|
|
|
|
No Elder Left Behind: Researchers Say Designers Can Help Close Tech GapWhile more older adults than ever are using cell phones and computers, a technology gap still exists that threatens to turn senior citizens into second-class citizens, according to Florida State University researchers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Galileo's Notebooks May Reveal Secrets Of New PlanetGalileo knew he had discovered a new planet in 1613, 234 years before its official discovery date, according to a new theory.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Sensing Disasters From Space: 'Earth Binoculars' See Our Planet Through An Astral LensAn Israeli researcher's "hyperspectral remote sensor" combines sophisticated sensors in orbit with sensors on the ground and in the air to give advance warnings about contamination, pollution and weather disasters.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Treatment For Epilepsy Is Possible Culprit For Development Of SchizophreniaResearchers say antiepilectic drug treatments administered when the brain is developing appear to trigger schizophrenia-like behavior in animal models. In humans, having a history of seizures in infancy is a significant risk factor for development of schizophrenia later in life, but it is not known whether the elevated risk is due to seizures themselves, or from side effects antiepileptic drug treatment.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Seeing Previously Invisible Molecules For The First TimeChemists have developed a new microscopic technique for seeing, in color, molecules with undetectable fluorescence. The room-temperature technique allows researchers to identify previously unseen molecules in living organisms and offers broad applications in biomedical imaging and research.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Optimized Inhaler Mouthpiece Design Allows For More Effective Drug DeliveryRedesign of mouthpieces for aerosol inhaler devices allows for drugs to be more effectively delivered to the lungs and may allow for a new class of aerosol administered medications.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Immune System Quirk Could Lead To Effective Tularemia VaccineImmunologists have found a unique quirk in the way the immune system fends off bacteria called Francisella tularensis, which could lead to vaccines that are better able to prevent tularemia infection of the lungs.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Female Choice Benefits Mothers More Than OffspringThe great diversity of male sexual traits, ranging from peacock's elaborate train to formidable genitalia of male seed beetles, is the result of female choice. But why do females choose among males? Researchers found no support for the theory that the female choice is connected to "good genes."Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am General Anesthetics Lead To Learning Disabilities In Animal ModelsBlocking the NMDA receptor in immature rats leads to profound, rapid brain injury and disruption of auditory function as the animals mature.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Mechanism For Neuron Self-preservation DiscoveredScientists found that a lipid kinase directs a voltage-gated calcium channel's degradation to save neurons from a lethal dose of overexcitement.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am The nation's weather (AP)AP - Wintry weather is expected to continue in the Eastern United States on Saturday due to a strong low pressure system.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 3:33 am Australians kick off world climate change protest (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 24 Oct 2009 | 12:50 am Hong Kong air pollution equals record high (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:20 pm Obama: 'Cynical claims' attacking energy bill (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 6:38 pm WATCH: Freemason Symbols and Secrets: Part 2Is the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill really a Masonic symbol?Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:30 pm DIY Laser Market Exploding, Cosmetic Surgeons Not Happy
Want to get rid of some unsightly hair, but don’t want to spend the big bucks for electrolysis or a laser clinic? Now, you can buy your own laser and do it yourself. And people are. The growth of the at-home cosmetic-device market, which includes personal lasers, has some professionals buzzing. At an annual conference hosted by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Barry DiBernardo, a New Jersey surgeon, delivered a talk in Seattle about the pros and cons of the DIY market on the ASPS’s “Hot Topics” panel. “We have to make sure that the patients are getting good, safe treatments. If they are getting good, safe treatments, then whether they are doing it at home or not, I’m not as worried,” DiBernardo told Wired.com by phone. “What I’m worried about is that they are seeing things in the Skymall on the airplane and spending hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars on something that is not going to work or is unproven.” New cosmetic medical devices including DIY lasers are expected to explode into a $1.3 billion market 2013, up from just $296 million in 2008, according to the analyst group Medical Insights. The growth in the market appears to be coming from light-based products that claim to either remove or grow hair on the human body. The Silk’n Hair was the first at-home laser device to be approved by the FDA, in 2006, although it didn’t come on the market until early 2008.
