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Citizens of Illinois: Alert! Alert! Creationist Alert!

I just received this dispatch from Monica Metzler, President of the Illinois Science Council. This is important. The current leading candidate in the Illinois Governor's race has acknowledged his belief in intelligent design and his willingness to permit individual school districts to allow it to be taught. Teaching ID in schools isn't a top campaign issue and doesn't get addressed in debates, but the outcome of this election could mean a disastrous turning point for Illinois schools and science in general. The situation in Illinois is such that if Sen. Brady wins, many school districts in…

British NSS Criticizes Creationist Zoo

The National Secular Society of Britain has weighed in on the problem of bringing Welsh students to the Noah's Ark Zoo Farm where they can learn about how Jesus rode a Dinosaur. Noah's Ark Zoo Farm in Wraxall, near Bristol, is regularly used by Welsh schools for trips and its website boasts numerous testimonials from them. But it has now been strongly criticised by the National Secular Society (NSS), which campaigns against religious influence in public and political life, and has criticised the zoo's "creationist" views. The group accused the zoo, which has received national recognition for…

'Sodans and Sconsinites, Sharpen your Quills!

Vaccine denialism and related issues is something that I took a great interest in many years ago with the publication of Laruie Garret's "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance," a book which presaged a great deal of later popular and more technical literature on diseases. My interested was piqued in connection with an interest in so called "emerging diseases" that came from my work at that time in emerging disease land (the northeastern Congo forest). (Yes, these are all linked in various ways. But my interest in writing about these issues has been dampened…

Release the hounds! The fate of ID creationists in an educated world

The Intelligent Design creationists keep trying the same old tactics of making their case with phony PR, but I don't think it's working so well anymore. For example, take a look at this op-ed from Richard Buggs of "'Truth' in Science"; he makes a futile attempt to throw out some of the usual creationist talking points, like these: But, whatever the limitations of Darwinism, isn't the intelligent design alternative an "intellectual dead end"? No. If true, ID is a profound insight into the natural world and a motivator to scientific inquiry. The pioneers of modern science, who were convinced…

Stunning Politics (Adult Content)

It had been assumed that Hillary Clinton would do very well in Pennsylvania against Barack Obama, continuing the relative ambiguity of which candidate should be chosen at the Democratic National Convention. However, recent polls show that Obama is closing the lead, and is now probably well within 10 percentage points of Clinton, with about 10 percent of polled voters undecided. The Real Clear Politics average of seven recent pols shows the spread at 7.8 percent. Most important, though, is a huge shift from 20 percent difference prior to late March to a 10 percent difference today. It is…

Elephants Are Not Ethnic-Blind

I have had this experience. I've traveled literally hundreds of kilometers by foot together with Efe (Pygmy) hunters in the Ituri Forest. We see very few animals. The few we do see are attacked, killed, and eaten. Well, a lot of them actually get away, but that is the idea. But I've also traveled many kilometers (not as many) alone. I would see many animals, and yes, they would run (or climb or whatever) away, but not as desperately. They knew I was not really one of the hunters, although I tried my best to look tough and hungry. Of course, when I use the word "animal" here I mean…

Beckwith misses the point

You can always trust Francis Beckwith to get it all wrong. He's arguing against the Dover decision on false premises. Should religious motivations of a theory's proponents disqualify that theory from receiving a hearing in the public square? It's a point that has become a central issue in the Intelligent Design-evolution debate. Francis J. Beckwith, associate director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies and associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University, told a New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary forum that the striking down of a policy based solely on…

Darwin's Plantation: Evolution's Racist Roots

The provocative title of this post is the title of a new book, by Ken Ham (founder of the absurd Creation Museum, in the woeful state of Kentucky) . Charles ware is co-author. The book came out in November, 2007, but is receiving beefed up publicity, presumably to coincide with Darwin Month and Darwin's upcoming birthday. This is a little like publicizing a book denying that Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Lincoln's Birthday (which, by the way, is the same as Darwin's Birthday). This issue has been addressed before, but since the publishers of the book have chosen to…

Evolution and Creationism in Texas

The Texas Acadamy of Science has come out with a statement about creationism in Texas schools science classes, called "Texas Academy of Science Position Against the Inclusion of Creationism and Design Concepts in the Science Curricula in Texas Schools" You can get the PDF here. Among other things, the document states: Texas science teachers have a finite amount of class time and textbook space in which to teach the many valid and foundational scientific concepts that enable students to become knowledgeable consumers, decision makers and voters. Inclusion of creationist or intelligent design…

