Cool Links

Greenland's Petermann Glacier Calves Again

Jul 19 2012 | comment(s)

Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland has calved again. As always, it's a big 'un, this iceberg, about the size of Manhattan.

Don't be too concerned. It is not a global warming disaster scenario, this baby iceberg is about half the one that came off in 2010. It happens about every year. That doesn't stop the Associated Press from getting hysterical. They got Andreas Muenchow, Associate Professor from the University of Delaware to say, "It's dramatic. It's disturbing. We have data for 150 years and we see changes that we have not seen before."

Nocebo Effect - Warnings About Side Effects Of Drugs May Be Making Us Sick

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

How many times have you seen a commercial for some medication to alleviate some pesky condition, and the bulk of the ad spot is someone droning on about all of the side effects?

And what's up with that print at the bottom that always says, "See our ad in GOLF magazine"? GOLF magazine must have the sickest readers on planet Earth. And then those print ads are even scarier than TV commercials.

Writing at PLoS Blogs, Steve Silberman discusses a new report that says side effects may actually be increased by full disclosure of all the side effects.

Is DSM-5 Unscientific?

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

Psychologist Roel Verheul and Psychiatrist John Livesley have resigned from the DSM-5 Personality Disorders Work Group, citing "major concerns about the Work Group's mode of working" and lack of a "coherent, evidence-based classification that would help to advance the field and facilitate patient care."

DSM stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

They explained in an email to Psychology Today's Allen Frances, M.D.:

Genetically Modified Apples And The Chilling Effect Of Anti-Science Propaganda

Jul 17 2012 | comment(s)

While gullible anti-science progressives are against genetically modified foods because they don't understand what 'natural' means, it isn't just advocacy groups who need new things to fundraise about that are up in arms, it is also growers themselves.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits has created an apple that doesn't get brownish so fast after you cut into it. That's it. Terrific, right?

The U.S. Apple Association, which represents the American apple industry, is against this Arctic Apple, not because they believe that genetic engineering is dangerous, but because opponents will claim apples are not a 'natural' food.

Wheat That Needs No Fertilizer - Gates Foundation Bets Big On GMOs

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

New work at the John Innes Centre in Norwich is hoped to benefit African farmers who cannot afford fertilizer.

Fertilizer is essential, it has made it possible to feed billions, but it brings pollution and farmers in poor countries who can't afford seed and lots of fertilizer might be able to afford seed that needs no chemicals to turn into food.

Unilateral Dermatoheliosis - 28 Years Of Photoaging Due To Sun Exposure

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

Think too much of ol' Sol won't age you prematurely?

Here's an unintentional science experiment on the effects of sun exposure. It's like a before and after picture, except it's the same face.

A 69-year-old man showed a 25-year history of gradual, asymptomatic thickening and wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face, the authors in NEJM write. The circumstances were about three decades of truck driving where one side of his face got a lot more sun exposure.

20,000 Year Old Pottery Discovered In Chinese Cave

Jul 16 2012 | comment(s)

The date for domesticated kitchenware has just gotten pushed back.

While it was believed that pottery dated back to 10,000 years ago, when humans changed from being hunter-gathers to farmers, the new archaeological findings push pottery well into the last Ice Age. Archeology may have brought a new anthropology puzzle, like why in Asia pottery is so far out of sync with agriculture.

The fragments were discovered in the Xianrendong cave in south China's Jiangxi province. The team was able to determine the sediments in the cave were accumulated gradually, without disruption that might have altered the time sequence, so their radiocarbon dating is accurate, they believe.

What Locksmiths Can Teach Us About Reforming Social Psychology

Jul 11 2012 | comment(s)

Social Psychologist Dave Nussbaum at the University of Chicago is one of the good guys; in the criticisms heaped on social psychology this year, the one silver lining is that it has been insiders tripping up the frauds like Diederik Stapel and Dirk Smeesters.

Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii Sets New World Record For Faking Data

Jul 08 2012 | comment(s)

Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii, formerly an anesthesiologist at Toho University's medical school, has a record no published researcher can match. He is 209 and 3. The problem is the 3 are papers of his that are known not to be fraudulent between 1993 and 2011.

Augmented Reality = Cool. Date With Hatsune Miku = Kinda Weird

Jul 08 2012 | comment(s)

If you have a Kinect and Goggles and an augmented reality program, what would you create?

Apparently a Japanese anime singer girlfriend, so you could bop her on the head. I can't figure out any of this, but Hackaday gives it a shot so give them a read. I just know that, weird dynamic with the virtual girlfriend aside, this is darn cool.

Dance, Hatsune Miku, dance!

What's Going On Inside A Flame?

Jul 07 2012 | comment(s)

In a Science editorial, actor, playwright and science advocate Alan Alda challenged scientists to answer a simple-sounding question in a way that would capture the imagination of an 11-year-old.

“What is a flame? What’s going on in there? What will you tell me?”