The laser hair removers damage the hair follicles that are in their growth phase, generally leading to some permanent reductions of body hair. DiBernardo questioned whether the lasers used in the home devices were powerful enough to get the kind of results that clinics achieve. “In general, these devices are low-powered versions of the doctor versions. We’ve been doing hair removal since 1998, so we know that they work and how well they do,” he said. “I think these home devices have some effect, but they legally can’t have the power of what we fire at people.” He thought, perhaps, the devices would find their places as secondary hair-removal techniques or in conjunction with traditional hair-removal treatments. Proving one man’s trash is another’s treasure, the wonderfully named, HairMax LaserComb, is an FDA-cleared medical device that claims to regrow hair (on the head). Other cosmetic procedures appear to be taking place at home, despite dubious legality. One website, discountmedspa.com purports to sell its clients Botox, which is a prescription drug, over the internet. Wired Science was able to proceed through the order form on the website up to the method-of-payment details without being asked for a prescription. A YouTube video linked from the site shows a woman calling herself Laurie filming her own injections. “I’m not aware of that,” DiBernardo said of home-administered Botox. “You need to know where the muscles are, the depth, the dosage. That doesn’t seem good.” On the website’s blog, a writer called Botox Queen explained how the site is able to offer a prescription product. “Laurie belongs to the Texas Medical Council and is licensed to sell these products to the women that want to use them and understand that it is their responsibility to use them safely,” she wrote. Melanotan, a tanning drug, has been sold on similar websites, although the FDA has brought them under increasing scrutiny. Image: Gillette Silk’n. See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:26 pm NASA Clears New Rocket For Tuesday Launch Test (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A prototype version of NASA's newest rocket is ready for its planned Tuesday launch, mission managers said today.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:18 pm NASA: Rocket Test Won't Endanger Space Shuttle (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - NASA is confident that its first test flight of the new Ares I-X rocket will go well next week. But if it ends in an explosive failure, the agency affirmed that the nearby space shuttle Atlantis atop its own launch pad will be safe.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:18 pm Copenhagen 'backup' group meetsLegislators from 16 major economies meet to hammer out climate policies ahead of December talks in Copenhagen.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:06 pm SLIDE SHOW: The Week's Top StoriesTake a look at the past week's top news in the Flashback Slide Show.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:00 pm Largest solar panel plant in US rises in Fla. (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 2:55 pm Evidence Alexander the Great Wasn't First at Alexandria (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Alexander the Great has long been credited with being the first to settle the area along Egypt's coast that became the great port city of Alexandria. But in recent years, evidence has been mounting that other groups of people were there first.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 2:52 pm Science NationScience for the People: Surprising discoveries and fascinating researchers.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 1:35 pm Whiskered RobotsRobots with whiskers like a rat can detect and then project 3D virtual images of objects on to a computer screen. Scientists say robotic rovers, like the ones on Mars, might contain a set of whiskers to help them navigate the terrain around them.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 1:33 pm Make Like a Leaf: Next-Gen Paint Could Strike Lotus Pose
Lotus leaves stay dry by using the natural vibrations of their environments to shake off water, and manmade materials should be able to mimic the water-repelling technique. New research published today in Physics Review Letters by Duke materials scientist Chuan-Hua Chen has solved a long-standing puzzle: how lotus leaves stay dry in the wild, but not in the lab. Chen, who grew up surrounded by lotus plants in his hometown of Honghu in central China, had an intuition that perhaps the leaves used the vibrations induced by the wind to stay dry, but that had never been shown in the lab. So, Chen and his graduate student, Jonathan Boreyko, stuck lotus leaves, on which they’d condensed water, atop the woofer of a $20 Radio Shack speaker to vibrate the leaf at about 100 hertz — and recorded what happened with a very high-speed camera. Just as in their natural state, the leaves stayed dry. “People have observed that condensation forms every night on the lotus leaf. When they come back in the morning the water is gone and the leaf is dry,” Chen said in a press release. “The speaker reproduced in the lab what happens every day in nature, which is full of subtle vibrations, especially for the lotus, which has large leaves atop long and slender stems.”
