Slashdot Mirror

No.

You don't understand what you're talking about.

Marijuana addiction does exist in heavy users.

In a stroke of irony, Scientific American just posted an article on "digital natives" found here.

Now, who hasn't done their research?

Crystal Meth.

Methamphetamine is already legal by prescription and it is prescribed to both children and adults. Most of the harm caused by recreational methamphetamine is caused by toxic byproducts that are left over from poorly controlled and completely unregulated production processes, which is a direct result of prohibition; such things are not present the pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine that doctors prescribe.

Bath Salts.

You will have to be more specific, since that is a generic name for a number of stimulants that are also produced under poorly controlled and unregulated conditions. Yes, the media has been playing up the risk, but the stimulant psychosis is not news, and incidents involving caffeine seem to go unnoticed (or do you really think coffee should be illegal?):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19407709

The difference, of course, is that caffeine pills come with dosage information, their production is regulated, and you know that they contain caffeine. "Bath salts" come with no such information, and you have no idea what they contain -- it might be MDPV, but it could just as easily be caffeine, some unknown byproduct of MDPV synthesis, or something that is only known among drug researchers. Do you see the pattern yet?

PCP.

PCP is legal by prescription (same schedule as methamphetamine), for use as a painkiller. Recreational users have the same problems as recreational methamphetamine users: poor production, unknown dosage, etc. There is not much more to be said -- the problem here is not the drug, it is the law.

"Toxic dose for D is less than 5 times the daily mRDA."

That comment on vitamin D toxicity is misleading, and that misinformation has caused untold huge amounts of suffering in the industrialized world. (Even ignoring that you have not specified a time period -- in one day, in one year, in ten years?) See: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/what-is-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-toxicity/

In general, Wikipedia medical information tends to be extremely mainstream, so you should be cautious when relying on it if you have a serious health issue. There is so much conflict-of-interest and group-think in the mainstream medical system that it is hard to sort through it all. Here are links to relations between vitamin D deficiency and mental issues (see the sidebar):
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/mental-health-and-learning-disorders/
And related to autism specifically, see:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/news-archive/2009/new-harvard-paper-on-autism/

To explore why your statement is misleading, first, here is what the US government says on vitamin D RDAs for reference:
http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/
Also summarized here:
http://www.vitamind3-cholecalciferol.com/vitamin-d-rda.htm

The US RDA for Vitamin D for a child or adult (currently 600 IU per day, recently raised) effectively is the same for a 30 pound child as a 300 pound adult; how can that make any sense, given that vitamin D is used by every cell in the body? (The level of 400 IU D3 daily for a newborn infant is probably OK though.)

I am not sure what you mean by "mRDA" whether minimum RDA or maximum Upper Limit (UL). The maximum upper limit there is currently 2,500-4000 IU D3 daily depending on age (after being recently raised from much lower amounts) or about four to seven times the minimum RDA. Again, it is about the same for a 30 pound child as a 300 pound adult. (And that is after the maximum upper limit was recently increased a lot.) Those maximums for children and adults are more likely what the daily US RDA should be, and the real maximums are probably a few times higher than that for most people.

If you meant mRDA as minimum RDA, then your statement is just clearly wrong, because five times is pretty much below the upper limit now accepted as safe by even mainstream-conservative medical boards.

But, let me assume, charitably, that you meant maximum "Upper Limit" by "mRDA". So, you are then suggesting that the toxic level for vitamin D supplementation is less that five times the UL published by the Food and Nutrition Board, which would mean toxicity at 12,500 to 20,000 IU D3? But you did not specify even a time amount (per day, for how long?). It's been said: "The dose makes the poison." So it is hard to know what you mean by that. Charitably, let me assume you meant taking that amount daily over a period of several years?

But consider this. Most people with sufficient sun exposure in a day, like wearing bathing suit at the beach in summer in the USA around noon, will make about 10,000-50,000 IU D3 (in about 15-30 minutes if you are light skinned, and about two to four hours if you are dark skinned). That is between about 15 and 100 times above the US RDA of vitamin D. It is about two-and-a-half to twelve times the "upper limit". How can what you suggest (that a toxic amount is less that five times the maximum RDA which would be less that 20,000 IU, assuming the most defensible interpretation of what you wrote) be true then if the body makes so much when exposed to sunlight? It pretty much can't, at least not wit

Here's a good one to start with though: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643016/.

You really should be careful about constructing sexual stereotypes from things like differences in general natural preferences, aptitudes and behaviours though. It's dangerous and probably at least partially responsible for some of society's most unjust problems.

