humor
sb admin | September 28, 2007
YT parody of an ad for HeadOn, a homeopathic topical analgesic for headaches that's smeared on the forehead.
The official HeadOn site (I won't link since "the site is for the use of US residents only;" sorry I inadvertently looked and I'm not American, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to) states, "The active ingredients in HeadOn are diluted much more than the minimum required dilution dictated by the monograph of the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States and therefore represent no health risk whatsoever." Yes, and likely no health benefit whatsoever either.
The video HeadOn…
pharyngula | September 27, 2007I never cared much for this LOLcats craze, but LOLthulhu almost won me over…and now, at last, we have a truly appropriate subject for stupid captions on random pictures.
LOLtheist.
We are so going to burn in hell.
pharyngula | September 27, 2007Since Katie is trying to turn this into a football blog (don't mock it! Have you seen the kinds of traffic numbers the big sports blogs bring in?), here's another football story with a neuro link: a player who credits his recovery from a concussion to a "miracle". It sounds like there is a whole epidemic of foolishness in the NFL.
"People get really nervous when they hear someone proclaim their faith boldly," says the Rev. Peter Gallagher, one of the chaplains for the Indianapolis Colts. "So the easy thing to do is make fun of them. That way you won't have to deal with the real questions…
hrynyshyn | September 27, 2007Perhaps it isn't fair to make fun of the social sciences, and I know behavioral ecology has its merits, but can you believe people get paid to study how men and women hook up? From New Scientist we learn that:
... a little bit of flirting - smiling, raising eyebrows, nodding - goes a long way towards attracting a woman, even outweighing the negative effects of some men's antisocial nature. "Antisocial men can make up a lot of ground just by being flirtatious," says psychologist Andrew Clark.
Clark presented his findings at an Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour meeting hosted by…
oracknows | September 26, 2007I hadn't thought of this possible consequence of global warming before if homeopathy were actually true, but it's frightening to contemplate.
Fortunately, I think that even in this case the level of dilution wouldn't be enough.
oracknows | September 25, 2007Before moving on to discussions of alternative medicine (don't worry, there'll be one in the morning), I couldn't resist one last dig regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim in his appearance at Columbia University on Monday that there are no gays in Iran...
Sorry Mahmoud, but there was an Iranian contestant in the International Mr. Gay Competition.
Adding insult to injury, Mr. Gay Iran didn't win the International Mr. Gay Competition. Nathan Shaked from Israel did.
(Via Andrew Sullivan.)
oracknows | September 24, 2007While wandering through the medical center last week, I came across a rather unusual vending machine, one quite unlike any that I had ever seen before. It definitely hadn't been there the week before, but there it was now, around the corner from the hospital cafeteria:
Perfect if you're on call and feel the need for a potato knish at 3 AM.
I am, however, amused by the "24/6" label on the machine. Doesn't it work on the Sabbath?
grrlscientist | September 24, 2007tags: symbiosis, humor, The Onion
Those of you who haven't noticed this yet, The Onion has a really amusing article about symbiosis that you have got to read .. it might even make a really amusing "extra reading" for the classroom!
Devouring horsefly larvae embedded in her 3,000-pound partner's back, the tickbird seemed to agree that there was little fire left in their symbiotic relationship. At worst, she said, it feels like she and the rhino have been trapped in the same dead-end symbiosis for "countless millions of years."
"We just go through the motions, and there's hardly any…
oracknows | September 23, 2007ERV explains: Vaccines strengthen superpowers.
Take that, Jenny McCarthy!
mikethemadbiologist | September 23, 2007Because it's never too late to have lots of surgetastic goodness. From Rising Hegemon:
NPR actually does its job:
Sometime around February 2004, a top military official in Iraq estimated that there were about 15,000 total insurgents. About a year later, U.S. military leaders in Iraq announced that 15,000 insurgents had been killed or captured in the previous year.
In private, a skeptical military adviser pointed out to commanders that the numbers didn't make sense. "If all the insurgents were killed," he asked, "why are they fighting harder than ever?"
Well, obviously they are either lying…
oracknows | September 23, 2007Believe it or not, this post is related, albeit somewhat tangentially, to my area of expertise, breast cancer. It's also related to one of my great loves in life, namely loud, obnoxious rock and roll. Unfortunately, it involves bad art and an album cover so puzzling that, even when considering the source, I have a hard time figuring out just what the heck they were thinking when they put this album cover together.
I'm talking about, believe it or not, the cover of the new Ted Nugent album Love Grenade.
I know, I know, it's not as if one expects the cover of a Ted Nugent album to make sense.…
j7uy5 | September 22, 2007Some people are amazingly creative...or thirsty.
(
href="http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=854&num=5">Source)
pharyngula | September 21, 2007This game looks like it is way too much fun.
IF ID WAS MEDICINE
I could tell you you were sick, because you *look* sick. We'd have some fantastic metric for sickness that no-one has ever used and our "sick or healthy" filter would just be a concept.... that didn't work. I could maybe tell you you were sick, because you look sick but could make no comment about the disease causing the sickness, how it makes you sick or how to cure you. Real medicine would be a dogmatic religious belief, though.
Everyone can play! Pick your own analogy!
grrlscientist | September 21, 2007So of course, I had to share it with you.
Courtroom drama custody ruling
A seven year old boy was at the centre of a courtroom drama today when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him.
The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge awarded custody to his aunt.
The boy however confirmed that his aunt beat him more than his parents, and refused to live there. When the judge suggested that he live with his grandparents the boy cried out that they beat him more than anyone.
Then in an unprecedented move, the judge dramatically allowed the boy to choose…
hrynyshyn | September 21, 2007Wal-Mart scares me on the best of days, but not quite like this. Seems there was a two-year-old who "had a fit" when he came across a Wal-Mart Halloween display that came to life before his innocent little eyes:
The tot was with his grandmother on Tuesday night at the Hendersonville [N.C.] Super Wal-Mart when a Halloween display seemed to take on a life of its own.
As Hendersonville resident Jan Overcash and Tucker were leaving the store, an employee directed their attention to the display, said Overcash, 47. It seemed harmless at first.
"The head was still on it, but then the arms raised up…
oracknows | September 20, 2007In today's earlier post, a commenter stated:
You sure do like that "long run for a short slide" phrase.
I wondered: Is that true? Do I use that phrase too much? So, like any good blogger, I did a search. And what did I find? I found that, in the entire history of this blog since it's been on ScienceBlogs (a year and a half now), I've only used the phrase a grand total of two timestwo times in less than two days, which may have given the impression that I'm overly enamored of that phrase.) In the history of my old blog, there was not a single use of the phrase.
I therefore conclude that I do…
mementomori | September 20, 2007Just when you thought the highly evolved hominids occupying this planet have reached the nadir of lunacy, often described as a point so low no living being could go any further without drawing comparisons to a Monty Python sketch, comes this report:
A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.
Those of you who watch the late, late show on television might recall that the beginning of an autopsy usually involves carving the front of the body from chin to groin like a jack-o-lantern, which makes the lead…