Lotus leaves are the canonical example of a hydrophobic, or water-hating, material. When drops of water fall on the plants, they roll off. They cannot be wet. At the microscopic level, the surfaces are actually quite rough: Tiny fiber-covered pillars hold up the water droplets, creating a cushion of air that prevents them from sticking to the leaves. If water gets into that air cavity though, the property of the material reverses and starts to love water. Dew, which forms inside the air cavities presented a major problem for researchers looking for hydrophobic coatings for vehicles, say. They worried their materials would be ruined by actual field usage. “Much remains to be done to achieve genuine antidew materials,” summarized French materials scientist David Quere, in a 2008 article in the Annual Review of Materials Research (.pdf). The real problem, though, was that the leaves had not been allowed to move as they would in natural conditions. Now, with the discovery that simple vibration can force every drop of water off the leaf, a roadblock has been cleared for hydrophobic materials. “This finding has direct applications because vibration is everywhere,” Chen told Wired.com. “Your computer has fans, it keeps vibrating. Your power plants, your automobile or your spacecraft all have vibrations.” Materials, then, can be built to scavenge the tiny amounts of energy in their environments to dry themselves off. You can watch the process at work in the video below. At first, the water molecules are subtly impaled on the tiny spikes of the lotus leaf. As the vibration commences about halfway through the video, the water droplets at first struggle to break free — and then actually do so. In the language of materials science, the leaf’s surface has gone from a Wenzel state, where it’s not hydrophobic, to a Cassie state, where it is. And that’s the very first time that’s ever been observed in the lab. Image: flickr/tapperboy See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Oct 2009 | 12:50 pm Earhart's Final Resting Place Believed FoundAmelia Earhart mostly likely died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 12:40 pm What Really Scares People: Top 10 PhobiasFears come in all varieties from animal phobias, such as dogs or snakes, to situations like closed spaces or heights.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 12:38 pm Slick NASA iPhone App Puts Space in Your Pocket
Can there ever be too many space photos? Here at Wired Science, we believe the answer is no, there can never be too many, or even enough, space photos. And now NASA is aiding our addiction by putting its huge collection of mind-blowing space photos in our pockets. The new NASA iPhone app means that even when you are away from your computer (or telescope), you can gawk at nebulas and sunspots. NASA’s image-of-the-day and astronomy-photo-of-the-day collections are right there in searchable thumbnail grids. (We like the “nebula” and “mass ejection” searches.) Plus, you can e-mail or save them to your phone. It’s hard to think of a better way to get nerdy/sublime backgrounds than this app. You can also watch videos from NASA TV of science updates, mission activity, rocket launches and other events. Another fun option is checking in on NASA’s various missions with status updates and live countdowns clocks. And if you need to know exactly where the International Space Station or space shuttle is right now, NASA has you covered with their orbit tracks overlain on Google Earth or a map with political boundaries, or both. And, of course, Twitter updates from @NASA are also right at your fingertips. Sure, it’s a space-booster public relations vehicle, but who cares? Overall, we love it. Nice job NASA! Image: Jim Merithew / Wired.com See Also:
Follow us on Twitter @betsymason and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Oct 2009 | 12:37 pm Evidence Alexander the Great Wasn't First at AlexandriaMicroscopic pollen, charcoal in sediments suggest settlement that pre-dated founding of Alexandria.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 12:34 pm Male Humpback Whales Sing Duets
QUEBEC CITY, Canada — Like a songbird calling another out, one male humpback whale may make another change his tune.