And, as the paper in question (from two girl, not boy, scientists :-)) notes:

There is considerable evidence that sex differences in toy preferences reflect postnatal social experience as well as innate factors (see, e.g., Hines, 2004; Ruble et al., 2006). Influences of socialization are suggested by studies showing that parents, peers and teachers encourage girls and boys to play with sex-typical toys, and discourage boys in particular from playing with cross-gendered toys (Fagot & Patterson, 1969; Fagot, 1978; Fagot & Hagan, 1991; Langlois & Downs, 1980; Lytton & Romney, 1991; Pasterski et al., 2005). In addition, children respond to information that objects (e.g., xylophones or balloons of a particular color) are for girls or for boys, by showing a preference for the ones labelled as for their own sex (Masters et al., 1979). They also are more likely to prefer objects after observing models of their own sex choose them, and these effects are again particularly marked in boys (Masters et al., 1979; Perry & Bussey, 1979). Thus, sex differences in children’s toy preferences appear to be multiply determined; innate influences are augmented by social encouragement, particularly in boys.

(emphasis mine), i.e. there's wiring but it's not all wiring.

(BTW, if anybody's curious why vervet monkey boys have more of a preference for car toys than vervet monkey girls, see the speculation at the end of section 4.1 of their earlier paper; tl;dr version is "males hunt for food or mates so they're into motion and stuff that can be moved", rather than "males are wired to go for wheeled vehicles invented millions of years after they evolved".)

Yes, your post does seem to be a good example of dogmatic stereotyping.

MY post, on the other hand, is a (rough) summary of scientifically observed behavioural sexual dimorphism in primates (including humans). You can look it up for yourself if you want. Google Scholar is your friend. Here's a good one to start with though: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643016/.

You really should be careful about constructing sexual stereotypes from things like differences in general natural preferences, aptitudes and behaviours though. It's dangerous and probably at least partially responsible for some of society's most unjust problems.

Bullshit. The risks of vaccination are tiny, and in a much lower order of magnitude of the risks of not being vaccinated.

Correct - as I stated and you quoted! The risks of the vaccine are a lot lower than the risks of the disease. However lower does not mean zero - there are still risks to having a vaccine. Google it (but beware the anti-vaxxer sites!). As a scientist I fully support vaccines - all my kids have been vaccinated as have I - but it would be dishonest to claim that vaccines have zero risk and because that risk is not zero I would be strongly opposed to forcing people to have them - but all in favour about educating them as to why they should choose to have them.

Go ahead call me stupid when I've done the research.

Have you now? Maybe you should research a little farther, might I suggest the National Institute of Health's article on HepB. Let me quote a couple of entries from there:

* Direct contact with blood in health care settings
Seems like kids might be at roughly the same exposure risk as most adults who don't work in health care. Also I wonder if kids with HepB positive parents are at any risk of exposure to their parents' blood. Probably not, right?

* Sexual contact with an infected person
Sure, infants aren't having sex. Well, unless there's an abusive situation for them, but those kids deserve to get Hepatitis, right?

* Shared personal items (such as toothbrushes, razors, and nail clippers) with an infected person
I wonder if kids ever have their nails clipped. Only if they've given up their dream of having the world record for longest fingernails!

A couple more for good measure:
* The hepatitis B virus can be passed to an infant during childbirth if the mother is infected.
Risk factors for hepatitis B infection include: Being born, or having parents who were born in regions with high infection rates

According to the CDC there were only a few thousand incidences of it per year in the entire U.S. for minors

Right there is a few thousand reasons to try harder to increase the vaccination rate. Also quoting infection rates of a commonly vaccinated against disease is a terrible argument against the need for that vaccination. Tetanus infection rates are pretty low, maybe that vaccination should be deprecated as well?

However, delaying this as long as possible so we can indentify his allergies and allow him immune system to grow

You realize, of course, that immune systems actually get stronger in response to threats. Vaccines don't leave you weaker, they leave you stronger. It's certainly possible to overwhelm an immune system - particularly a young one - but the tiny amount of virus in a vaccine does not introduce any significant immunostress in even a young or immunocompromised patient. In fact, standard treatment for all but incredibly ill patients (patients who are so ill they need to remain in quarantine) is to give a LARGER dose of a vaccine if their immune system is weak.

You have not helped this issue at all by just dismissing me as stupid.

Sarcasm notwithstanding, I have not dismissed you as stupid, I've dismissed you as ill-informed. Your stupidity lies not in your lack of knowledge, but rather in how you attempt to spread your ignorance as fact and represent it as being highly informed when the very first response in a Google search for the disease name thoroughly debunks your entire position.

Oh, and there's even a fair bit of evidence to suggest that infants respond to music and move rhythmically along with it, which strongly suggests that some very basic parts of the brain are associated with music from a very early age.