Cancer research explained briefly

One reason I (and most people involved in cancer research) don't like the frequently used term "cure for cancer." The reason is simple. Embedded within this term is the assumption that cancer is just one disease, when it is most definitely not. Rather, it is many diseases affecting many organs, each with its own mechanism of pathogenesis and each often requiring different treatments. For example, for "liquid" tumors arising from hematopoietic organs, the treatment usually consists primarily of chemotherapy, sometimes with radiation therapy in the case of lymphomas, while "solid" tumors often…

Get yer Anti-Vaccine/Jenny McCarthy Body Count Widget right here!

Remember the Jenny McCarthy Body Count website that I mentioned last month? Basically, it's a website that uses CDC reports and other sources of information to estimate the number of cases of and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S. since Jenny McCarthy started her antivaccine crusade back in late summer 2007. The site points out that it is not blaming Jenny McCarthy for all this disease and death but that she should bear at least part of the blame for them because she has become the public face of the radical antivaccine movement. That's something I've been saying for a while…

There is such a thing as righteous anger

I heard good things about Dawkins' talk at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, so I let my computer crank away at downloading the video overnight—it's 113 megabytes! Then this morning Norm of onegoodmove lets me know that there are some shorter clips available from the Q&A: a reaction to the abuse of Quantum Theory, a disparagment of blind faith, and best of all, his reaction to hearing that Liberty University labels their dinosaur fossils as being a few thousand years old. The discussion with the audience is always the best thing about these talks, and this was a case…

Gum disintegration syndrome

Here's a weird and trivial phenomenon to consider: gum disintegration syndrome. I'm not much of a gum-chewer, and never have been…but I remember gum from when I was a kid, and you could chew and chew and maintain a flavorless wad for a long time. Recently, I thought I'd try gum as an appetite suppressant, and I got some of the sugarless stuff. To my surprise, I'd chew on it for a few minutes, and shortly I'd feel it losing its texture and getting runny, and then it would dissolve into small fragments that I'd just swallow. I thought it was those dang cheap confectionery companies, that the…

A blog mascot seeks a new career for a new year

It's a new year. Overall, 2007 was a good year for Respectful Insolence. When I first started this whole blogging thing, I had no idea that I'd still be at it three years later. Moreover, I had no idea that I'd still be able to produce posts good enough that people still want to read them. Heck, I even produced a fair amount of work in 2007 that I'm proud of and that compares well with anything I've ever done. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of a feature of this blog from the very beginning. Sadly, 2007 was not such a good year for this blog's mascot. It's not really his fault. It's…

Democrats may lose in the next election

The Republicans have a secret weapon, one that is going to be unstoppable, and probably means they are going to dominate both houses of Congress. Phil has discovered (via Randi, who also has another useful item) the most potent electoral tool in the Republican arsenal—better than fear and hate, even more powerful than Diebold—I'm telling you, this thing exceeds the awe-inspiring awesome awesomeness of magnetic "support the troops" ribbons for your car. It's the Presidential Prayer Team. Sign up, and you will get specific instructions on exactly what to tell God. After all, if we can get a…

Ted Frank on Lott vs Levitt

More interesting analysis of Lott's lawsuit from Ted Frank. First, after looking at the examples of the use of "replicate" he concludes: I appear to have been too generous to Lott's complaint when I first criticized it. Then Ben Zycher, who once mounted a defence of Lott consisting of nothing more than unsupported assertions and insults directed at Lott's critics, popped up in comments to support Lott with an unsupported assertion: In the context of refereed economics journals, "replicate" has one meaning only: The use of an author's data and model to ensure that falsification of findings…

Climate Audit on thermodynamics

John A, one of the bloggers at Climate Audit writes: You should know that Lambert's scientific knowledge is *ahem* "challenged". Ask him if he's discovered what entropy is and how it applies to closed thermodynamic systems. What a guy. Following the link, we find an anonymous person defending McKitrick's false claim that average temperature has no physical meaning. I had explained that the physical meaning of the average temperature of two bodies was the equilibrium temperature you obtain when you let heat flow from the hotter body to the cooler one and that this was just the weighted…

