Total news: 195
Last news: January 5, 2008 19:53:43

A new body is set to regulate a range of complementary therapies such as homeopathy and aromatherapy. (Source: BBC News | Health | UK Edition) - [Read more]

A new council backed by the prince of Wales will regulate British practitioners of aromatherapy, homeopathy and other alternative therapies. (Source: United Press International - Health Business) - [Read more]

Well, The Day has arrived! After reading all of the 486 entries at least once (and many 2-3 times) and after calculating all of the judges ratings of all the posts, Reed Cartwright and I are happy to announce which blog posts will be published in the second science blogging anthology, the "Open Laboratory 2007". First, I want to thank the judges (at least those who do not wish to remain anonymous - let me know if I missed one of you) for spending their holiday break reading, commenting on and grading all the submitted posts and making our job that much easier. Those are: Anna Kushnir, Greta Munger, Tiffany Cartwright, Karen James, Anne-Marie, Michelle Kiyota, The Ridger, Abel PharmBoy, John Dupuis, Blake Stacey, Greg Laden, Michael Rathbun, Jeremy Bruno, Egon Willighagen, Martin Rundkvist, Arunn Narasimhan, Mike Dunford, Steve Matheson, Brian Switek, Kevin Zelnio, John Wilkins and Mike Bergin (and one or more anonymous referees). Please visit their sites, look around, boost their traffic and say Hello. I will post occasional updates on the process of turning all these posts into a book, which should be published and up for sale just in time for the 2nd Science Blogging Conference. And now, here are the winners...drumroll please... The Poem: Digital Cuttlefish Much Ado About...The Brain? The Comic: Evolgen The Lab Fridge Essays: 10000 Birds In Memory of Martha Star Stryder You are the Center of the Universe (and so am I, and so is Gursplex on Alpha Eck) The Pandas Thumb Stuck on you, biological Velcro and the evolution of adaptive immunity and Behe vs Sea Squirts, fused into a single article. Bad Astronomy Happy New Year Arbitrary Orbital Marker! Aetiology Would you give your baby someone elses breast milk? Anterior Commissure Why we bond - Individual recognition, evolution, and brain size Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog How Much LSD Does It Take to Kill an Elephant Archy Visiting the Wenas mammoth and Looking for drowned mammoths fused into a single essay. Backreaction Science And Democracy III The Questionable Authority Adam, Eve, and why they never got married Bit-player Measure twice, average once Bootstrap Analysis Shrew party Cocktail Party Physics Genie in a Bottle Evolving Thoughts Ancestors Coffee Talk What is the meaning of (grad student) life? A Blog Around The Clock The Scientific Paper: past, present and probable future Aardvarchaeology Your Folks, My Folks in Prehistory Creek Running North Breathing in, breathing out Thoughts from Kansas Neither means, motive nor opportunity: a guide to dysteleology Deanne Taylors blog Faculty diversity in science Deep-Sea News Our Ocean Future: The Glass Half Empty and Our Ocean Future: The Glass Half Full fused into a single article. Depth-First SMILES and Aromaticity: Broken? Duas Quartunciae The Evolution of Wings Effect Measure Tamiflu resistance: digging beneath the headlines The End Of The Pier Show No Girrafes On Unicycles Beyond This Point The Loom Build Me A Tapeworm The Pump Handle Popcorn Lung Coming to Your Kitchen? The FDA Doesnt Want to Know Denialism blog The Road to Sildenafil - A history of artifical erections Genomicron Anatomy of a Bad Science Story Highly Allochthonous Testability in Earth Science Invasive Species Weblog Square Pegs Laelaps Homo sapiens: What We Think About Who We Are (Redux) Life of a Lab Rat Riding with the King (also found here) Living the Scientific Life Schemochromes: The Physics of Structural Plumage Colors The Primate Diaries The Sacrifice of Admetus Afarensis The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times All of My Faults Are Stress Related The Sound of Mylonites Microecos In the eyes of the Aye-ayes Mind the Gap In which I leap into the Void, In which I lift my finger from the pause button, In which I contemplate the road taken, not taken, then re-taken and In which I rejoice in muscle memory fused into a single essay. Omni Brain How moving your eyes in a specific way can help you solve a problem Minor Revisions Indefensible Neurologica Sloppy Thinking about Homeopathy from The Guardian Neurophilosophy An illustrated history of trepanation Notes from Ukraine The Chernobyl liquidators: incredible men with incredible stories (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3) and Musings about the liquidators fused into a single article. Pharyngula Segmentation genes evolved undesigned Pondering Pikaia Moving Mountains Quintessence of Dust They selected teosinte...and got corn. Excellent! Adventures in Ethics and Science Getting ethics to catch on with scientists Schneier on Security Cyberwar Shtetl-Optimized Shor, Ill Do It Stranger Fruit Pithecophobes of the World, Unite! Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV all four fused into a single article. Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) - [Read more]