That's far more than procedural memory at play. If we respond to music before we've even begun to process language, that points to more fundamental things going on.

Which is pretty cool, really.

I concur - obesity is almost totally diet-related. There is a fair amount of research showing the crucial interaction between fat AND carbs. When you eat carbs and fat together (ie. a hamburger), the body preferentially uses the carbs as an energy source, then the fat just sits there and tends not to get metabolised. Yes, the principle is similar to the Atkins diet - although that focused on getting your body into ketosis temporarily to burn fat off.

I'm actually a type 1 diabetic with a BMI of around 21 - I don't need to lose weight. But eating low carbs for the last 6 month has brought my HbA1C to a normal level for the first time ever. On top of that, my cholesterol, triglycerides and lipid lab results are all in the ideal range. Typical meal for me is 4 chicken thighs, 5 eggs fried in butter, then half a tub of cream cheese. Seriously.

How many is too many? And which diseases do you propose we stop vaccinating for?

First, from Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?

The US childhood immunization schedule specifies 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year -- the most in the world -- yet 33 nations have lower IMRs [Infant Mortality Rates]. Using linear regression, the immunization schedules of these 34 nations were examined and a correlation coefficient of r = 0.70 (p < 0.0001) was found between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants.

The vast majority of post-1990 vaccines can be eliminated. The problem with vaccines is that everyone praises the polio vaccine and then sees it as a hammer to solve every problem without evaluating the risks.

The Constitutional role of the federal government is limited -- mostly civil defense and possibly also natural but high-mortality pandemics that cross state lines. The federal government has no business boosting Big Pharma profits via the Department of Education.

The study I've seen most frequently cited as a refutation to the rape can't cause pregnancy argument is from 1996 and was in fact prospective.

PubMed; Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1996 Aug;175(2):320-4; discussion 324-5.

It should matter to nerds and anyone else that a man who displays such little care of concern for the nature of reality is a member of the House and seeking office in the Senate of the United States. He represents a constituency the neither understands basic science nor believes that it is necessary to do so in order to make decisions that will govern your personal and professional lives.

Listen to what he is saying, and imagine the implications. A woman is raped... she is forcibly inseminated & the embryo is viable. In this twit's world (and that of others who want to force their 'values' on you) she would have no right to seek an abortion of this undesirable pregnancy. Period.

Furthermore, he's implying that he's been informed by doctors that, "there are ways the female body has of shutting this thing down." First of all, he doesn't understand basic biology. Secondly, he's sadly misinformed about the nature of the rights of the individual. Third, if this is the kind of leadership you want to see in Congress and you're a geek, how do you think it's going to effect your ability to seek federal funding for any research that runs afoul of the whims of a such a zealot?

If you still think it doesn't matter, then move to Missouri and see if can help Akin in his quest, but don't expect to be able to discuss science openly for fear that you'll be expelled from his inner sanctum of trusted keepers of the supreme knowledge.

From the NIH

CONCLUSIONS: Rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency. It is a cause of many unwanted pregnancies and is closely linked with family and domestic violence.

Offer up your own daughter for sacrifice, Mr. Akin, but keep your simplistic, religious immorality out of my life!

real benefits to customers

Like this? Besides, why should it be a bad thing if I do not directly benefit? I don't directly benefit from disease resistant hybrids, or tractors, or silos. Why is it bad that GE crops only help the farmer?

used to corner the market on herbicides

You do realize that you can get a generic glyphosate from companies that aren't Monsanto, yes? Also, it is more complicated than you make it out to be. Those herbicide resistant crops are actually a good idea. It used to be to control weeds farmers had to till the soil (which is terrible for your soil quality and causes fertilizer runoff, which causes all sorts of damage in aquatic ecosystems) or spray harsher herbicides. The transgenic systems are a step up from that, contrary to the ill will directed at them. Sure, it is always best to minimize agrochemical usage, but it isn't a choice between one herbicide and no herbicide, it is a choice between herbicide A and herbicide B/ tillage. This is one of those finer points that is often glossed over.

If there was ever a market for "good" GMOs, Monsanto killed it.

The first shot was fired at the Flavr Savr tomato, which was not produced by Monsanto. How, if it is Monsanto's evil deed to blame from the public perception of GE crops, is that the case? GE crops are not demonized because of Monsanto, it is the other way around. Monsanto just put a face on GE. It's a lot easier to demonize a big bad company that by claiming they are suing farmers and making Indians kill themselves than it is to demonize science.

BTW, some studies suggest that height may reduce longevity, although I have heard at least one study that found out the opposite.

In context.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22885664

Urinary levels of bisphenol A, triclosan and 4-nonylphenol in a general Belgian population.