ChicagoBoyz on Lancet Study

After accusing the researchers and the Lancet of fraud and treason, Shannon Love is back with another accusation. The latest crime he accuses them of is rounding things off: One easily graspable example in the Lancet study's dishonesty is the key sentence in the Summary, the one repeated in the media world wide, that pegs the "conservative" estimate at 100,000 excess deaths. The actual given estimate is 98,000. What pure scientific purpose is served by rounding the number up to 100,000? There is no technical reason for doing so. They chose that number because a big, round numbers stick in…

FAQ: Woo versus non-woo

I don't think I could have done it much better, if at all. Dr. R.W. presents, in FAQ-form, a primer on the difference between woo and conventional medicine, even conventional modalities that are weakly grounded in evidence. A couple of examples: Many of mainstream medicine's conventional treatments are not evidence based. Aren't they a form of woo? No. Although some conventional methods fail to measure up to best evidence they are at least based on known anatomy and physiology. They have some plausibility in the observable biophysical model in contrast to the "vital forces", nebulous "energy…

The Australian's War on Science IX

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote how the Australian had misrepresented Rajendra Pachauri (IPCC head), falsely claiming that he supported the Australian government's policy of delay. Media Watch has the latest developments. Pachauri wrote to the Australian: I am writing to convey my deep disappointment at the news report in your newspaper of August 9 with the headline, "Climate expert backs Canberra". Nothing that I said in my telephone interview with Mr Matthew Warren implied or even remotely conveyed that I supported or opposed the Australian Government's policies on climate change. I am…

Even Monckton's inadequate correction is wrong

Christopher Monckton's attempt to debunk anthropogenic global warming was full of errors. In a follow-up article he only corrects three of them, and even makes another error in his correction. Last week I said that James Hansen had told the United States Congress that sea level would rise several feet by 2000, but it was the US Senate, and by 2100; I added a tautologous "per second" to "watts per square metre"; and I mentioned the perhaps apocryphal Arctic voyage of Chen Ho. No, adding "per second" is not tautologous -- it's wrong. "Watts per square metre per second" is a measure of how…

Greenhouse dirty dozen at work

According to Clive Hamilton, Alan Moran is one of Australia's greenhouse Dirty dozen: As the head of the Regulatory Unit at the Institute for Public Affairs, a right-wing think tank with close ties to greenhouse sceptics, Moran's role has been to support the Government and the fossil fuel corporations with anti-environmental opinions about climate science, the costs of emission reductions and the pitfalls of renewable energy. As a bureaucrat in the Kennett Government he played a major role in stopping, for a time, the national adoption of energy performance standards for home appliances that…

Blue moon at the Australian

Wednesday was an unusual day at the Australian, with two pro-science pieces published. First, Leigh Dayton, their science writer, raises some scientific objections to Ian Plimer's book. Plimer will, no doubt, continued to deny the existence of these problems: Plimer also repeats the inaccurate "fact" that the global warming peaked in 1998. Yes, it was a global scorcher, thanks to a heat-inducing El Nino. But after a dip in 1999, data collected by US and British climate centres shows an upward trend, despite year-to-year variations. She also corrects Greg Roberts' misleading stories:…

Monckton caught making things up. Yet again

Gavin Schmidt has caught Christopher Monckton in yet another fabrication. Monckton published graphs that purport to show that temperatures and CO2 concentrations haven't followed IPCC projections, but the IPCC projections Monckton plots are fictional. Schmidt graphs the actual projections, and surprise, surprise they give a very different picture. And in comments there, Igor Samoylenko writes With his latest shenanigans in the US, Monkton managed to catch the attention of Private Eye (a satirical current affairs magazine in the UK). In the latest issue 1235, they noted several things (quite…

Journal of Peace Research publishes badly flawed paper, part 2

This post is some more notes on a reply to the badly flawed "Main Street Bias" paper. The authors claim that it is plausible that the Lancet paper's sampling scheme could have missed 91% of the houses in Iraq. (That is, their parameter n, the number of households in the unsampled area divided by the the number in the sampled area could plausibly be 10 or more.) The only support they offer for this is a reference to this analysis of Iraqi maps. To the right is a detail from their map. The red lines are main streets and the yellow are secondary streets. They assert that the blue areas are…

So who is John S Theon?