Male whales may be using music to tell another male, “Hey, I’m talking to you,” Cholewiak reported Oct. 14 at the Society of Marine Mammology’s biennial conference. Cholewiak “showed short-term acoustic interactions between males — that was the new thing,” said Adam S. Frankel of Marine Acoustics Inc., an independent consulting firm in Arlington, Virginia. Among humpback whales, only males boom out long strings of repeating phrases of hums and whups and chirps. The sounds can make a boat vibrate, said Salvatore Cerchio of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City, who worked with Cholewiak on the new study. Scientists use the word song to describe this patterned male vocalization, just as they do for elaborate bird serenades. Male songbirds sing at each other to claim their territory or seduce females. Though humpbacks don’t defend territories, they certainly have rivalries. Typically three to eight males surround a female and battle for the position closest to her. “These guys are streaming blood,” Cerchio said. “The gentle giant is a myth.”
But observations so far haven’t helped scientists understand whether humpbacks use songs the way birds do. Tests haven’t shown male or female humpbacks consistently swimming toward or away from recorders playing songs. And scientists have yet to see humpbacks mate. So instead, Cholewiak took a different approach, boating around a breeding ground recording and analyzing songs. “I was drooling over what she was able to do,” says Sharon Nieukirk of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon. Whales rarely cooperate with field biologists’ experimental plans. Cholewiak undertook the song analysis while at Cornell University, which has a renowned flock of birdsong researchers. She adapted measurements used in bird studies to analyze the humpbacks’ songs. For example, the whales repeat a phrase of notes several times in one block, or “theme,” before moving on to another, and Cholewiak looked at how often the whales switched among these themes. To record whales, Cholewiak spent four winters on the small island of Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelago off the Pacific coast of Mexico. She dropped recorders weighted with sandbags into the ocean to eavesdrop on whales. After months, she transmitted an acoustic signal that released the recorders so they popped to the surface. Analyzing the recordings, Cholewiak could determine where the singers were and reconstruct their movements. In the sea of sound recordings, she found 14 cases in which a male sang alone for at least 45 minutes and then continued for another 45 minutes after another male started singing. Cholewiak noticed two changes in song when humpbacks sang together. Overall, the first singers switched more often among various musical themes when a second singer hung around. Also, the first males adjusted their songs so that the pair was more likely to sing the same theme simultaneously. When males meet, Cholewiak concluded, songs change. When she found a male singing by himself, she attempted a playback experiment. She recorded his song and used a computer program to create a simplified version incorporating three of his themes. Then she broadcast the version to him via speakers dangling below the boat. Confronted with simplified recordings of their songs, males tended to make their singing more even. This change meant that a male came closer to spending equal amounts of time singing each theme. Researchers don’t yet know what these changes mean, but the new work opens the way for questions about what messages whales may be communicating. If humpback songs follow the pattern of birds, the messages could get pretty macho. And females could be tuning in. That the humpbacks appeared to respond to the playback at all was a pleasant surprise, Cholewiak says. Song playbacks had fallen into disfavor after researchers found no pattern in the movements of listeners. “I was initially very reluctant to try it,” she says. Yet checking song characteristics instead of whale movements made all the difference. Image: NOAA See Also:
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:44 am Male Humpbacks Call Each Other OutMale humpback whales change their songs when they hear other males singing along.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:40 am How Bacteria Get Past Our DefensesResearchers discovered how the bacteria H. pylori bores through the stomach's mucus lining.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:36 am Puppets Teaching Lab Safety Are Surprisingly Not CreepyAfter years of suffering through dull lab safety videos, a group of Berkeley students have made a film that could spare a younger generation from watching humorless people with 80’s hair explain the dangers of wearing open-toed shoes while working with chemicals. Their music video evokes the Muppets while conveying several important messages that can keep kids from getting hurt. “Lab safety has been a real issue recently,” said Patrick Bennett, who directed and edited the short film. “And a few high chemistry school teachers we knew were interested in showing stuff like the nano song in their classes.” Late last year, a UCLA lab technician was fatally wounded when a plastic syringe filled with tert-butyl lithium, which ignites upon exposure to air, broke and sprayed the flammable liquid all over her. That incident sparked a great deal of interest among chemists in updating their safety training materials. After Bennett’s group of musicians, songwriters, and puppeteers won several awards for making an educational video about nanotechnology, they turned their attention to preventing tragic accidents. Producing their next clip took more than four months. “The music writing took quite a while, I heard the first cut back in July,” Bennett said. “The video itself we filmed in mid September and didn’t finish till last week.” See Also:
Follow us on Twitter @wiredscience, and on Facebook.