What do "Complementary and Alternative Medicine" (CAM) and "Vanity Publishing" have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out.Some quick definitions to bring the non-writing and the non-medical public up to speed on each other:The central tenet of legitimate publishing is "money flows to the author." Individuals and companies that make their money charging authors for anything from "reading fees" to "editing services" to actually producing books are not legitimate publishers. They are scammers preying on ignorant and/or gullible authors who, holding a book in their hands with their name on it, dont really understand what publishing is all about.Medicine as defined in this day and age is the application of science to the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Of course there is an "art" to medicine, mainly because the science is incomplete. CAM refers to individuals who prey on ignorant, gullible and/or desperate patients who do not understand medicine, offering magical thinking cloaked in the trappings of scientific medicine (calling themselves "doctors," for example.)One fascinating similarity is that outside their respective fields, neither is considered much of a big deal:In general, non-physicians dont see the harm in allowing stupid people to spend money on things like homeopathy, Reiki, supplements and chiropractors, and dont understand why physicians are so up in arms over the issue. Deaths from curable conditions treated with fake medicine are chalked up to the tragedy of stupidity. They may not even believe or understand whats wrong with CAM in the first place. It makes you feel better; isnt that what medicines all about?Non-authors and people not involved in publishing couldnt care less about vanity publishing. What difference does it make if an author is published by Random House or Publish America? Its a free country; if people want to spend their money self-publishing their books to call themselves "published authors," so what? Good people are victims of fraud. Tough; it happens. If someone who actually writes something with legitimate potential has his career destroyed before it begins because of a Lulu ISBN, who cares? A book is a book, isnt it?Muddying the water is the fact that under specific and limited circumstances, some versions of both CAM and vanity publishing have their uses. Certain kinds of yoga and relaxation exercises have been shown to improve well-being in patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy, for example. Some people with highly personal or technical books who need a small number of them for sentimental or professional purposes ("back of the room" books after a lecture, or a family biography) can have them produced beautifully by a company like Lulu. Problems arise when, ignoring limitations, these scenarios are used by the unscrupulous to validate other, less appropriate contexts of their false promises.Another important similarity is that many "consumers" of both CAM and vanity publishing dont consider themselves victimized at all. They are a large part of the problem, and explain why both forms of fakery continue to flourish. Many patients with vague symptoms, ill-served by busy doctors, find "relief" in the arms of the homeopaths, the chiropractors and other quacks, and then spread the word like religious zealots. Likewise, discouraged by both the rigor as well as the seeming randomness of the legitimate publishing industry (including literary agents) plenty of people have turned to what is essentially self-publishing, where they are the ones primarily responsible for selling their books through signings and "author events." They see nothing wrong with having to purchase their own books at 50% off the cover price and then re-selling them themselves. They consider themselves legitimate, published authors and no one can convince them otherwise.Flying equally under the radar of both groups are the forces trying to warn and protect the other, hoping to transform the ignorant and gullible into the knowledgeable and savvy:Writer BewarePreditors and EditorsQuackwatchNational Council Against Health FraudStill, its difficult for each group to get all worked up about the travails of the other. So why should they? Heres why: People shouldnt be allowed to defraud others out of their hard-earned cash with false promises -- whether of legitimate publishing or rational health care. (Source: Musings of a Dinosaur) - [Read more]

Happy new year. not least to the folks at the homeopathy4health site .  They are jubilant about a “proof” that homeopathic dilutions could produce effects. albeit only on wheat seedlings. But guess what? After some questioning it was found that they hadn’t actually read the paper. Well I have read it, and this is the [...] (Source: DCs goodscience) - [Read more]

I was watching an old edition of Frontline:World that I had on my DVR. The one about CIA rendition of terrorism suspects to other countries for torture... excuse me, I mean alternative means of interrogation.Anyway, the next segment on this episode was about Ayurveda, a form of traditional Indian medicine. The reporter goes to an Indian Ayurvedic retreat with a frozen shoulder maybe, or maybe severe osteoarthritis of his shoulder. Hed been offered a shoulder replacement surgery by an orthopedic surgeon, but was trying to explore non-surgical remedies. His shoulder ailment was relatively severe, in that he didnt have enough movement in his shoulder to comb his hair.So, anyway, he spends (I think) 2 weeks at this Ayurvedic spa/hospital getting his Doshes balanced with various noxious potions (judging by his descriptions), massages, anointings. Also he got daily shoulder exercises and daily shoulder massages.Surprisingly (or not, really), his shoulder got better. At the end, he credits this to Ayurvedic medicine.Im not a believer in complementary and alternative medicine. At all.Except, I am. Kind of. But not really.Let me explain. I dont really believe in Doshes or in homeopathy and the memory of water, aligning chi, or any of that stuff. Im not a big believer in the supernatural.I think that Western medicine (hereafter known simply as medicine) is great at curing acute illnesses. Accupuncture/Ayurveda will never be widely promoted for curing tuberculosis or meningitis, or for healing traumatic injuries. What we dont learn in medical school is much about promoting and maintaining health. Western culture also doesnt promote a lifestyle conducive to health. Additionally, what used to be common sense with respect to health is no longer so common. Many, many people dont have time to cook their own food on a regular basis due in part to work demands and also in part to long commutes. The average commute in the metropolitan area I live in is something like 45 minutes each way. Thats 1.5 hours each day. So, if people could afford to live near where they worked, and had a 30 minute commute, that 60 minutes would be enough time to either cook dinner or to get the exercise they need that day. Or, if they lived a 20-30 minute walk away from work, they could just use that extra 45 minutes to cook dinner.Additionally, most (almost all) of my patients live in the grocery desert known as the inner city (seriously, you cant buy produce within 6 miles of the hospital I work at!). So, they live on fast food. Churchs chicken, McDonalds hamburgers, Wendys, that sort of thing. And the hospital isnt helping much by having an expensive cafeteria with very limited hours, and making Wendys the only food thats either available or affordable to most of their patients and employees. Is it any wonder we have so much hypertension, obesity, etc? I mean, a certain percentage of the population will always be hypertensive and/or obese and/or diabetic. It does seem though, that those with the genetic predisposition to those diseases who happen to live in the inner city and be poor dont really have a fighting chance.So, back to the story. You take this reporter with a bad shoulder, feed him good food, let him rest, have him do daily exercises and get daily massages on this shoulder, and what do you get? Its basically intensive physical therapy, which we know works. Why dont we do this here? Because it takes a lot of time and money. The guy didnt continue with the exercises as he was told to do, and his shoulder got worse again. So, I dont think it was Ayurveda balancing his Doshes that fixed his shoulder. It was the rest and intensive physical therapy. What Ayurveda really offered him was wellness.And what he failed to continue to do was maintain his wellness. So, although I dont think that people have Doshes that need balancing or chi that needs redirecting, I do think that some of these traditional systems of medicine may have a thing or two to say about maintaining wellness that we in western culture (particularly in the USA) seem to have forgotten along the way.(Picture Credit) (Source: Midwife with a Knife) - [Read more]

