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Celiac: My Trendy Experience

Celiac: My Trendy Experience

Aug 29 2012 | comment(s)

I am white. I am liberal. I went to a good college, but some might argue that I didn't get a good education. Certainly I like to study science to this day. Let me tell a medical story I went through which might be germane to a blog by Hank, "Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People". 


I have always been liberal about eating, as in I eat anything. I was skeptical about all food allergies. I also have insulin dependent diabetes. That is a disease that can kill you any day, but I am approaching my thirtieth year.
Deadline Confidence Judgment: Turns Out Profiling Works

Deadline Confidence Judgment: Turns Out Profiling Works

Aug 29 2012 | comment(s)

Modern culture is always trying to find new ways to catch bad guys more scientifically but as psychology has fallen in credibility, so has one of its more successful methods; profiling.

It isn't a new trend; after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there was outcry because the terrorists had not been arrested in advance. One bureaucrat came forward and was identified as a whistleblower because she had tried to raise alarm but that renewed the debate - she used 'racial' profiling about people from the Mid-East and had narrowed in on the right people.
Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People

Celiac: The Trendy Disease For Rich White People

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

Are you white and a little resentful that black people get their own cool disease, sickle cell anemia?  There is good news for you. Celiac disease is all the latest rage and you can be any color at all and claim it.

How do you know if you are gluten intolerant?  Elaborate assays?  DNA? At least a blood sample?  Nope, you just have to give up wheat and say you feel better and you are allowed to claim you have it. And proponents have even scarier numbers - they claim 97 percent of the people who have Celiac disease don't know they have it, so their ranks are really much bigger.
Scientific Truth-Seeking: An Evolving Process

Scientific Truth-Seeking: An Evolving Process

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

Standards of Transparency in Science? 

For Entertainment Only: 3 Social Science Studies

For Entertainment Only: 3 Social Science Studies

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

Like with psychic readings, sometimes you need to post a disclaimer that the following is 'for entertainment only'.  No science sensibilities were actually harmed in the writing of the following article by Ross Pomeroy at RealClearScience:

Social scientists, he says,  have a hard time being taken seriously because they have a strong penchant for turning out laughable research, the media has an equal fascination for covering it, and we love absolutely reading about it.  True.  So if you want to believe stressed men find fat women more attractive, you are racist even if you are not and that hangovers are a bonding experience, it is a good week for you.
Antibiotic Residues In Uncured Sausage Meats Potent Enough To Weaken Helpful Bacteria

Antibiotic Residues In Uncured Sausage Meats Potent Enough To Weaken Helpful Bacteria

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

Helpful bacteria that processors add to acidify the sausage and make it safe for consumption are weakened by antibiotic residues in uncured pepperoni or salami meat, according to a new small-scale lab study in mBio. 

Researchers studying the effects antibiotic residues in fermented sausages found that antibiotic concentrations within limits set by US and European Union (EU) regulators are high enough to slow fermentation, a process that acidifies the sausages and should destroy foodborne pathogens like Salmonella or E. coli.
Cerataspis Monstrosa: 180 Year Old Biology Mystery Solved

Cerataspis Monstrosa: 180 Year Old Biology Mystery Solved

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

For more than 180 years, the origin of Cerataspis monstrosa - monster larva - has been a mystery as deep as the ocean waters it comes from.

Researchers have been trying track down the larva that has shown up in the guts of other fish over time but found no adult counterpart. Until now.

George Washington University Biology Professor Keith Crandall cracked the code to the elusive crustacean's DNA this summer.   It turns out this monster larva and the deep-water aristeid shrimp known as Plesiopenaeus armatus are one and the same: larvae and adult forms of the same species.

Catholics: Right Wing Pawns Or Left Wing...Pawns?

Catholics: Right Wing Pawns Or Left Wing...Pawns?

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

In a Protestant country, despite claims that religion does not matter, it's still a tough cultural road for Catholics.  Almost no conversation can be had that won't end quickly with Galileo or some pederast priest. Being anti-Catholic is ingrained in history.
Canadian Farmers Want To Make Their National Policy On GM Foods Scientific

Canadian Farmers Want To Make Their National Policy On GM Foods Scientific

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

While Californians in America are fighting for ways to send America back to the 13th century, some Canadians are embracing science and the modern world.
Scientific Illiteracy Is An Attack On Science Integrity

Scientific Illiteracy Is An Attack On Science Integrity

Aug 28 2012 | comment(s)

New York Times opinion columnist Nick Kristof is at it again. Despite pleas, even from people inclined to like the New York Times and people inclined to side with him politically, he refuses to talk about science a little less or at least learn a little more.
Science 2.0 at ECCS 2012

Science 2.0 at ECCS 2012

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

Science 2.0 columnist Cees Pieters will be at the ECCS 2012 Satellite Meeting on Critical Complexity in Practice: Exploring the Entanglement of Causal and Ethical Complexity in Organizations and Professions. 