'Geometric mean concentration was determined for bisphenol A at 2.55ug/l and for triclosan at 2.70ug/l'

Now, Triclosans molar mass is around 300.
0.52uMol/l is therefore 300 times this - 150ug/l.
So, this is lots higher - 50 times - that in the general population.
(Assuming urine and blood are of similar concentration, I can find no papers on this in 2 mins)

However, 50* is not a stupid amount to exceed dosages by, especially given that it's likely that some humans will exceed the average by at least 5 times.

Analysis of the tumors suggests it was derived from a Schwann cell tumor. The transmission is mediated by the tendency for Tasmaninan Devils to bite each other on/around the head in their frequent and loud squabbles.

The few other observed transmissible cancers cover a range of mechanisms (venereal; mosquito).

... for at least one thing.

No less than a Cochrane meta-analysis has concluded acupuncture to be as effective as drugs for post operative nausea and vomiting.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19370583

"Standing for a long time and having increased pressure in the abdomen may make you more likely to develop varicose veins, or may make the condition worse." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002099/

Placebos and nocebos have only EVER been shown to affect SUBJECTIVE factors.

Not true.

Placebos can affect healing of duodenal ulcers:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/649462?uid=3737496&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21100974892383
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2014313/

Naloxone can block the effects of pain-reduction placebos in some cases.
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/45/10390.full

The mind affects the body in many ways.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889159112001936

Responding to self after tracking down a copy of the paper:

One interesting thing they suggest is that, since in this study the "truthiness" effect happened in both directions, or even with unrelated images, previous studies showing that images produce a bias might need to be re-run with control images that are unrelated, i.e. placebo images.

For example, the paper mentions a 2008 paper that found public trust in neuroscience findings was higher if accompanied by an image of a brain scan. That article speculated that "part of the fascination, and the credibility, of brain imaging research lies in the persuasive power of the actual brain images themselves". But the authors of this paper point out that perhaps it was just the presence of any image at all: what would happen if you re-represented the same articles, not with brain scans, but with just photos of the neuroscientists, or of the MRI machine? The authors hypothesize that you might get more people believing in the results in those cases, too, in which case it wouldn't actually be that the brain-scan images are serving any persuasive or evidentiary role in and of themselves.

Such as, LOX/LH2?

It would be nice if the fuel and the reason why was specified in the summary. I can only image that it has something to do with expansion rations versus LH2, although I'm not sure how liquid methane (thankfully called-out in the linked Morpheus page) represents a vast improvement. If you can use kerosene, you can use alcohols, which are much much more biodegradable and don't have nearly the greenhouse gas power of methane.

I'll back up couchslug on the idea that the capes were probably part of an early form of MOPP gear. There are cape-style soviet designs, maybe some of these were captured?

Speaking of missing equipment, there should have been 2PAM-Chloride autoinjectors as well, they ought to have been packaged together (at least, they are today when distributed to soldiers). I hear that that the 2PAM vials get abused by snipers as muscle relaxants, though, so they may have walked away some time before your inspection...

There are hundreds of generic painkillers with caffeine. Caffeine is a well documented potentiator for numerous NSAIDs such as aspirin. Caffeine is added to analgesics in order to make them more effective.

Um, unless she had no testes, which I think she would have noticed, she didn't have ovaries. Ovaries and testes are the same organ. I've never come across a paper about a single case of an individual being born with an extra set of gonads (I'm sure there are some, but it's definitely not common!); even

It is possible to have one testicle and one ovary, which could be what this person was referring to.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001669.htm
http://www.gendercentre.org.au/ambiguous_genitalia.htm
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/7108711.html

There have been a number of cases of people born with duplicates of other organs (extra kidney, liver, pancreas, etc) so it seems within the realm of possibility (although rare) to be born with duplicate ovaries and/or testicles.

Injecting stem cells randomly into the body is probably not a good idea. Stem cells aren't magically fix everything machines. There's a significant risk of cancer if nothing else

Care to cite any studies/evidence?

Here's a preclinical study where human bone marrow stem cells were differentiated to act like pancreatic beta cells (produce insulin in response to high blood glucose) and implanted diabetic mice. It worked fine for a while (40-45 days), then stem cells underwent a malignant transformation (Tang et al. 2012).

You can (not as easily as I thought) find other examples on pubmed.

Injecting stem cells randomly into the body is probably not a good idea. Stem cells aren't magically fix everything machines. There's a significant risk of cancer if nothing else

Care to cite any studies/evidence?

Here's a preclinical study where human bone marrow stem cells were differentiated to act like pancreatic beta cells (produce insulin in response to high blood glucose) and implanted diabetic mice. It worked fine for a while (40-45 days), then stem cells underwent a malignant transformation (Tang et al. 2012).