Over at BPR3, a reader brought up an interesting question about the nature of peer-reviewed research, which I thought was relevant to our readers here as well. Im reposting my entire response below. The system of peer review, the bulwark of academic publishing, has served scholars for centuries. The principle behind the system is simple: If experts in a field find a research report noteworthy, then that report deserves to be published. But who is an "expert"? And who decides who the experts are? Couldnt a group of individuals committed to promoting their own research -- which may or may not be well-founded -- get together to form their own "journal," which they could legitimately claim publishes "peer-reviewed research"? They can, and they do. BPR3 Danny Chrastina asks: What if its a pseudoscience paper which has been peer-reviewed by other pseudoscientists? Im thinking of the reviews Ive written of papers published in Homeopathy or J. Alt. Complement. Med. which point out their glaring misuse of quantum mechanical ideas. Would a blog post citing such "research" qualify to use the BPR3 icon? There are a couple possibilities to consider: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Source: Cognitive Daily) - [Read more]

Many patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and other forms of arthritis turn to alternative, traditional or complementary medicines because of lack of efficacy or fear of traditional medicines. There is also the sometimes mistaken notion that alternative medications are safer than traditional medicines. In a study of patents with rheumatoid arthritis at Dubai Bone and Joint Center it was found that 66% of patients had tried some form of alternative medicine. The most commonly preferred were acupuncture, ayurveda, herbs, and homeopathy.Always discuss your use of alternative medications, herbs, etc with your rheumatologist/ doctorAlways use only licensed and well qualified practitionersRemember that even herbs can have side effects and interact with medications you takeRemember that often not enough research has been done into ‘natural’ therapies and hence all their side effects are not known.Traditional medicines which your doctor gives you have known side effects and are usually safe to take under proper supervisonThere is no evidence that any of the alternative forms of medicine can prevent joint damage such as has been proven with drugs like methotrexate Dubai Bone and Joint Center is conducting a large study addressing the benefits of yoga for arthritis. If you are interested kindly email Dr. Badsha at info@dbaj.ae (Source: Arthritis Dubai) - [Read more]