Source: Wired: Wired Science | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:00 am Bigger Creatures Have Bigger Blood CellsNew evidence suggests that cell size affects metabolic rate.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 10:50 am Malawi could be the cradle of humankindKARONGA, Malawi (Reuters) - The latest discovery of pre-historic tools and remains of hominids in Malawi's remote northern district of Karonga provides further proof that the area could be the cradle of humankind, a leading German researcher said.Source: Reuters: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 10:46 am Ancient, Giant Beavers Didn't Have a Taste for WoodA jawbone reveals stark differences in the diets of extinct beavers and their modern cousins.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 10:30 am Earth WatchCopenhagen climate countdown: Deal or no deal?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 10:22 am Bottlenecks Made Humans Less DiverseHumans are closely related thanks to evolutionary bottlenecks, research claims.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Energy reports 'a waste of time'A former Tomorrow's World presenter brands the system used to assess the energy efficiency of homes as "insane".Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 8:19 am Men Who Voted for McCain Saw Testosterone DropGuys showed lower levels of the male hormone when they found out their candidate for president had lost.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 7:59 am Dawkins targets teenagers with myth-busting illustrated bookGod Delusion author plans to pair popular legends with 'lucid scientific explanations' in illustrated work for young readers After squashing Darwin deniers and God-botherers with bestselling tomes including The God Delusion and The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins is set to tackle what might be his hardest audience yet: teenagers. The well-known scientist and atheist has struck a book deal for his first title for young adults, which will look to explode myths and legends about the natural world with science. Due out in autumn 2011, What is a Rainbow, Really? will take on topics including who the first man and first woman were, why there are seasons, what the sun is, how old the world is and why there are so many animals, first answering the questions with myth and legend, and then with "lucid scientific explanations". "Richard has always been incredibly keen to reach children from the whole point of view of individual critical thinking and not to just toe the party line," said Sally Gaminara, who bought the book for Transworld, part of the Random House Group. "He will explore certain myths people are brought up with – he's very keen to do that, to make people look at things and not be accepting, to question more ... He will tell myths for what they are but will also delight in their poetic beauty." The book will be illustrated by Dave McKean, who has previously worked on books by David Almond and Neil Gaiman. "It's for young adults of 12 and upwards but it will also appeal to the curious child and to adults as well," said Gaminara. "It will be a really rich and rewarding and inspirational sort of book." Dawkins's previous books, including The Selfish Gene and The Blind Watchmaker, have sold more than 1.2m copies to date, according to book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan. His diatribe against religion, The God Delusion – which describes the God of the Old Testament as "a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully" – is by far the most popular, with more than 700,000 copies sold since it was first published in 2006. His latest, The Greatest Show on Earth (which lays out the evidence for evolution) has already sold almost 45,000 copies little more than a month after it was published. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Oct 2009 | 7:55 am Erratic typhoon weakens, keeps Philippines on edge (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 7:40 am Swine Flu Vaccine Fears DebunkedIs the swine flu vaccine safe? We asked the experts to address common concerns.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 23 Oct 2009 | 7:00 am Tiger skin trade in China exposedAn undercover investigation by an environmental campaign group reveals the continuing trade in tiger skins in China.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 6:51 am Robotic Craft Mimics Falling Maple SeedsA tiny aerial device mimics spiraling maple tree seeds.Source: Livescience.com | 23 Oct 2009 | 6:20 am Rare bird sighting draws hundredsAbout 300 people have gathered at a South Tyneside quarry after the first reported UK sighting of a rare bird.