The usual denialists (e.g. The Register) are excited because some guy they never heard of before has joined Inhofe's merry band, writing: "I appreciate the opportunity to add my name to those who disagree that global warming is man made." M. J. Murphy has some information about Theon. It seems that Inhofe's claim that Theon was Hansen's supervisor is completely untrue: Theon wrote to the Minority Office at the Environment and Public Works Committee on January 15, 2009. "I was, in effect, Hansen's supervisor because I had to justify his funding, allocate his resources, and evaluate his…

Chilinger: if you assume that CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas then increasing it doesn't warm the Earth

A new paper by Chilingar, Khilyuk and Sorokhtin is up to their previous standard. Here's the abstract: The writers investigated the effect of CO2 emission on the temperature of atmosphere. Computations based on the adiabatic theory of greenhouse effect show that increasing CO2 concentration in the atmosphere results in cooling rather than warming of the Earth's atmosphere. Wow! How did they come up with that? Here's their calculation: To evaluate the effect of anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide on global temperature, one can use the adiabatic model together with the sensitivity…

Revisionist Malaria History?

At Malaria Matters, Bill Brieger suggests that a new report offers a "revisionist malaria history": A new report on the implementation of Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) by the World Health Organization begins with the following 'historical' perspective: "In the 1950s and 1960s the WHO led malaria eradication campaign eliminated the risk of malaria infection for about 700 million people mainly in Europe, Asia and Latin America within a period of about 20 years using IRS as a major tool. In the 1980s, following the global consensus to replace malaria eradication campaign by a long term control…

The "Holocaust never happened but the Jews deserved it" subset of Holocaust denier

I've mentioned one particularly odious (well, more odious) subset of Holocaust deniers, a type that I call the "Holocaust never happened but the Jews deserve it" type of Holocaust denier. These Holocaust deniers claim that either the Holocaust never happened or that it was greatly exaggerated, while at the same time spewing anti-Semitism along the lines of, "The Jews deserved everything they got" from the Nazis. (Never mind that the denier just said in the previous breathe that the Jews never got much of anything as far as persecution from the Nazis). If you don't believe that this type of…

Amazed at the effect a minor blog can have

Busy at NIH Study section today, I didn't have time to compose anything extensive. (And there is most definitely something that needs a little Respectful Insolence going on; unfortunately, it will have to wait until tomorrow to receive it.) Fortunately, I had some thing in reserver for just such an occasion. From my e-mail several weeks ago (name & location withheld): Dr. Orac, My name is D. I am a Chiropractor and a Medical Doctor (IM resident at Medical Center X). I knew something wasn't right about the whole Chiropractic thing about half way through my education but could never quite…

The Special Favors for Fundamentalists Act of 2005

Before you read further, browse the Carnival of the Godless. It'll salve the pain when you read about the new conservative perfidy. Our Republican overlords have taken one more step on the road to theocracy with the approval of H.R. 2679, the Public Expression of Religion Act. You can read the full text of the bill, but here's the gist: Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a court shall not award reasonable fees and expenses of attorneys to the prevailing party on a claim of injury consisting of the violation of a prohibition in the Constitution against the establishment of religion…

Those in glass houses should not thow stones at China

Okay first: Where have I been? It's too complicated to answer and retain anonymity, so suffice it to say: "away". Thanks for all the e-mails over the past month asking for posts again. An item in Science caught my eye yesterday: Revolutionizing China's Environmental Protection. I'm sure you all know about China's problems. If you don't, click on that link and read on (it's only two pages). It is the following sentence that caught my eye, though: Economic performance is still China's main or sole criterion for selecting and promoting government leaders And that's different from here how?…

The Five Deadly Sins of Doctors, I Mean Barbers, Part V: Hypocrisy

[Editor's Note: After extensive review by our attorneys, upper management at T. C. O. Enterprises, Inc. has determined that the copy provided by the narrator for today's subject is too controversial to print. In accordance with this opinion we have changed the milieu from the medical arts to the tonsorial. Thank you for your patience in this matter. For Español please press two. If this is a medical emergency please hang up and bese su asno adios.] hypocrisy: a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess If you…

The Cheerful Oncologist's Little Book of Rules: Number 7

[This is one of a continuing series...] While visiting with a patient last week we reached that awkward point in a conversation where both parties have exhausted their supply of neighborly small talk. As I stood up I really couldn't think of any other issues to discuss. The patient's problem, as they say, was obvious - it was the solution that had stymied me. He had been recently diagnosed with cancer and had plenty of troubles related to this. The complications of his malignancy could be relieved. The cancer itself although treatable, was incurable. This fact weighed upon me, producing…

Another Reason to Let Mom Do the Dishes!