The deadline for submission of blog posts for the 2nd Science Blogging Anthology is over. We have received 468 entries (after deleting spam and duplicates - the total was 501) and a jury of 30+ judges has already started reading and grading the entries. We truly believe that we will have the book ready and printed by the time the 2nd Science Blogging Conference starts, on January 18th-19th, so both the participants and you at home will be able to order your copy at that time. Here are all the entries for you to enjoy and comment on - let me know if something is missing or I got a link wrong, etc., and do not hesitate to voice your opinion in the comments here: -------------------------------------------------------------- 10000 Birds In Memory of Martha A Myna Problem A Blog Around The Clock What is an Author? On my last scientific paper, I was both a stunt-man and the make-up artist. Basics: Biological Clock A Huge New Circadian Pacemaker Found In The Mammalian Brain Sex On The (Dreaming) Brain A Pacemaker Is A Network Framing Science - the Dialogue of the Deaf The Scientific Paper: past, present and probable future A Cat Nap University and depression, Part I: the undergrad years A Drunkards Walk Through Modern Science A Flip-Book Animation of Translation Initiation A Hot Cup of Joe The Bosnian Pyramid: a Brief Summary The Rise of the Sumerian Culture A k8, a cat, a mission The mutability of biology Aardvarchaeology Your Folks, My Folks in Prehistory Absinthe Retention of American Women in Science Adamant Deep Time For Dummies Adaptive Complexity Evolutions Balancing Act Adventures in Applied Math Ask an Applied Mathematician Adventures in Ethics and Science Just Gimme Some Truth Combustion Getting ethics to catch on with scientists Kitchen table conversations concerning water Aetiology Mail harmless bacteria, go to jail Egnor just doesnt know when to quit Would you give your baby someone elses breast milk? Environmental Change and Infectious Disease Introduction to Marburg virus: history of outbreaks Afarensis The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times A Question For Archaeologists: Where are the Children? All of My Faults Are Stress Related The Sound of Mylonites The rheology of women in science In which I go hiking with the kid and see cool minerals... like ice Anterior Commissure Thanks, Dad - behave well and you may shape your kids lives forever, Thanks, Dad - youre a changed man and Thanks, Dad - the paternal brain and his selfish genes fused into a single article. Sex? Yes please - a primates-only dissociation between sex and reproduction Why we bond - Individual recognition, evolution, and brain size Anthropology.net (Kambiz Kamrani) Reconstructing Prehistoric Behavior & Ecology of Northern Fur Seals Applied Reason Whats ailing Bayes? Archy Visiting the Wenas mammoth Looking for drowned mammoths Backreaction The Worlds Largest Microscope The Marketplace of Ideas Bouncing Neutrons in the Gravitational Field Bad Astronomy Is it hot in here, or is it just me? Happy New Year Arbitrary Orbital Marker! Apollo 1 fire: 40 years ago today Bad Science The End of Homeopathy? Balancing Life What does it take to be a pioneering scientist Why is a PhD this long and hard Behavioral Ecology Blog Why theists make poor scientists Bit-player Measure twice, average once Amazon poker Conquering Divide Bitesize Bio Fluorescent Neurons Over the Brainbow Belgrade and Beyond Blog Plagiarism - web infringement! Online friending: information overload and simulation of life To FB or not to FB? Are we friends or ex-friends? Blogfish Read my lips, no new taxa Parasitic males Bonobo Handshake Bonking Baby Bonobo Study Lets talk about sex Bootstrap Analysis Shrew party Bug Girls Blog Academia is a Cult Whats the best way to repel mosquitoes? CABI Blogs: hand picked ... and carefully sorted Bluetongue virus: knocking at the door Catalogue of Organisms Insects Never Fail to Amaze Relict Frog Sex ChemSpider Blog InChIs and SMILES from Erectile Dysfunction Drug Searches at ChemSpider Chrisdellavedova.com Inconvenient Truths Clastic Detritus Global Warming and Petroleum Geology Cocktail Party Physics Brain Candy Genie in a Bottle Magnetic moments Coffee Talk The scientific method What is the meaning of (grad student) life? Cognitive Daily Whats the best way to praise a child? Be specific. Common Sense Simple Chemistry for blogs Confessions of a Science Librarian Interview with Jane of See Jane Compute Interview with Timo Hannay, Head of Web Publishing, Nature Publishing Group Corie Loks blog Looking for fossils with a shotgun on your back Scifoo ponderings: how to break the mold in science Cosmic Variance (Sean Carroll) Boltzmanns Anthropic Brain Cosmic Variance (Heather Ray) MiniBooNE Neutrino Result Cosmic Variance (Daniel Holz) Trinity Cotch dot net Horizontal transfer and the modern species Creek Running North River of fire, river of stone Breathing in, breathing out Cumbrian Sky Titan - the new New World Curly Arrow Fun with singlet oxygen Daily Kos (Darksyde) A Rose By Any Other Name When Good Cells Go Bad Daily Kos (Mark H) Tropical Strays Darwin says just so How human got so brainy DCs Goodscience Science in an Age of Endarkenment Deanne Taylors blog Faculty diversity in science Deep-Sea News Our Ocean Future: The Glass Half Empty and Our Ocean Future: The Glass Half Full fused into a single article. Boring?...Hardly...Lifeless & Barren?...Not Even Close Deep_Thought Some breakthroughs have been made Denialism blog Crank HOWTO The Road to Sildenafil - A history of artifical erections Denialists Should Not be Debated Ask a scienceblogger - Which parts of the human body could you design better? Depth-First SMILES and Aromaticity: Broken? De Rerum Natura Logarithmic Gap Costs Decrease Alignment Accuracy Digital Cuttlefish Cuttlefish In Genesis Rainbows and Rubies Much Ado About The Brain New and Improved Ancient Technology! Kitzmiller v. Dover Dinosaurs and The bible A Creationists Fairy Tale Creationist Crank on Plants The irony Here.. Thunderbird Fairy Tales Dovs Blog Life, Tomorrows Comprehension Dr. NO and the world of science Can we truly understand signalling networks? Dr Petra Boynton How to email an expert - ten tips for journalism students Sexpert credential checking Dance monkey! Dance! Dance! Duas Quartunciae The Evolution of Wings Easternblot Renaissance People Trivia Quiz, Answers Part 1 and Answers Part 2 Effect Measure Saving the lives of six of our colleagues (The Tripoli Six), Tripoli Six campaigns new and perilous phase (with Addendum) and Tripoli 6: Free at last fused into a single post. Influenza virus, science background, I. Influenza virus, science background, II and Influenza virus, science background, III fused into a single post. Flu biology: receptors, I and Flu biology: receptors, II fused into a single post. Pathogenicity, virulence, transmissibility and all that Mathematical models of antiviral resistance spread H5N1 Crystal Ball is Cloudy Another big H5N1 science story Must H5N1 moderate its virulence as it evolves? Bird flu in Pakistan, the picture at this point Tamiflu resistance: digging beneath the headlines Enro, scientifique et citoyen Pierre-Gilles de Gennes: homage to a scientific style Epidemiology of Cancer Bi-modal hazard rate ERV Careful with that Creationist Claim! Its an antique! Michael Behe, please allow me to introduce myself... Evolgen Family Values Nonoverlapping Magisteria and Extremism Science & Technology I Got Your Distribution Right Here Mutation The Lab Fridge Evolving Thoughts Theories of Speciation Basic Concepts: Ancestors Atheism and agnosticism again The Song of the Scientist Animals and rights In the mud FairerScience Web Blog News Media Spreads the Wrong News, Again Forms most beautiful... Americas Theocratic Politburo Freethinkers Asylum Lost Tomb of Jesus? Geek Logik No Limit Poker: The Bluff Calculator Genomicron Anatomy of a Bad Science Story Global Brain by Howard Bloom Whos Smarter: Chimps, Baboons or Bacteria? The Power of Group IQ Global Voices Serbias One and Only Science Blog: Help Save It! Green Gabbro The Spinning Dancer and the Brain Greg Ladens Blog Framing the Language Gene: FOXP2 Abducted by Aliens ... and dropped off at the Grand Canyon Modern Humans and Neanderthals: Did they do it? Hairy Museum of Natural History A wish for Coelophysis Hank Who Won The 2007 Americas Cup Race? The Least Known War In Science: Does HIV Cause AIDS? Henry Rates of word evolution: The less a word is used, the faster it evolves Highly Allochthonous How the air we breathe became breathable Testability in Earth Science History News Network (Alun Salt) The Orientation of Roman Camps Hodges model: Welcome to the QUAD Hodges model: What is it? [3] The science of sailing... Hope for Pandora Objectivity in Studying Abortion Not So Extinct Middle Ground For Stem Cells? Hot EduBlog View Factors: An introduction and a Catalog Hullabaloo Great Resource on Intelligent Design Creationism Humans in Science (multimedia sounds of digestion here) Angiogenesis Foie gras might promote arthritis, Alzheimers or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Hypography Science Forums Re: Terra Preta, Time to Master the Carbon Cycle Ideonexus Science in Second Life Inkblot Earth My Robot is Your Congressman In The Pipeline One For the Brave Invasive Species Weblog Square Pegs Island of Doubt Adapt! The cry of the coward Im meltinnnnng .... Joel on Software Talk at Yale John Hawks Anthropology Weblog Why human evolution accelerated The flame-haired Neandertals Knowing and Doing Good Writing, Good Programming Hype, or Disseminating Results? Lab Life Lab Gourmet Mad Scientists That which must not be named Laboratorytalk Time to embrace flat-Earthism It is a cliche that the world is getting smaller, but... Sense of humour failure, lawyers called Another Leicester academic prostitutes his science Laelaps There is grandeur in this view of life... Homo sapiens: The Evolution of What We Think About Who We Are or Homo sapiens: What We Think About Who We Are (Redux) Thylacoleo carnifex, ancient Australias marsupial lion Convergence or Parallel Evolution? The Branching Bush of Horse Evolution Land of Yajeev In the strain 2000... Practice Makes Perfect Life of a Lab Rat Riding with the King Living the Scientific Life Schemochromes: The Physics of Structural Plumage Colors A Rare Dodo Comes to Light Today is World Suicide Prevention Day The Return of the Rimatara Lory or Rimatara Lorikeets: Returning From the Edge Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice, and Sunsets Smug Alert Brave New World? Metamagician and the Hellfire Club Birthday Poem for Richard Dawkins Fundamentalism Are there aliens out there? Dont bet on it yet. Science, and those pesky other ways of knowing Microecos Can you hear me now? In the eyes of the Aye-ayes Migrations Taking the Stemness Out of Cancer Cells The First Ithaca Bioblitz Mind Hacks Why there is no such thing as Internet Addiction Mind the Gap In which I leap into the Void In which I lift my finger from the pause button In which I contemplate the unsung scientific record In which I contemplate the road taken, not taken, then re-taken In which I rejoice in muscle memory Minor Revisions Indefensible Mother of All