ECCS is the European Conference on Complex Systems and is being held at at Université Libre de Bruxelles from September 3rd-7th.
Just Take It Easy: Humboldt Squid Survive Low Oxygen By Slowing Down

Just Take It Easy: Humboldt Squid Survive Low Oxygen By Slowing Down

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)


Little glowing fish called lanternfish and the similarly sized, shrimplike krill are creatures worthy of pity. They're on the menu of almost every large marine animal you can name: from tuna to penguins to whales, and, of course, squid. Most notably Humboldt squid, who stuff their beaks with truly epic quantities of these small fry.
GMOs: Food Science Grows Up In Europe As America Goes Backwards

GMOs: Food Science Grows Up In Europe As America Goes Backwards

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

For more than a decade, Europe has been as anti-science as can be imagined regarding genetically modified organisms —  consumer crops that have had their genetic code altered in order to make them easier to farm.

Environmental activists have frequently responded to GM crop trials by vandalizing or destroying them, while scare stories about “Frankenfoods” have been a regular staple of the British media diet. But two developments in the last month show that Europe may be joining the science community again, while California prepares to leave it:
Now Broadcasting From Radio Jupiter

Now Broadcasting From Radio Jupiter

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

A project that investigated the planetary radio-frequency emissions of the Earth and Saturn also discovered a strange radio emission from the planet Jupiter.

The Earth is loud. As in"radio-loud", which is how objects causing measurable radio emissions are described in astronomy. The Earth's magnet field influences charged particles (electrons, protons, and ions) in a way that causes radio emissions. Other planets such as Saturn or Jupiter cause these emissions as well and measuring them allows us to draw conclusions about planetary magnetic fields.

The new analysis discovered a new modulation in terrestrial radio emissions along with analysis of particular components of Saturn´s radio emissions.
Another Scientific Fantasy or Why Social Scientists Are Simply Annoying.

Another Scientific Fantasy or Why Social Scientists Are Simply Annoying.

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

There are few things as irritating as scientists taking complex topics and reducing them to sound bites that are invariably wrong.  They pick up the wrong data, manipulate it with a bit of correlation and suddenly they're off and running on a new study which promises to be as ridiculous as the last.

Currently there is one entitled "The role of Genes in Political Behavior", that would have people rolling in the aisles if it weren't so pathetic.
What hasn’t changed since 1969?

What hasn’t changed since 1969?

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

Neil Armstrong changed the way we think of ourselves – but, oddly, not the way we think of the Moon, writes Daniel Hannan on Telegraph Blogs.

But what I particularly like is the comment by one Maria Kay:
I've toured the USS Hornet, now retired in Alameda, Calif. (That is the aircraft carrier that fished the Apollo 11 capsule out of the ocean.) There is a small museum of moonshot memorabilia stored on board.
Shock And Awe

Shock And Awe

Aug 27 2012 | comment(s)

Well this is objectively awesome. In a report published earlier last week in Science, Berényi et al. demonstrate that carefully controlled electrical stimulation of the rat skull can quickly and drastically diminish abnormal brain activity associated with epilepsy1.

Environmental Guilt Is Big Business

Environmental Guilt Is Big Business

Aug 26 2012 | comment(s)

39% of Americans feel 'green guilt' for wasting food, a much higher number than letting the sink run while they brush their teeth or not buying those stupid low-flow toilets.

The 2012 Eco Pulse results are in.  So look for the latest marketing campaigns from environmental activism corporations soon.

Why does anyone do surveys on what people feel guilty about rather than what people care about?  They do it to sell it to environmental groups and no environmental group raises money on a 'things are great' platform, they raise money by telling you how much you are a parasite for Gaia. The Eco Pulse survey tells marketers at Greenpeace, Sierra Club, etc. what your weak points are.  
Yes, I have that twisted nerve too - I sneeze when I shouldn't

Yes, I have that twisted nerve too - I sneeze when I shouldn't

Aug 26 2012 | comment(s)

Okay, I am coming out for the interest of Science.

I read today this article, which does not really say anything new to me, but for some reason triggered my wish to speak up about the condition. The article explains clearly that some people have a twisted connection in their nerves, sort of a short-circuit, which makes them sneeze when they think about sex (others have the same kind of problem making them sneeze when they are looking at bright light sources, e.g. the sun).
An experiment to detect currents due to an Axial Force

An experiment to detect currents due to an Axial Force

Aug 26 2012 | comment(s)

In last weeks post,I introduced the Axial force, a force interacting between neutrinos, left handed neutrino repel other left handed neutrino while attracting right handed anti-neutrinos or indeed right handed neutrino (if there where any). We may follow interaction emitting or absorbing neutrinos to assign axial force charges to the other particles too. Electrons don't have a charge, but neutrons can decay to a proton, an electron and a neutrino, so either the proton or the neutron must have a axial charge. We don't see any extra forces in neutron scattering to a good precession, so we assign a axial charge to the proton and not to the neutron.