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 5:55 am SpacemanUS panel supports commercial space serviceSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 5:40 am Scientists seek origins of obesity in the womb (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 23 Oct 2009 | 5:16 am Who's afraid of a homeopath's woo?Advertising works, but only on people who aren't scientifically educated. So why not allow it? The question: Should there be freedom to mislead?The problem is this: the game is rigged. The playing field is so far from flat, it might as well be parkour. Scientifically validated treatments (aka "medicine") are required to be demonstrably effective, and carry pages of warnings of possible side effects. Even for the most temperate drugs, it must be as clear as vodka that they may cause all manner of hell ranging from vomiting, diarrhea and cramps, to coughing up your pancreas, genital self-mutation and in the most adverse reactions, the irrepressible desire to shave a wolf. However, none of these is very likely. Homeopathic products, conversely, are not obliged to warn of anything. In almost all cases, that is adequate, as most homeopathic products are water. The problem arises in the rare cases when people are so blind to the inefficacy of these so-called treatments that they needlessly put health and lives at risk. Alternative medicine sellers are not even required to show that their products work. Nevertheless, I would never advocate banning these products if they are indeed innocuous. You can't ban homeopathic remedies anymore than you can ban Evian. What you can do is prevent the sellers from telling fibs. But I find it weird that they are not allowed to advertise. The Advertising Standards Authority exists to prevent companies from making unsupportable statements in selling products. As even the vague skeptic knows, the claims that homeopathy works above the placebo are gossamer thin, if I'm being uncharacteristically generous. So let them advertise. Let them compete with the grown-ups. They claim they can cure the sick, so let them be scrutinized by the same rules that govern real medicines. Here the current legislation falls very short. But that's not why there are examples of hideous cases where the application of non-evidence-based products has resulted in fatalities. Although rare, they shouldn't be ignored, even if they are statistically insignificant. Any preventable death is one too many. But my sense is that these mercifully infrequent deaths are at the hands of people who are psychopathically blinded by faith. Homeopathy didn't kill Gloria Sam: insanely misguided and irresponsible parents did. Yet another part of me knows that the trouble with this hubris is that any advertising for homeopathy would result in increased sales. Advertising misleads. No matter how much you douse your axilla with Lynx, you, yes you, will never, ever score with the women portrayed in their ads. It's not a lie, they're just setting you up to do all the leg work by associating the funk of a regional disco with extraordinarily attractive and sexually available women. Some bottled water now comes with the legend "calorie-free", appealing to those pathologically concerned with weight, but untroubled by the most rudimentary chemistry. A decent (and by "decent" I mean "good at his job" rather than "honourable", of course) advertising copywriter would be able to make a homeopathic product utterly attractive without breaching the ASA's codes. To a certain extent, we're all suckers. That's why the first ingredient in your shampoo, toothpaste, and dozens of other water-based products is "aqua". Advertising, marketing and packaging have the bewitching effect of rendering Nurofen more effective than ibuprofen, despite being identical in composition. We're all complicit in the fudge of advertising. There are always going to be moral gangsters who target and exploit humankind's bounteous foibles. But you know, I'm a wishy-washy liberal science lover. I believe education is the weapon of choice. Most of the millions who use homeopathy are not evil, or corrupt, or liars. They're just wrong: tempted into a world of flake because they don't have the desire or tools to tear down the huckster's pitch. Legislation should exist to educate people to be able to decide what is sham and what is not. Science is great like that. It's not a bank of knowledge; it's a way of knowing. Science is a huge parlour trick, but there's no secret, and anyone can use it. Once you know how to think scientifically, you have the sword that will carve up any bullshit. The key is to engender a culture of people who can smell the honk of a shyster a parsec away; a nation of skeptics, where the norm is to confront assertions, and ritually demand parsimonious explanations. When that happens, then the level playing field of regulations that we so desperately need will already be redundant. Until then, the Simon Singhs, Ben Goldacres, David Colquhouns, and legions of bloggers and skeptics will continue to chip away until the peddlers of woo are regarded by all as the jesters they so clearly are.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:51 am New Related LinkSource: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:03 am Passport, please: Stowaway grasshopper first of its kind in UKA startlingly-coloured grasshopper that jumped a flight from India is the first of its kind to be seen in the UK.