You can (not as easily as I thought) find other examples on pubmed.

Don't be so sure. Read primary sources before judging what is most supported by evidence.

This study in PNAS shows something different, that diversity has historically suffered around all or nearly all global temperature peaks.

The odds of my being killed by a gun have almost no relationship to whether I own one myself.

Actually, they do. People with guns in the home are around twice as likely to be murdered and 10 times as likely do die of suicide as people without guns (source). People carrying guns are about 5 times as likely to get shot as people who aren't carying guns (source). This is not even considering accidental shootings. You say you're "not the sort of idiot who is likely enough to shoot myself by accident," and I hope you're right, but I doubt many accidental shooters thought they were either.

How many of those are gang-bangers who have guns in the home?

When those "studies" control for gang membership in the family and race, they'll have some numbers to believe. The largest single most largest risk factor in the US for dying by violence is being a young black male. When that factor is controlled out, the numbers will be able to speak about what people who are not young black males should be concerned about for guns. (The article says no such thing BTW, so their numbers are flawed.)

When you measure old white guy with a good job and guns the numbers will come out very different. The risk factor from a segment of the gun "owners" comes from a vastly different source than the gun.

The odds of my being killed by a gun have almost no relationship to whether I own one myself.

Actually, they do. People with guns in the home are around twice as likely to be murdered and 10 times as likely do die of suicide as people without guns (source). People carrying guns are about 5 times as likely to get shot as people who aren't carying guns (source). This is not even considering accidental shootings. You say you're "not the sort of idiot who is likely enough to shoot myself by accident," and I hope you're right, but I doubt many accidental shooters thought they were either.

Resisting an armed assailant increases our odds of getting hurt. Isn't that obvious?
Is there some "guns stop bullets" message I haven't heard of, because this all looks like a straw man from here.

The odds of my being killed by a gun have almost no relationship to whether I own one myself.

Actually, they do. People with guns in the home are around twice as likely to be murdered and 10 times as likely do die of suicide as people without guns (source). People carrying guns are about 5 times as likely to get shot as people who aren't carying guns (source). This is not even considering accidental shootings. You say you're "not the sort of idiot who is likely enough to shoot myself by accident," and I hope you're right, but I doubt many accidental shooters thought they were either.

I was tweaking the AC's reliance on Argumentum ad Verecundiam, which is (often) a fallacy.

I looked up alternatives to Alzheimer's, and Pick's Disease looks like an introvert-troll/basement-dweller's dream. Check out the list of behavioural and emotional changes.

...where they put you on diabetes medication (metformin.)

As diabetes meds go, it's the best and safest by far. And in fact, it may even have anti-cancer benefits!

"Its a simple equation, energy in, energy out."

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong. H. L. Mencken

It's a lot more complex than just "calories in, calories out", as evidenced in this kind of experiment: take healty mice, restrict their food by a mere 5%, and *surprise* they grow a lot more fat tissue at the expense of lean mass.

If it really is just a problem of "balancing caloric incomes and expenses", then please explain why do people who restrict their calorie intake do not lose the amount of weight that corresponds to the missing calories, and why people who expand their calorie intake on purpose do not quite gain the weight that they should (some of them not gaining any weight at all) ?

Metabolism adjusts towards the amount of energy available from your food, and not the other way around. That amount derives from the calories you eat, MINUS those that are diverted to long term storage in your adipocytes. If metabolism fails to adjust enough, or on the contrary if it overshoots, then you are looking at a metabolic problem: one of regulation of energy storage versus energy bioavailability, and not one of "bad behavior".

Just spent a little while looking this up. There are a lot of opinions both ways, but all the scientific studies I could fine (for example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18842774) implied/proved/gave evidence that night-time eating did in fact produce significantly more weight gain then the same amount eaten during the daytime.

its scary because no matter how hard we worked in centuries past we couldn't cross corn with a starfish, or fruit with squid

Yeah, nature could never mix aphid with fungus or sea slug with algae or witchweed and sorghum, right?

and THAT is why GMO is scary

Appeal to nature. Even if your first point weren't horribly uninformed nonsense, it still wouldn't mean that genetic engineering is bad. It times past we couldn't isolate viruses kill them and inject them right into our veins, but that doesn't mean vaccines are bad either, and fallacies are especially bad when applied to highly studied topics.

because frankly some of the shit they are coming up with can't even be truly classified as plant anymore.

So a new protein suddenly changes what kingdom something is in? That's ridiculous. I guess that makes you a virus since humans need a viral transgene to develop the placenta.

>>(...) evolution has been an insanely successful theory. We literally wouldn't have today's understanding of biology without it.