Scientists On going back to work, Part 1 of infinity On going back to work, Part 4 of Infinity N@ked Under My Lab Coat The Miniprep Song The Font of Teriyaki Neurofuture Computational Vision The Potential of Potentials Neurologica Bringing Out-Of-Body Experiences Down To Earth Intelligent Design and the Argument from Ignorance Sloppy Thinking about Homeopathy from The Guardian Mediocrity and Meritocracy Still No Association Between Autism and Mercury in Vaccines Neurophilosophy The rise and fall of the prefrontal lobotomy An illustrated history of trepanation Neurotopia The Basics: History of Hormone Therapy and Menopause, The Basics: History of Hormone Therapy and Menopause and The Basics of Menopause and Hormone Therapy III: Cognitive Consequences, either each alone, or all three fused into a single article. Nonoscience (Arunn) Nano-aluminium and Rocket Science Scientific Mahabharatha Halogen Family - a science and fiction toon Serendi-pity Objectives of Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer How to quickly cool a bottle of drink using seven equations Protocol for Permeability Measurement Northstate Science More On Hams Creation Museum, Tyrannosaur Teeth And The Scientific Process Hadza Diary Not Exactly Rocket Science Megaflood in English Channel separated Britain from France An entire bacterial genome discovered inside that of a fruit fly The evolution of the past tense - how verbs change over time Notes from Ukraine The Chernobyl liquidators: incredible men with incredible stories (Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3) and Musings about the liquidators fused into a single article. Q & A about ICARR and Chernobyl Omni Brain ACHOO Historic Photograph? Rant How moving your eyes in a specific way can help you solve a problem Brain Science is Childs Play On Being a Scientist and a Woman Bringing baby to the field I will not be a foregone conclusion What does it mean to assess the credibilty of science reporting? One scientist, one yeti The Teacher OReilly Radar (Andy Oram) Reputation: where the personal and the participatory meet up. Part 1, or, all four parts fused into one: Reputation: where the personal and the participatory meet up Three vantage points from which to view patents OReilly Radar (Tim OReilly) China Foo Camp: On the Outside, Looking In Peanutbutter Do Scientists really believe in open science? Peanut Butter Cabal Work, Life, Vagina: Pick Two Petermrs blog Open Data is critical for Reproducible Research Pharmas Cutting Edge The Afterword of Rimonabant Pharyngula Segmentation genes evolved undesigned We stand awed at the heights our people have achieved Philosophers Playground Kuhn, Popper and Intelligent Design The Phineas Gage Fan Club Its the socialising, not just the bingo: new take on brain training Pimm - Partial immortalization What does a good laboratory homepage look like? Show me at least one! Plog Buzzword Bingo! PLoS Blog (Gavin Yamey) Access to university research and innovations PLoS Blog (Laurie Garrett) Libya Releases Bulgarian Medics PLoS Blog (Chris Surridge) Free but not Open? Nature knows no indecencies Pondering Pikaia Harry Potter Science #1: The Genetics of Wizards, Harry Potter Science #2: Dracorex hogwartsia, Harry Potter Science #3: Conservation Biology, Harry Potter Science #4: The Botany of Wands, Harry Potter Science #5: Kin selection, Harry Potter Science #6: Harry Potter and the Hypertonic Cephalopod, Harry Potter Science #7: Does This Horcrux Make My Soul Look Fat? and Harry Potter Science #8: Scar Biology all fused into a single article. Moving Mountains Out of the frying pan, into the fire Pure Pedantry (Jake Young) Participation Explains Gender Differences in the Proportion of Chess Grandmasters Why Pairing Science and Atheism is High-Brow Principles of Neurobiotaxis On the appropriateness of Paul MacLeans "triune brain" theory Principles of Parsimony The Tyrannosaurus and the Lettuce: A Parable Quintessence of Dust They selected teosinte...and got corn. Excellent! RealClimate (Gavin Schmidt) 1934 and all that Reality Conditions Quantum Mechanics in words of one syllable Reflections, Ideas, and Dreams Climate Models as Predictive Tools Respectful Insolence The deadly deviousness of the cancer cell, or how dichloroacetate (DCA) might fail Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog The Neuroscience of ADHD On Religion and Taking the Red Pill Fibonacci Numbers, the Cochlea, and Poetry Science Vault: 60s Flashback, LSD as a Treatment for Autism The Curious Case of Phineas Gage How Much LSD Does It Take to Kill an Elephant Sandwalk What is Evolution? Schneier on Security Cyberwar Science After Sunclipse Math in the Movies Cosmos 2.0 Science To Life Addiction-an HBO documentary Scienceroll PTC124, a Drug Against Genetic Diseases: Overview Pompe disease, a rare but important genetic condition 10 Tips for How to Use Web 2.0 in Medicine 7 Tips: How to track the information you need! Scientia Natura: Evolution and Rationality The healing crusade: A skeptics view On mental illness and some common misconceptions Faith healing : Nothing more than wishful thinking A long time ago... See Jane Compute On not fitting in To stay or go, Part 1: Framing the issues and To stay or go, Part 2: Institution and department, fused into a single post. Learning (and teaching) about technical writing Happy Woman Professor Day! How do you pick research problems? Sentient Developments The Fermi Paradox Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, either one of them alone, or all three fused into a single article. Sheldon: The Daily Comic May 7, 2006 Shtetl-Optimized Shor, Ill Do It Spacing Toronto Our colourful canopy from a Global News helicopter Spoonful of Medicine Houseworks suspicious new benefit Young mothers in science Denying AIDS Star Stryder You are the Center of the Universe (and so am I, and so is Gursplex on Alpha Eck) Stranger Fruit Pithecophobes of the World, Unite! Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV, either one of them alone, or all four fused into a single article. Sufficiently Advanced Occams Razor The Verse One Week The Austringer Guest Poem: Amadans I Am the Very Model of a C-Design-Proponentsist Are ID Creationism Advocates Afraid to Acknowledge Past Debates? Yecke in Her Own Words The Beagle Project Blog Historians: welcome to the 2009 party! This week in Westminster Little bones, big inference The Chem Blog If you ever made something fluoresce after you did a reaction with a transition metal... The Daily Transcript Analysis of tip-usage methods Scifoo - Day 2 - Science Communication and Scifoo - Day 3 (well that was yesterday, but I just didnt have the time ...) fused into a single article. The End Of The Pier Show No Girrafes On Unicycles Beyond This Point Scientists, Fiction and Sex The Writing ... It Has Started The Ethical Palaeontologist One Hundred Not A Kuhnian Paradigm Shift Irrepressible Info The Big Picture Scary Turkey Monday Lunchtime Whinge The Executioners Thong Cause and Effectiveness Science Fried days, hope and hype edition The Greater Good Blog Moral Machines God may be good, but do we need God to be good? Imaginary Friend The Greenbelt We are starstuff The Ignoble Gases Contemplating Humanitys Carbon Use Efficiency The inverse square blog Brain and mind-PTSD and Lt. Whiteside The Loom Old Hands and New Fins Said The Mouse to the Other Mouse, Dude You Would Not Believe the Colors Im Seeing Build Me A Tapeworm The Mouse Trap The faculty of Imagination: Neural substrates and mechanisms The Neurocritic Female Soldiers, PTSD, and Norepinephrine Employment Opportunity as Professional fMRI Subject The Other 95% What the hell is a chaetognath?! Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 fused into a single article. Sea Squirt Chics Have No Inhibitions Anemones Raise a Tentacle in Support of Evolution How to Retard Scientific Progress All I want for Darwin Day is Real Science Books The Pandas Thumb (Ian Musgrave) Stuck on you, biological Velcro and the evolution of adaptive immunity Behe vs Sea Squirts Behe vs Carroll, redux An Open Letter to Dr. Michael Behe (Part 7) The Open Letters File The Pandas Thumb (Wesley R. Elsberry) Dry Rot, Not Arson: National Park Service and Science Expelled: Intelligent Design Advocates Gaming the System at Amazon The Pandas Thumb (Nick Matzke) Behe replies to TREE review The Pandas Thumb (Arthur Hunt) Axe (2004) and the evolution of enzyme function Junk to the second power The physics arXiv blog Why our time dimension is about to become space-like The Planetary Society Weblog No, the Change image isnt fake! -- but theres no new feature in it, either More on the Change image flap Iapetus closest approach images are online!!! Iapetus! Voyager in the Kitchen Sink Watching changes near Mars south polar cap A fifth planet for 55 Cancri MSL: Landing Site Downselections The Primate Diaries The Sacrifice of Admetus The Principles of Neurobiotaxis On the appopriateness of Paul MacLeans triune brain theory The Pump Handle Popcorn Lung Coming to Your Kitchen? The FDA Doesnt Want to Know The Quantum Pontiff Learn Quantum Theory in 10 Minutes The Questionable Authority The limits of tolerance Adam, Eve, and why they never got married Species and The Economist The Sceptical Chymist Labspeak, STAT 50 ways to write a cover letter Ill be the judge of that... Im into something good The Science of Love Pitocin at Birth Could Have Lifelong Consequences The Scientific Activist Embryonic Stem Cell Debate Over; Thousands of Researchers Now Jobless Animal Rights Activists Hijack the Brains of Three Respectable Scientists! Ask a ScienceBlogger: A Sun Ray a Day.... 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Neither means, motive nor opportunity: a guide to dysteleology Happy Birthday Hot three-way action with grass and shrooms Egnorance about the mind, meaning and the Chinese Room Three-Toed Sloth Yet More on the Heritability and Malleability of IQ Thus Spake Zuska The Feminist Scientist Distinguished Schmuck Visits, Misbehaves Debbie Does Laundry TotallySynthetic.com Resveratrol-Based Natural Products True Green Inkjet-printable Solar Panels... Really! Uncertain Principles Bunnies Made of Cheese Many Worlds, Many Treats Basic Concepts: Force Basic Concepts: Fields Basic Concepts: Energy Basic Concepts: Ohms Law Why Do Polarized Sunglasses Work? Useful Chemistry Making Anti-Malarials: Feb 2007 Update VWXYNot? Why I got into science Endogenous retroviruses and the evidence for evolution On the Origin of Tumours by Means of Natural Selection Whatever Your Creation Museum Report Wired Science Mapping a Redwood Forest with LIDAR Dan Rather Makes Questionable Case Against Science Behind Boeing Dreamliner Powerful New Poison found in Deadly Sea Snails Fish Poison makes Hot Things Feel Icy and Cold Things Feel Burning Hot World of Psychology Essentials of Sleep Tobacco Marketing to the Homeless and Mentally Ill When conventional wisdom is simply wrong WTTF: Welcome to the future Armani Organs --------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- The winning 50 posts, plus one poem and one cartoon, will be announced in a couple of weeks. Check this spot.... Read the comments on this post... (Source: A Blog Around The Clock) - [Read more]