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 23 Oct 2009 | 3:54 am Freakonomics without the factsSteven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's bogus claims on climate change have riled up scientists. Maybe that was the point I thought I had read enough about Superfreakonomics and its horrifyingly ignorant chapter on climate change to prepare myself for the actual text. But nothing could prepare me for the assault on science, logic and the English language that is this excerpt. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner managed to pull together just over 43 pages on science they clearly don't understand, with contradictory assumptions, clichés and gimmicky analogies. The chapter reads like a student term paper, a compilation of various factoids accumulated over the semester but displaying no real grasp of the subject matter. The logical leaps between sentences and at times bizarre sentence structure make me wonder if they actually farmed this chapter out to an undergraduate. The scientific flaws are numerous, starting with the claim that the majority of scientists worried about global cooling just a few decades ago. This idea, based largely on a 1975 Newsweek story, is categorically false. It was never a widely accepted idea, and besides, the magazine has since acknowledged that the projections in the story cited so often in this chapter were "spectacularly wrong". Levitt and Dubner also seem to think that scientists are not aware that water vapour exists, which, I assure you, isn't the case, and they argue that carbon dioxide was not responsible for historical warming, when, in fact, it was. All of these are things that a simple deployment of The Google might have helped them avoid, but they don't seem very interested in facts. I won't dwell on the scientific flaws, as actual scientists have covered them quite well already (see William Connolley, Joe Romm and Melanie Fitzpatrick to start). Besides, Levitt and Dubner are economists. I can forgive them for some misunderstanding. I'm more interested in their blatant disregard for the truth. They came into the chapter, it seems, believing that global warming science has "taken on the feel of a religion", are they wanted to seek out the "heretics". Problem is, even one of the main "heretics" they cite says his work and statements were taken out of context. Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at Stanford University, says that Superfreakonomics includes "many errors" as well as a "major error" in claiming that he downplays the role of carbon dioxide in warming. What's truly offensive is the response from Dubner and Levitt as their numerous errors have been exposed. Rather than contend with the science, Dubner and Levitt took to their blog to call their critics names and write them off as "activists". The chapter, Dubner wrote, "will likely produce a lot of shouting, name-calling and accusations ranging from idiocy to venality." "It is curious that the global-warming arena is so rife with shrillness and ridicule," he ponders. "Where does this shrillness come from? Some say that left-leaning activists have merely borrowed their right-leaning competitors from years past. A reasonable conjecture?" It might also be a reasonable conjecture that there are a number of scientists out there who are deeply concerned about the misinformation that the duo wantonly spreads. Levitt and Dubner have doubled down as the criticism has increased, accusing their critics of trying to "smear" them. They also don't deal with Caldeira's concerns about the misrepresentation of his work, and instead treat it as a difference of opinion – not grossly misstated "facts". And then, over the weekend, they officially jumped the shark. On Saturday, Levitt appeared on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition programme. Near the end of the segment, host Scott Simon referenced a critique of the chapter from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Levitt took to his blog shortly thereafter, alleging that environmental bullies forced NPR to note the critiques. "A well-known environmental-advocacy group pressured NPR into reading a statement critical of the book," he wrote. It's hard to know whether all this chatter about how badly Levitt and Dubner screwed up the science of climate change will hurt or help them. They sold four million copies of their last book, and I would never have picked up this new one had it not been for all the hubbub. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Of course, this is the sole goal of this kind of gimmicky book aimed at people who don't actually understand economics, the environment or whatever other complicated topic they turn their pop lens to. That's how you sell books, and that seems to be their only goal here. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Source: Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk | 23 Oct 2009 | 3:30 am
|
