wtf?

Everything old is new again. For years on this blog, I wrote about HIV denial and the few fringe scientists and journalists who espoused it. I attracted a host of trolls, some of whom repeatedly attacked my credibility, my appearance, even showed up at my academic office. One of the most prolific of these was Henry Bauer, who posts long-debunked ideas on HIV/AIDS (and the Loch Ness Monster to boot). That was, oh, 2007-ish and prior. In that same year Steven Novella and I co-authored an article on HIV denial for PLoS Medicine. In 2008, a leader of the denial movement, Christine Maggiore of "…
Just wrapped up a meeting sponsored by the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy and Princeton University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Institute on the topic of antibiotic resistance at the animal-human interface. While I was there, I hopped on Twitter at a break after mingling and pumping--and got my ass Twitter-splained. I should note that i have no idea who Doc Ricky is--or if said Doc is a man or a woman, but either gender can be susceptible to doubting the expertise of women and relying on men to "set them straight" as it appears…
Just a quick post as I'm in end-of-semester hell. Via Maryn McKenna on Twitter, the CDC has released a report of Campylobacter illnesses due to not food consumption, but because of castrating lambs. With their teeth. On June 29, 2011, the Wyoming Department of Health was notified of two laboratory-confirmed cases of Campylobacter jejuni enteritis among persons working at a local sheep ranch. During June, two men had reported onset of symptoms compatible with campylobacteriosis. Both patients had diarrhea, and one also had abdominal cramps, fever, nausea, and vomiting. One patient was…
Aah, the things one learns when awake at 3AM on a Saturday night. Via a few different Tweeps, I ran across this article from Men's Health magazine, titled "Urgent Warning: Sex with Animals Causes Cancer." I probably should have just stopped there. But no, I read the magazine article, which states: Brazilian researchers polled nearly 500 men from a dozen cities, and found that--we're not joking around here--roughly 35 percent of the men had "made it" with an animal. That's a problem, because screwing a horse, donkey, pig, or any other animal was found to up your likelihood of developing…
I've written a few times about chickenpox parties. The first link refers to a magazine article describing the practice; the second, a few years later, about a Craigslist ad looking to hold such a party "at McDonald [sic] or some place with toys to play on." Clearly, as chickenpox cases have become more rare in recent decades due to the success of the chickenpox vaccine, moving toward social media to find infections is the way to go. It allows people to find such cases and expose their immunologically naive children to a serious virus, just as easily as googling Jenny McCarthy Body Count."…
I wasn't going to raise this comment en blogge, but with Dr. Isis' new post, it becomes more relevant. From Rick Fletcher on the "you're too pretty" post: It's a major issue if your department won't hire your or promote you because you are a woman. It's no surprise that a retail clerk at a small shop in a downtown area is not the smoothest operator. 25 years ago it was a common response when I was introduced as a PhD chemist: "You don't seem like a scientist." Now it's a common response when introduced, "Why are you single?" People say some dumb things. Not exactly the news. But again, it's…
PZ has some additional thoughts on the Bibleflugate retraction up at Pharyngula. Choice quote: This is a serious concern, to my mind. Scientists are expected to be open and communicative about their work, explaining all the details about how we achieve our results. Yet then we hand that work over to a publisher (usually a for-profit organization), where it is subjected to an arcane process cloaked in mystery that they call peer review. And every once in a while, some strange fluke exposes the inherently arbitrary and chaotic nature of that process, everyone asks "how the hell did that get…
Well, that was quick. Yesterday's post highlighting a really terrible paper in BMC's Virology Journal drew a lot of comments here and at Pharyngula, and attention at the journal (where it currently stands as the 5th most-accessed article in the last 30 days). The journal's Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Robert F. Garry, this in the comments section to my post: As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ''Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time", which clearly does not provide…