Acupuncture is a complex "alternative" modality because something physical is actually happening - thin needles are being stuck through the skin and manipulated. So it is therefore not impossible that a physiological response is happening. It is much easier to comment on things like homeopathy and therapeutic touch where literally nothing physical is happening and the plausibility for any benefit is therefore zero. So if I try to answer the question in my title, much explanation and qualifications are required. To answer this question - does acupuncture work? - my current best answer based upon available evidence is a qualified no. This answer is not changed by the most recent study of acupuncture that is being touted by the press as evidence that acupuncture works. (Here is the original study, but a subscription is required.)Lets first look at this study, which was a German study of acupuncture for back pain. Dr. Heinz Endres studied 1,100 randomized patients with three treatment arms. The first received standard therapy - massage, anti-inflammatories, and heating pads. The second received acupuncture, and the third received sham acupuncture where the needles were inserted but not deeply, and not manipulated, and not in traditional acupuncture points. The study found 47% improvement in the acupuncture group, 44% in the sham acupuncture, and 27% in the standard therapy group after 6 months.This single study, even taken just by itself, falls far short of demonstrating that acupuncture works. And of course we have to place it in the context of plausibility and the entire acupuncture literature. We also have to identify appropriate sub-questions.First let us consider the difference between "real" acupuncture and "sham" acupuncture. Acupuncture is based upon the ancient and superstitious pre-scientific notion that there are lines of mysterious life energy (chi) flowing through our bodies, and that the flow of this energy is responsible for health and illness. Acupuncture is supposed to free up blockages in the flow of chi energy. I grant this idea a scientific plausibility of zero - meaning we can safely discard it.What does the evidence show for the chi theory of acupuncture? The evidence is overwhelmingly negative, and this study supports this negative consensus. Most well-designed studies that compare traditional and sham acupuncture show no difference between the groups. In this study the two groups were 47% and 44% respectively. This means that it does not matter where you put the needles or if you manipulate them in any way - thats because there are no lines of flowing chi.More ...http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php?p=14 (Source: Psychology of Pain) - [Read more]