"Housework Activity Helps Elderly Live Longer" Doing household chores such as washing dishes and climbing stairs can help older adults to live longer, a new study shows. Every now and then a study is released that just makes so much sense one feels incredibly guilty in ignoring the life-saving advice contained within it. Fortunately the feeling soon passes, allowing one to return to one's normal activities. Researchers in the U.S. studied a group of 302 adults aged 70 to 82 who lived independently. Participants were followed for an average of six years. About 12 per cent of those who were…

Friday Fractal XXXIII

Well, technically, it's still Friday somewhere... It is bitterly cold in Colorado right now, somewhere around 10 degrees below 0, Fahrenheit. It was a bit warmer than that at sunset, when I spent some time admiring the fractal patterns in tree branches. (I'll confess, it's a favorite hobby of mine.) The windswept clouds, highlighted by the setting sun, made a lovely backdrop for the bare limbs. I realized, as snow drifted around my ankles, that I might be able to share the scene without the biting freeze. So, I was inspired to create a last minute layered fractal of trees: The geometric…

Darwin's autobiography - today's quotes

to my mind there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures compared with reading. Dr. Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a winter's morning are something fearful to remember. Dr. Munro made his lectures on human anatomy as dull, as he was himself, and the subject disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in my life that I was not urged to practice dissection, for I should soon have got over my disgust; and the practice would have been invaluable for all my future work. This has been an irremediable evil, as well as my incapacity to draw. ... During my…

I am out of Facebook

The name Facebook comes from college yearbooks where photos of classmates are stuck and things are scribbled on. The scribblings are some(many?)times deeply regretted later in life. As most of you who read this may already know, Zuckerberg who started Facebook is young and reckless (not unusual in itself, but his success with Facebook is). His stand on privacy is that of someone who is out of his depth and not that of someone who is a revolutionary. You can read an interesting and critical analysis here. I quote: Zuckerberg and gang may think that they know what's best for society, for…

Whippersnappers Still Blaring That Damn Noise

There are some things I consider news, and some things I just consider "well, duh." File this study, which reported that high school students don't care that loud music damages their hearing, under the second category. Kids These Days (tm) have been listening to loud music as long as their has been loud music to listen to, and I doubt very much that this will change. The reason for that is hinted at in the study itself: that teenagers believe themselves to be invincible, with very "low personal vulnerability" to permanent hearing loss. So despite the understanding that loud noise can damage…

It can't just be me

I just started a rotation on the adolescent wards, and about half of our patients have eating disorders. They are all girls, and they range in age from 12 to 17 years old. Every day, they have group therapy meetings in the recreation room at about noon. They file by our work area in flannel pants and pony tails, wearing shirts from cross-country teams and field hockey teams and basketball teams, slapping their slippers on the floor. They are all somewhere between 60 and 80% of their ideal body weight for height. As they walk by, I think to myself, "Man, they are so pretty." And I am not proud…

Slumgullion movement due to atmospheric pressure?

Go to Dave's Landslide Blog for full details about this. I don't have access to the paper. According to Dave Petley, there's a new paper in Nature Geoscience about the Slumgullion landslide. Slumgullion is in my greater neighborhood - it's in Colorado's San Juan Mountains, between Lake City (former home of Alferd Packer) and Creede (former home of Doc Holliday), and I think it's got the coolest name of any landslide (and possibly the coolest name of any geological feature). It's a strange landslide for its slow movement, and it's being monitored in excruciating detail by the US Geological…

A Short History of the Eastern Hemlock II

In Part I we looked at the eastern hemlock's northwestern progression after the last ice age, and the frequency of the hemlock along a slope-oriented moisture gradient: The distribution pictured above is almost exactly the case in the Laurel Hill old growth stand. The hemlocks are dense at the moist valley bottom, surrounding and shading Laurel Hill Creek and At the different levels of the gradient, not only does the abundance of trees differ, but the composition of the ecosystem. There is a "no-man's land" of sorts between each level that ecologists called ecotones. Ecotones are imaginary…

MTV, I Want to Want You...