Via Bob O'H and Cath Ennis comes this truly bizarre article from the Virology Journal: "Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that happened 2000 years ago in Biblical time". Now, regular readers will know that I normally love this type of thing; digging back through history to look at Lincoln's smallpox; Cholera in Victorian London; potential causes of the Plague of Athens, the origin of syphilis, or whether Yersinia pestis really caused the Black Plague. I've even written a bit about the history of influenza. So analysis of a 2000-year old potential flu case? Bring…
Interesting post today at juggle.com, showing the evolution of a conspiracy theory akin to a game of telephone. Interestingly, it starts with an article in Wired by author (and former Scienceblogger) Johah Lehrer. Lehrer wrote an article on the effects of chronic stress on health outcomes, and one researcher's work to develop something akin to a vaccine to mitigate the stress effects. Sounds reasonable, no? Next, the Daily Mail picked up the article, and focused on the "stress vaccine" angle. Finally, the folks at Alex Jones' Prison Planet--who've never met a conspiracy theory they didn't…
I realize art is, of course, subjective. I know what I like; sometimes I can explain why, and sometimes I'm not sure what it is about a piece that draws me to it. Certainly good art evokes emotion and can stir controversy and push limits. And like the notorious virgin Mary/elephant dung uproar, an undergrad at Yale has recently caused quite a stir with her own senior art project: Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking…
PZ got kicked out of a screening of Expelled, the latest ID propaganda movie--in which he's featured. Someone else who's in it? Richard Dawkins. Guess who PZ's guest was--a guest who was let into the screening? Yep. Dawkins. The irony. The hypocrisy. Just incredible.
I write about zoonoses (diseases transmitted between animals and humans) quite a bit here, but I don't think I've ever written about animal-human sex. Here at Scienceblogs, though, you never know what you'll find, and colleague Darren Naish has a post about, well, traumatic anal intercourse with a pig. And it comes from the peer-reviewed literature. Just goes to prove that truth is indeed stranger than fiction...
I've written previously how people will do crazy things for aesthetics. I know some would consider any tattoo in this category; I can't since I have a few myself. However, I'd never heard of a 3D tattoo before. I don't mean just the art appears to make the tattoo stand out and look 3-dimensional; I mean implanting materials underneath the tattoo to make it physically stick out. It's not always a happy ending though; more on a breast-implanted tattoo turned bad (and the "before" photo) after the jump. Tattoo studio owner Lane Jensen decided his "buxom cowgirl" tattoo on his calf needed a…
I don't even have to comment on this article from the LA Times about a new major in homemaking (for women only, of course) at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. So much in the article speaks for itself. Painful excerpts below: Seminary President Paige Patterson and his wife, Dorothy -- who goes by Mrs. Paige Patterson -- view the homemaking curriculum as a way to spread the Christian faith. In their vision, graduates will create such gracious homes that strangers will take note. Their marriages will be so harmonious, other women will ask how they manage. By modeling traditional…
Over at Respectful Insolence, Orac discusses an article where a scientist has spent his days shut away, slaving endlessly over a data set--of pictures of topless models. Why? To produce the perfect boob job, of course--or as the article puts it, "to help Hollywood look even more perfect." Great. Just what we need. According to the researcher, the ideal breast "...is a 45 to 55 per cent proportion - that is the nipple sits not at the half-way mark down the breast, but at least 45 per cent from the top." Like it wasn't enough before to worry about them being too perky, or too saggy, or…
Via PZ, I see that yet another Catholic bishop in Africa is claiming that condoms are laced with HIV: The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately. Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people". His answer to AIDS is, of course, marriage, fidelity, and abstinence...which is all well and good, but not always possible or realistic. (Not to mention, what about an HIV-infected spouse?) WWJD? [ETA: ERV has a…
Facebook, for anyone unfamiliar, is a social networking site, a more organized and less gaudy version of MySpace. Originally started for college students, Facebook opened up to anyone with an email address earlier this year. You can post a mini biography, let others know what you're up to, keep in contact with friends, upload pictures. Of course, not just any pictures will do; Facebook has a user agreement that includes a ban on "pornographic" pictures from their site. This clause recently got Karen Speed, a Canadian mom, in trouble. Facebook originally took down photos it deemed "…
Yes, you heard it here, folks. Is it any wonder that HIV researchers are so outraged by these people?