Response: Homeopathy should not be labelled a fraud. Those who study water know the critics are wrong, says Rustum Roy (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science) - [Read more]

If you listen to what advocates of homeopathy, acupuncture, or whatever form of so-called "alternative" medicine you can think of (in reality, non-evidence-based medicine for the most part), youd think that physicians are in the pockets of Big Pharma, hopeless slaves to its propaganda, addicted to its tchotchkes and swag. Sadly for Big Pharma, they may not be having quite the effect it had hoped, if this roundtable discussion of primary care doctors about a study on NSAIDS and pain is any indication: Should we believe this study? Bob: When I decide to read an article, I first look at the title. Then I go to the last page to see if the study was sponsored by one of the makers of the product being studied. If so, my degree of skepticism heightens exponentially. This particular study happens to be sponsored by McNeil Pharmaceutical (the maker of extended-release acetaminophen). Andrea: Same here. When pharmaceutical companies are involved in a study, there is a fourfold greater chance that the study will have a positive outcome than if the study was not funded by the industry.1 Somehow, the conclusions almost always come out in favor of the sponsors product. Mark: My favorite example is when a review of 56 industry-sponsored trials of NSAIDs for osteoarthritis was performed, all 56 trials found NSAIDs to be beneficial. Not one trial had an unfavorable outcome. Oh, no! Bob, Andrea, and Mark clearly havent gotten the memo. Of course, ultimately they agreed with the outcome of the study, even though it was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, but they only did so because the study was well-designed and its results were in line with other studies. However, they concluded that for ankle sprains, good old-fashioned acetaminophen is just as good as the more expensive NSAIDS for analgesia. Clearly more drug company dinners, pens, and freebies are required. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Respectful Insolence) - [Read more]

Although the definition of integrative, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) remains under discussion by members of the clinical community, the medical literature contains few reports on the process of integration of CAM methods into clinical practice. This report describes a study of the clinical approach of holistic clinicians in one clinic over 14 months, based on selection of diagnoses and therapies. Methods included observations of clinical encounters and physician interviews. Findings suggest that physicians initially selected diagnoses and treatments that reflected their biomedical orientation. Subsequent diagnoses incorporated energy healing, homeopathy, and spiritual hypnotherapy. This gradual introduction of CAM modalities into practice allowed physicians to address body—mind—emotional and spiritual causes of disease. Incorporation of CAM modalities into clinical practice by these biomedically trained physicians with additional CAM experience gave them flexibility to offer patients different treatment options and alleviated the need to reconcile conflicting theories of disease etiology. (Source: Complementary Health Practice Review) - [Read more]

A new scholarly written book describes hundreds of well-known and respected physicians, scientists, politicians, corporate leaders, and literary greats who used or advocated for homeopathic medicine. Eleven U.S. Presidents, seven popes, Sir William Osler, J.D. Rockefeller, Charles Kettering, and C. Everett Koop are among those famous people who were known to have benefited from homeopathy. [click link for full article] (Source: Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine News From Medical News Today) - [Read more]