...but you make it so damn hard. MTV has been incessantly airing their latest movie award travesty all week, and I've caught a couple of segments while channel surfing. Another year, another boring awards ceremony. Even Sarah Silverman's jabs at Hollywood couldn't make up for the mediocrity. I have a hard time letting go of MTV. I know it's crap - I think everyone does, including the producers - but I still have a lingering hope that things will change. Most of my younger friends from college don't remember when MTV actually was down to Earth, played good music and had some sort integrity…

What Can an Emoticon Do for Energy Use?

Social-norms campaigns are intended to mitigate problem behaviors by conveying the message that problem behavior occurs with far less frequency than people think (e.g. teenage drinking). But for individuals who already abstain from the undesirable behavior, this can actually produce a boomerang effect (similar to the effect we discussed for the Crying Indian PSA) where people see that others are behaving in a certain way and actually do more of the undesired behavior. In other words, there is a tendency toward normalization. In social messaging, therefore, it is important to build in…

Calcium nitrate (Calgon, take meth away)

Friday, I alluded to a chemical in the House version of the farm bill. It's calcium nitrate. Many meth cooks use a modified version of the birch reduction, which involves using an alkali metal (lithium here) in liquid ammonia. Lot of farmers use anhydrous ammonia (which is just barely a gas - put it in a tank much like a propane tank, and it's a liquid) to fertilize their crops. Predictably, this has led to a lot of meth cooks stealing ammonia from farmers. This is dangerous not only because of the drugs, but because of the ammonia - anhydrous ammonia is an entirely different beast than…

Can't make it to a party? Save a virtual reef instead!

Since this party is being held in my house, I imagine someone is certain to mention the giant squid in the bathroom. If you can’t make it, it won’t be you--but you can still have that same sort of undersea experience. Here’s a game review I wrote a while ago for JayIsGames, that was never published because JohnB beat me to the punch. It may not exactly be a "party favor" per say, but it is a lovely game.... maybe even more so than my bathroom! What happens when an oil tanker crashes into a coral reef, and the EPA fails to act in time? Well, if you’re talking about Kaleidoscope Reef, the…

Studying aging with synthetic biology

My labmate Bruno's newest paper, "A synthetic circuit for selectively arresting daughter cells to create aging populations" came out today in the journal Nucleic Acids Research (and it's open access!). Using a cleverly designed genetic circuit that activates cell growth arrest in newly divided cells only in the presence of a drug, Bruno was able to create a population of yeast made up of only old cells, called the "daughter arrester." You would think that yeast, being so single celled and bread-y, wouldn't be able to tell us much about human biology or anything as complex as aging, but many…

Plastics make you fat too? Angrytoxicologist reboots.

Well, if MacGuire was talking about getting into toxicology research on plastics, he was right on. EHP has published a study showing that the additive BPA can cause cells to suppress adiponectin. That would cause insensitivity to insulin and may be behind "metabolic syndrome". Let's pause for a moment and think about that name. That's got to be the worst name for a syndrome ever. It could only be more vague by being called 'syndrome'. I prefer something that creates a nice visual, like bronchiolitis obliterans. Nothing like an obliterated lung to get your attention. I propose…

Gene for the placebo response? Not even close.

New Scientist trumpets the discovery of "the first placebo gene". The study in question is here. I usually don't comment on this type of study, but this time the hype is just too much for me: New Scientist describes the study as "a milestone in the quest to understand" the placebo effect; an article in ScienceNow quotes a psychiatrist saying that "the findings could have major implications for research design". The article itself certainly doesn't talk down its results, with the first sentence of the discussion stating: The present study demonstrates that the magnitude of the placebo response…

THC Gives Cancer Cells the Munchies Too

Through the results of widespread experimentation of the... well... let's say "non-scientific" variety, it's pretty well known that marijuana has the side effect of making the user very hungry. This is one of the many physiological effects of the active ingredient THC (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol). More relevantly, however, THC and other cannabinoids are actively being investigated for various useful clinical purposes, including the treatment of cancer through the inhibition of tumor growth. A new study by Salazar et al. in The Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrates that THC causes…