If you and the previous commenter give some documented examples, you might make me believe in macro-evolution again. I already believe DNA allows certain variation within species ( micro-evolution ).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution

>> You seem to be terribly confused. First, there has been no "retraction", just publication of two papers which disagree with the original one.

I'll trust you on that one

>> the actual claim was "We found this bacterium living in an arsenic-rich environment on earth , (....) That never meant "OMG BACTERIA CAN GROW ABSOLUTELY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!!".

You're quite alone in your opinion. I googled hundred of major magazines, newspapers and blogs. They somehow made the same association I did:

Time magazine: “Scientists who hope to discover alien life someday”
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2034601,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8174040/Life-as-we-dont-know-it-discovery-could-prove-existence-of-aliens.html
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-nasas-form-life-untrue-015324767.html
http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life

>>You're parroting a really stupid creationist lie () that Zadel's fraud had anything to do with evolution or abiogenesis.(...)nobody outside of creationists ever thought Zadel's paper had any implications for abiogenesis.

On the hoax, the reputable Science magazine stated:
"they initially hailed the result, which appeared to have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry as well as for understanding of the origins of life."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/pdf_extract/265/5168/21

>> failed fruit fly experiments ( ) you've grossly misinterpreted the meaning of the results as a fatal failure for evolution. (The abstract you linked pretty clearly indicates that evolution took place!)

The abstract states: “We conclude that, at least for life history characters such as development time, unconditionally advantageous alleles RARELY arise, are associated with SMALL net fitness gains or CANNOT FIX because selection coefficients change over time.” [ emphasis mine ] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20844486

>> nothing more than an example of creationist quote mining

I did not mine for quotes. I was informed of many problems of abiogenesis at a presentation by Dr. Wing Sung. Such as lack of protection from UV damage in reducing atmospheres and from oxidation reactions in atmospheres like ours.

Background on Dr. Sung: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoVZe1NhmOI

I still have photocopies of his presentation slides with sidenotes in Mandarin. I can scan and email them to you if you like.

>> (...) have to expect from people who have decided that anything which contradicts their interpretation of a religious text must ipso facto be false. (...) They're not in it to discover reality, they're in it to preserve their delusions.

Before seeing Dr. Sung's presentation, I used to be a theistic evolutionist. I accepted your “reality”, sir. I accept the gap theory.

I thought they figured this stuff out already for birds...
Some references here and here...

Also evidence of correlation with religion ; a higher incidence than average amongst Muslims and Christians (a shame this study didn't assay Atheists though).

You make a pretty general statement, but the link seems to show a study saying that in N. Africa, Muslims have a higher incidence of cat parasites than Christians, while both populations are above the world average.

Thank you for the article, Timothy. I would have never seen the retraction without it. I would have kept on believing that bacteria can grow in any planetary environment. In 1996, NASA claimed Cyanobacteria where found in Meteorites - debunked in same magazine ( http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2057461,00.html ). I am tired of scientists who foist their beliefs on us. In 1994, at the University of Bonn, Guido Zadel was found spiking the chemical solution in an experiment "proving" earth's magnetic field could select the correct building blocks of life. (Science, July 1, 1994). To explain, all living organisms are built out of left-handed amino acids enantiomers (See 1). But in a theorized prebiotic soup, right handed D (dextro) amino acids are ever-present in the solution 50/50. Like a poison to life, they produce useless malformed proteins because the amino acid chains fold in the wrong direction when proteins are manufactured. Currently, only fully-formed life can efficiently select L amino acids on the scale required to feed a living ( reproducing ) manufacturing plants of manufacturing machines that we call a cell. Breitmaier and Zadel were trying to "solve the problem" with a hoax and gain notoriety for doing so. Hoaxes require a motive. I think they are desperately trying to prop up their dead theory until they find that elusive evidence that exonerates it. In 1808, John Dalton started modern atomic theory. Decade after decade, it opened up avenues of research. We consistently generated scientific laws based on the initial premise — ultimately finding the Higgs Boson to complete the standard model. Darwin proposed evolution in 1859. By now, we should have scientific laws culled from the initial premise. We should not be finding lethal problems with the initial theory. Scientists are still mucking about with failed fruit fly experiments. They are on the 600th generation ( see 2 ). Anyone who claims to know the truth about the origins of life is following a religion no matter if it is disguised in the language of science. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enantiomer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiral#Chemistry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid#Isomerism 2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20844486

Also evidence of correlation with religion ; a higher incidence than average amongst Muslims and Christians (a shame this study didn't assay Atheists though).