Aren’t comments great! It’s partly what blogging is about, that reward when someone says something nice about you. Like Modo’s recent comment on this page that “I love your site and wonder what you´re doing now. You intrigue me.” Such adulation helps confirm ones’ brilliance. Even better are the negative comments such as the comment by z0tl on the same post “i always knew you were a closet tranny, prolly pre-op too, secretly trying on your wifeys dresses for now”. Great responses like that are why I have never moderated comments. The only comments that sometimes bug me are the one’s giving advice. If you really thought about it you could probably work one thing out… come on… try hard… you can do it… man with chronic mental illness has been seen by lots of doctors and other professionals…no?... still struggling?.... OK, I’ll help you out. I have had a bucketload of advice. A shedload, a shipful, enough to fill a blackhole. It’s very kind of you to offer but no thanks, no more please. No more homeopathy, religion, crystals… no, unless you’ve got a really bizarre idea that will make me laugh, please don’t bother. Worst of all are the alcohol advisors. I spent all of my adult life as a health professional and a fair a mount of that time was focused on alcohol problems. My first post was in a detox unit and my last specializing drugs and alcohol. I have a comprehensive and intimate knowledge of the effects of alcohol. What I am obviously failing to communicate is that my drinking is a well informed choice. By writing about it I hope to give the reader some insight into my choices. Instead I feel like someone about to commit suicide and as I stand on the parapet ready to jump, a passer by points out that this is a high bridge and I could easily injure myself. So for the first time I’m going to make a negative response to a comment. And surely it’s only fair that I make you aware that if you make a comment unfair you may get a response, perhaps a stance of arrogance or nonchalance but maybe at once I shall call you a dunce or worse still a nonce so take your chance when you make your advance be it askance or eloquence....To the do-gooder who replied to my bipolar blogI’d just like to say thanks for clearing the fog Hey thanks for the advice!It’s made me think twiceIt never occurred to me that my drinking could be so harmfulYou must have been the brightest kid in your fine school Can it really be true that 10 drinks per sessionCan damage my liver and give me depression?You’ll be telling me next that it can cause cancerIn the mouth and the pancreas and to stop is the answer But how could someone as thick as me possibly knowThe illnesses that alcohol can bestowObviously I’ve never read a paper or seen a TVAnd I’ve lived in a cave for more than a year Of course being a lunatic means I can’t thinkSo thanks for your warnings of the demon drink And can I just add one last phrase from a retardFuck off you sanctimonious bastard!Please feel free to leave any comments (Source: Bipolar Mo) - [Read more]

I have to confess, the ol Folder of Woo was looking a little thin this week. No, its not that Im running out of topics (a.k.a. targets) for my usual Friday jaunt into the wacky world of woo. Far from it. Its just that, in the run-up to writing this, perusing the odd stuff therein just wasnt getting me fired up to do the feature the way that it usually does. There just wasnt anything there that was grabbing my attention and refusing to let it go, as has happened so often in weeks past. I began to worry whether Your Friday Dose of Woo has been going on too long (its approaching a year and a half of existence) and maybe I was running out of original woo to have some fun with. After all, how many times could I do posts on colon cleansing or various quantum bastardizations of homeopathy without boring you or, even worse, boring myself? I began to fear that I might have to take a week off to recharge and look around for the inspirational woo that I need to soldier on. And then, Skeptico, bless his godless skeptical little heart, sent me this gem. I have no idea why he didnt use it for his own blog, as its right up his alley too, but he didnt. There would be a Your Friday Dose of Woo installment this week after all. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Source: Respectful Insolence) - [Read more]

Oh, no, not again. First, Respectful Insolence™ has been invaded over the last few days by a particularly idiotic and clueless homeopath named Sunil Sharma, whos infested the comments of a post about how U.K. homeopaths are complaining about all of us mean skeptics who have the temerity to point out the mind-numbingly obvious about homeopathy, namely that it is based on magical thinking, goes against huge swaths of well-understood science and thus would require some very compelling evidence indeed to be worth being taken seriously by scientists (evidence that homeopaths have been thus far unable to produce). It also relies on phenomena (the "memory of water," for instance) that do not have any basis in reality. I havent really engaged Sharma much, mainly because (1) you, my readers are doing an excellent job dealing with his whining, refusal to provide any actual evidence, special pleading that homeopathy cant be tested by "allopathic" science, and broadsides against "conventional medicine" and (2) Im too busy using my allotted blogging time to create new content to be bothered with such trivialities. Sharma does, however, remind me of another homeopath who once similarly infested the comments of this blog several months ago (albeit with a better command of English), someone who was most displeased when I did a facetious post in which I explicitly likened homeopathy to magic, indeed even invoking the fictional comic book Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Strange. Im referring, of course, to Dana Ullman, whose long-winded comments after a couple of my posts on homeopathy have become legend for their combination of lists of meaningless references that supposedly "prove" homeopathy combined with numerous logical fallacies and an incredible persistence, not to mention imperviousness to science and reason. You probably know where this is going. Sadly, thanks to Steve Novella, Ive learned that Ullmans back, and hes badder than ever (and not in a good way), with an article entitled How Scientific Is Modern Medicine? Given how well Steve has deconstructed Ullmans blather, I was almost tempted to let this cup pass. Almost. However, because I feel a bit responsible for apparently inspiring Ullman to run amok on the JREF discussion boards, I also feel an obligation to dive into the muck that is Ullmans prose again. Besides, just because another blogger, even one whom I respect, has taken on a topic never stopped me before. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... (Source: Respectful Insolence) - [Read more]

In the new book, The Homeopathic Revolution: Why Famous People and Cultural Heroes Choose Homeopathy, Dana Ullman presents strong evidence derived primarily from Charles Darwins own letters about the treatment he received from a homeopathic physician. Ullman suggests that Charles Darwin would not have lived long enough to have completed his seminal work, The Origin of Species, in 1859 if he didnt get homeopathic treatment 10 years previously. (Source: EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health) - [Read more]

We could find no evidence supporting homeopathy in alleviating menopausal symptoms. The RCN have published a review of complementary approaches to the menopause [1]. (Source: NLH Question Answering Service) - [Read more]

Siobhain Butterworth: Theres an outbreak of complaints about the Guardians coverage of homeopathy. First in the queue is the Faculty of Homeopathy, which admits only registered health professionals like doctors, vets, dentists, pharmacists, midwives and nurses who use homeopathy to complement conventional treatments (Source: Guardian Unlimited Science) - [Read more]