Basically, he would like to find the next Carl Sagan. And he was inspired because he asked that question as an 11-year-old and got a nondescript answer of 'oxidation'.

Mohammed El Naschie Vs Nature Publishing: The Truth Wins

Jul 06 2012 | comment(s)

Mohammed El Naschie brought a libel suit against Nature Publishing Group and a journalist there and at Bristol Crown Court today the judgment stated, "My conclusions are that the Article is substantially true, whether one considers the meanings complained of by the Claimant or justified by the Defendants, that it contains comments which are defensible as honest comment, and that it was the product of responsible journalism, so that the defence of Reynolds privilege succeeds."

In other words, the truth is still defense against libel.

In Case Of Alien Invasion, The Army Has Built A Special Island Fortress

Jul 04 2012 | comment(s)

Well, that Nibiru rapture on July 2nd never happened but it does not mean we are out of the woods. In July of 1996, a barely tolerable movie called "Independence Day" had a plot where aliens invaded Earth. It accomplished two things; the jingo-istic neo-cons in Hollywood of the Clinton years got to make July 4th a world holiday and they showed a Mac is so crappy it can ruin an alien civilization.

Maybe they also inspired the US army.

Food Police Chief Presides Over Hot Dog Eating Contest

Jul 04 2012 | comment(s)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, General in the War On Choice, is nothing if not inconsistent. You can't decide how much salt to use in NYC or decide what size soda to buy, thanks to imperial fiat, but you can gorge yourself on hot dogs in public and be a bad role model for what Bloomberg considers the most gullible and unintelligent people in the world.

Mayor Bloomberg does not want to look hypocritical so he now says there is nothing wrong with the occasional fast food meal. Why ban something if it is occasionally okay? I guess he means there is nothing wrong with occasional fast food as long as he decides when that occasion is. Like when it gets him a photo op.

There's A Reason Cats Go Blind On A Vegetarian Diet

Jul 03 2012 | comment(s)

Are you smarter than a cat?

Not if you are a vegetarian. Cats know what is good for them and that is why cats are basically carnivores. Cats can't produce taurine, 2-aminoethanesulfonic acid, which is vital for eyesight. Good luck getting taurine from a vegetarian diet. But mice and other critters? Absolutely.

Because being a vegetarian is unnatural, people in Norway are prohibited from putting their dogs or cats on vegetarian diets under the country’s Animal Welfare Act. That's right, Norwegians won't let you do to pets what PETA wants to do to all Americans.

Labeling Genetically Modified Food Is A Solution In Search Of A Problem

Jul 03 2012 | comment(s)

The government has mandated labeling standards to warn consumers of potential hazards, like smoking's link to cancer and lung disease.

But science illiterates (AKA progressive social authoritarians) are taking that example and insisting GM foods should also carry a warning label - despite no instance of them being harmful or unhealthy.

OxyContin for 6-year-olds

Jul 02 2012 | comment(s)

Purdue Pharma, makers of the painkiller OxyContin, are going to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to label it for use by children as young as 6.

Oxycontin earned them $2.8 billion last year but drug companies have a tiny window in which they can make any money so they are always looking for creative ways to extend that. Even a 6-month extension is a billion bucks so Purdue is putting together a pediatric trial which will involve 154 children ages 6 to 16 that would finish in August, 2013.

Can Lawyers Investigate The CDC?

Jul 02 2012 | comment(s)

A recent air leak from a laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, a lab that studies dangerous pathogens like influenza, tuberculosis and rabies, is a very serious issue because it has the potential to harm both employees and the public.

Leave it to Congress to put on some political theater and declare they will investigate - using lawyers.

It's not that there are no people in Congress with expertise, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., is a microbiologist. She just isn't on the committee of 54 law school graduates figuring out what went wrong.

Thanks, Congress. I feel safer knowing you will be posturing and grandstanding about this.

A Graphical History Of LEDs

Jul 01 2012 | comment(s)

LEDs are the future of lighting but they aren't new. British experimenter H. J. Round reported a light-emitting solid-state diode in 1907 while Oleg Vladimirovich Losev published the paper "Luminous carborundum [[silicon carbide]] detector and detection with crystals" in Telegrafiya i Telefoniya bez Provodov (Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony) but they were truly basic research and no real work was done with them for decades.

In 1962, Nick Holonyak, Jr. of the General Electric company patented the first practical LED and by the late 1960s they were in common use.

RoboBee: Tiny Robots Mimic The Symbolic Communication Of Bees

Jun 29 2012 | comment(s)

Bees use mathematical prowess to communicate the exact location of nearby food to other bees via a technique dubbed the "bee dance." It is the only known instance of symbolic communication in the animal kingdom (unless we consider there are deeper metaphors in "Real Housewives of New Jersey") and today a group of scientists are building a robot that can mimic that behavior of bees.

In the 1940s, ethologist and Nobel laureate Karl von Frisch became the first person to decode the bee dance.