The mechanism is supposedly: Caffeine inhibits DNA damage checkpoint kinases, allowing cells with DNA damage to slip through the checkpoint mechanism which normally stops them dividing when damage is present (the G2/M checkpoint). So they progress to mitosis where they might divide into two new cells. The DNA structures formed by this damage, often caused by DNA replication which has stalled because it can't get past the damage, either cause the cells to die at this point (mitotic catastrophe) or may be dragged along into the new daughter cells. Assuming the damage isn't so bad that the cells die of mitotic catastrophe they may then be stopped at the restriction point or G1/S checkpoint before they make the decision to divide again. At this point they can be made senescent, meaning they will never divide again. If they do get through this checkpoint they can run into a separate G1/S DNA damage checkpoint which can also cause them to die if the damage is really bad.

One model of the mechanism is that damage caused before the cells divide (before the G2/M checkpoint) is made worse by the process of mitosis (which causes mechanical stress on the DNA) or by failed attempts at repair, so the G2/M checkpoint is there to prevent this damage getting worse by allowing time for the cell to untangle its DNA either by bypassing or repairing damage. So when caffeine treatment allows cells to get around the G2/M checkpoint, the chromosomes are pulled apart and the knotty structures mean DNA is torn and ripped, the damage gets much worse and the cells then have to be "put to sleep" by later checkpoints. Without caffeine cells would stop at the G2/M checkpoint, unknot the damage and may then survive with mutations in their genomes. These mutations could later progress to full-blown cancer.

Another model is that the DNA damage isn't made that much worse by mitosis, it's just that the G1 checkpoints are more hardcore than the G2/M checkpoint and will either cause the cell to stop growing, permanently, or will kill the cell, where the G2/M checkpoint will only stop it temporarily to allow time for damage repair or bypass. So again, caffeine allows the cell to skip the G2/M checkpoint, and carrying damage through the G2/M checkpoint is bad for a cell's prospects of survival, but good for the organism as the cell is put out of its misery by the more stringent G1/S checkpoints.

A lot of work has been done on cells in vitro which shows that caffeine does "help kill damaged cells" here's an example. Some work has also been done which shows caffeine can help cells to survive at lower levels of damage, presumably through reducing checkpoint activation, allowing them to survive or grow faster. This is supposedly the mechanism for why caffeine treatment (done right, not the silly caffeine shampoo, which probably does bugger all) can prevent male pattern baldness. You make a very good point and I totally agree with you; I don't believe this study either, but the groundwork to support this proposed mechanism is there.

they are killing at least that much people a day, look at the mental health of the average westerner and you'll will find that publicity is quite dangerous, anorexia, social anxiety and a vague feeling of emptiness are frequently caused by it's subconscious impact http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=television%20advertisements . It so dangerous that advertisements targeting children are ban in most civilized countries.

I said I don't *use* quantitative methods myself. I didn't say I hadn't received training in it, or that I don't understand it, or that I don't occasionally collaborate with people who use quantitative methods. Just that the parent poster's claim that "If you don't understand statistics you simply cannot work in the Social Sciences. Ever." is demonstrable nonsense. Also, if you'd like to go on down to http://projectreporter.nih.gov/ [nih.gov] and type 'ethnography' into the 'text search' box and limit project start date to >= 1/1/2012 then you'll find the NIH is funding $3.4 million in *new* grants this year alone which revolve around a methodology where the question of whether the PI does or doesn't "understand anything the quantitative guys put out" is completely irrelevant.

If you'd like to go on down to http://projectreporter.nih.gov/ and type 'ethnography' into the 'text search' box and limit project start date to >= 1/1/2012 then you'll find the NIH is funding $3.4 million in *new* grants this year alone where 'storytelling' is the central research method. That's just one of a number of common qualitative methods, and the NSF funds far more ethnography than the NIH.

You might not have any appreciation for the utility of non-quantitative methods, but that doesn't mean the largest funders of science in the United States don't.

Folk wisdom may be wrong: http://www.clinicaladvances.com/article_pdfs/ho-article-200904-matthews.pdf points to the damage of the combination of chronic ethanol use and irradiation. A beer or six may be helpful, but I can find no proof of any benefit. I would take with a grain of salt the Australian claim that de-alcoholized wire can help: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16083915 as the resveratol crowd has suffered some reverses recently. The study from Oz could be good work, I'd just want to replicate it in a larger population before taking it as gospel. A Minnesota firm has money from Uncle Sam for 'BIO 300' http://www.humaneticscorp.com/ittrium/visit?path=A1xeb4x1y1xfcex1x65y1xfd4x1x65y1x125fx1x65 an anti-irradiation drug, and Phase 1 trials are underway for another drug http://www.dddmag.com/news/2012/03/phase-1-cblb502-trial-underway 'CBLB502' touted by Faux News http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/16/ex-rad-militarys-radiation-wonder-drug/ .

