really exciting! Today I'd like to remind you, if you are registered for the conference, to add your name (by editing the appropriate wiki page) to one of the Friday Tours: Coffee Cupping at Counter Culture Coffee It's cold in the morning, and nothing helps better than the smell of fresh, hot coffee. And learning some science of coffee: from how it is grown to how it gets to the final consumer. If you are interested in this tour, sign up at this page and join us for Coffee Cupping at Counter Culture Coffee in Durham. It is really close to the…

The collision of science and music

Lane N, Graudins A. "Punk" rock can be bad for you: a case of surgical emphysema from a "punk" rocker's leather jacket. Emerg Med J. 2006 Jun;23(6):e35. Sheena is a "punk" rocker / Sheena is a "punk" rocker / Sheena is a "punk" rocker with a hole in her chest --- le Roux FH, Bouic PJ, Bester MM. The effect of Bach's magnificat on emotions, immune, and endocrine parameters during physiotherapy treatment of patients with infectious lung conditions. J Music Ther. 2007 Summer;44(2):156-68. Apparently if you have a serious lung infection, listening to Bach will boost your immune system, make you…

Scientific research and the theory of countervailing power

Seth reports on a report, funded by the sugar industry, that found bad effects of a diet soda additive called Splenda. The background of the study is a delightful tangle. Seth reports: One of the authors of the Duke study is a professor of psychiatry, Susan Schiffman. An earlier study of hers had pro-Splenda results. . . . Drs. Abou-Donia and Schiffman admitted that some of the results recorded in their report submitted to the court were not actually observed or were based on experiments that had not been conducted. . . . Results in the report that were based on experiments that had not been…

Of checklists and tragedies

In The Checklist Manifesto (Amazon, Borders, b&n), Dr. Atul Gawande expands on his previous writing about the work of Dr. Peter Pronovost. Pronovost developed a system to help reduce complications of hospital care, such as infected venous catheters. This system has been very successful.  It is based on the idea that some tasks are simply too complex to be error-free.  Medical care has become very successful, but also very complex, to the point where one person cannot possibly remember every step in some processes, even simple steps such as scrubbing in.   The simple and successful…

Why I'm disappointed with Garrison Keillor

I don't know if Garrison Keillor is anti-semitic and I don't really care, but the question was raised by his Christmas editorial at Salon.com. After reading it last month I decided I had nothing to say about it. Who really cares what Garrison Keillor says, right? This morning I was on my way to work and yesterday's Prairie Home Companion came on. I found my hand reaching for the dial to change the channel. Then I realized why I haven't been able to get this out of my head. I've been listening to PHC for about 20 years. I always enjoyed the quirky humor and most of all the music. When I…

Why I won't be prescribing medical marijuana

In November, the citizens of my home state approved a medical marijuana law. The very next day, I started getting calls from patients (often not may own) asking how they could get it. I'm not fan of draconian laws that imprison people for getting stoned, but when it comes to medical interventions (rather than legal ones) I have an informed opinion. The new law allows Michigan residents to grow weed for their own consumption if they have approval. The law does not allow doctors to prescribe marijuana, rather it allows them to certify that the patient has a condition designated by statue as…

Flu season---getting in to see the doctor

I try not to overbook at my office. I have about 16 slots every morning for returning patients (fewer if I have new patients booked, which I usually do). I usually schedule, counting new and old patients, 12 patients every morning. If I were to cut my appointment slots down to 10 minutes instead of 15, I could really pack 'em in, and I may have to do that some day, but with the 15 minute slots, I can usually squeeze in people who want to walk in because they're sick. There's only so much that can be done to control the flow; if someone has chest pain, I'm going to be running late from…

Dispatch from the flu front

I got home pretty late last night. The last week or two has seen a huge rise in influenza-like illness (ILI). Late in the evening, I began to get a scratchy throat and chills, but sometimes fatigue can feel like flu. I went home and had a nice dinner and a shower and felt a bit better. At about 3 a.m., a little knock on the bedroom door woke me from a deep sleep. My daughter walked in crying, "my throat hurts!" She never gets up in the middle of the night. My wife sent me to the other room to sleep, gave her some motrin, and lay back down. Within a half an hour, the kiddo broke into a…

Public option off the table?

I had a chance to watch the President take questions at town hall meetings this weekend. He sought out opposing views, and handled them brilliantly, responding to them rather than giving empty answers. He also didn't talk down to the audience. The pity is that the take home message in the news today is that he may abandon his push for a "public option". This would be a grave mistake. This President is no dummy. He gets this issue. When a citizen asked how private insurers can possibly compete with a government plan, he responded in great detail, explaining how changes need to be phased…

When it comes to health care, what do Americans value?

This is, of course, an absurd question. Getting all 300 million of us to agree on this isn't going to be easy. But a parody circulating on the internet shows how misunderstood we Americans can be. National social programs are relatively new in the States---Medicare, the plan that gives medical care to those over 65, is only forty years old. Social security, the national pension plan for people who have worked legally for a wage, is about sixty years old. Welfare programs for the poor are often tolerated at arm's length with the nose held. But while many view these programs with disdain or…

Reflections

When I look at my daughter, what do I see? There is so much in every glance. Usually, she's moving too fast to pin down, running at me yelling, "Daddy!!!" I don't know how anyone even looks at their kids without tearing up, even a little. There is of course a narcissistic joy in having someone around who (for now) loves you unconditionally. But there's more. When my daughter was a baby, she had the biggest eyes, like out of a Japanese cartoon. They were what everyone noticed. One day when I was pulling into the hospital I looked into the rear view mirror and I saw her eyes looking back…

Truth under seige in the UK

Libel law in the UK seems very odd to Americans, with our emphasis on free speech. But, hey, we've had our own country for two hundred and almost two score years now, and I'm happy to report that, at least over here, we can still call a quack a quack. But in England, you can't even allude to it. Here's what happened. Simon Singh, a British reporter who tends to take the side of truth in science wrote the following: The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged…

Apple unveils software to allow new Intel Macs to run Windows XP

So now it's all becoming clear what a major part of the reason for Apple to change over to Intel chips was. Yesterday, Apple released software that will allow the new Intel Macs to run Windows XP: SAN JOSE, Calif. - To broaden its appeal in a Windows-dominated world, Apple Computer Inc. unveiled software Wednesday to help owners of its new Intel-based Macs run not only its own operating system but also Microsoft Corp.'s rival software. Apple's shares surged as Wall Street bet the move would help Apple grow its current worldwide personal computer market share beyond the current range of 3…