What are you going to do? Outlaw private funding into medical research? Outlaw results of such private research from being used to make money on the drug market?

No, I rather see the end of patents on drugs, and a vast increase in NIH and NSF funding for drug research. Let the scientists at universities develop new drugs, and let anyone who wants to produce them do so. If private companies want to compete with that, they are free to try.

The problem is exactly what you propose as a solution - government IN research with its patents and FDA and various subsidies, and you want to solve that problem ... wait for it .... with more government.

No, the problem is not the government. John Galt's character is a sociopath, not a hero. The problem is a particular government program: patents granted on medicines. Here, on the other hand, is the sort of government program that should be expanded and used to substitute the system of pharmaceutical company protection:

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

Instead of giving pharmaceutical companies the right to deny new drugs to people who need them, we should put pharmaceutical companies in their proper place: producing drugs discovered by scientists, for the public, at prices that do not reflect the cost or risks of drug research. We need not raise taxes to pay for this research, we can simply stop paying for the world's largest prison population, end the war on drugs and all the damage it is doing to society, and use that money to achieve good ends.

I didn't debate the truth of your statement on homosexual male brains, just its relevance. Again, I was discussing only the most intelligent people. Most of the citations on the Wikipedia article are irrelevant here, though I did take the time to glance through this one. The subjects were not differentiated based on intelligence and were indeed taken from the general population in that respect, as I suggested. There was no attempt at figuring out what fraction of each population was highly intelligent, for instance (and the sample sizes were miniscule anyway; the studies my citation relied on had tens of thousands of participants).

As for others providing criticism of my citation, actually only one person provided any sort of criticism of it, and they admitted not being able to read it. I was actually hoping for an informed social scientist's opinion on the article, especially considering I wasn't able to find similar results (though it is quite new).

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/NNBCKV.pdf

You can start there. The summary of findings at the end are particularly helpful if you want a tl;dr. One takeaway is that yes, repeated exposure to pornography can "breed discontent with the physical appearance and sexual performance of intimate partners." In other words, it gives people unrealistic views of body types and sexual activity which are actually harmful to your ability to form healthy intimate relationships with real people.

I hope you're not assuming everyone on this website is like those people you mentioned that supposedly exist. I also hope you're not assuming any of those are caused by pornography.

I'm saying that many of the names I'm reading spouting opinions about how "porn is fine for kids, I had tons of access to porn and it didn't harm me at all!" are also names I see participating quite vocally in the types of discussions I stated.

Interestingly, from the NIH link above:

Prolonged exposure to nonviolent and violent pornography promotes insensitivity towards victims of sexual violence.

From your recent comment in another article:

It's not as if she'll get raped each time someone decides to watch the film. She was already raped, and no amount of slippery-slope-style censorship will change that.

This, said in the context of a discussion of whether or not somebody should be allowed to post a video of someone being raped on a billboard, with you taking the "of course it should be allowed, to disallow it is evil censorship!" position. Connecting these two quotes is left as an exercise for the reader.

I never said anything about educational porn. I said that I think that parents need to guide their children, not keep them in bubbles.

And one way of guiding your child is by limiting what they can see on the internet - guiding them to "acceptable" web sites, as it were. So I'm glad you've come around and agree that limiting childrens' exposure to porn is a good thing! I look forward to your retractions.

Arthritis sufferers that I have talked with have described rheumatologist reactions to AP (Antibiotic Protocol) ranging from "Couldn't hurt, might help" to actively hostile to the idea. In my family, the rheumatologist we're working with is (fortunately) in the former camp.

I've done some research on this AP treatment and I don't see how it could hurt - at all. One of the things they suggest is Minocycline (which is used for teenagers to treat acne (excerpt: "This antibiotic has been in use since the 1970's and is a great acne therapy")

Anyway, check out what people say about it (check the reviews on Amazon), or this site: roadback.org for some more background info (roadback.org's discussion forum is pretty good).
The thing of it is, mainstream medicine doesn't have an arthritis cure. Their conventional arthritis "treatments" are just about symptom management and do nothing to deal with the underlying
I just can't think of much good to say about things like gold salts, plaquenil, prednisone, methotrexate.

One last thing to consider, if grandfather's arthritis isn't cripplingly bad (yet), why not try to get the jump on it?

(Ok, one more last-last thing: if your grandfather is on prednisone be hugely careful if he decides to stop taking it; it is really important to taper at a reasonable (slow) pace to give his adrenal glands time to come back online, cutting off suddenly from larger doses can be fatal. If this applies to his situation, his health care advocate needs to do some research before starting to cut back).