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Here's two that show what St. John's Wort is about. First, not effective for major depression, but significantly better than placebo for mild depression. Comparisons seem harder to find, I can't access the ones I find on Google scholar.

It is effective at treating light to light-moderate cases of depression. It has been shown no better than placebo for more severe cases. Plus, it has the added bonus of being impossible to know exactly how much of the drug you are taking, as concentrations will vary wildly by plant/time of year/soil.

Source: NIH/NCCAM

Wellp, it looks like that's a negative.

And what makes you so sure that your particular dirt will actually have useful bacteria in it? The problem here isn't just that people aren't consuming from the same sources they used to, it's that sometimes those things just don't have what they used to in them. There is a serious lack of evidence to your medical theory "modern dirt has everything you need". Whereas even conservative sources like the NIH have been compelled to note the growing evidence that probiotics are useful for digestion issues.

In any case, the situation around one of the specific bacteria mentioned in the article is much more controversial: h. pylori disappearing is not necessarily a bad thing. And given that the common transmission vectors are oral-oral or fecal-oral, if you wanted more, unless you're using dirt that people shit in regularly you'd be better off with some kissing instead.

Note that the GP's specific suggestion, the Jarrow Labs EPS, is crap. I'm taking Nature's Way Primadophilus Optima probiotics, which has almost an order of magnitude more bacteria when new and includes the food the little buggers live off of in the tablet too. >10 bacterial stains, >25M CFUs when new, and bundled FOS are the minimums I look for in a good quality probiotic. Nobody is quite sure which of the bacteria are responsible for what yet, so a shotgun approach works better than a focused one here.

The man weighs over 400 lbs and is diabetic, 5 years is pry a life sentence.

BTW, not to disparage the famously fat folk on Slashdot but being morbidly obese is a sign of trauma in childhood for those who are not simply genetically disposed to it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Senator himself was abused.

Oklahoma State currently has about 10 R01s, a handful of R21, R03 and R15s, and a bunch of U-series agreements. http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm With indirects, it's probably under $5M/year. 25 different principal investigators, and that includes F32. I can see where a university with that size of NIH-funded research might decide that the ongoing hassle of animal rights activists and pleasing someone able to make that scale of donation personally just isn't worth it. Hell, all he's got to do is promise to leave $100M to the endowment, and he'll replace everything but the intellectual prestige that comes with NIH funding.

Messed up the link. Sorry. Go here

Absolutely the NIH should stop funding OSU.

$5 million is significantly less than the NIH funding that OSU has received. From the NIH site it seems that OSU at its various sites gets between $3.4 million (2008) to $10 million (2006) each YEAR from the NIH. Clearly the University has more to loose from upsetting the NIH than the Boone-Pickens family. Unless, of course, there is something we don't yet know about.

Alternatively, the President should grow some balls.

Source: http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/State_Congressional/StateDetail.cfm?State=OKLAHOMA

Here are science papers on Vitamin D and Inflammatory Bowel Disease:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/science/research/vitamin-d-and-inflammatory-bowel-disease.shtml

Example:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19269107
"""
The peculiar geographic distribution of inflammatory bowel disease is a puzzle for researchers. A low vitamin D status has now been linked to several Th1-mediated autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, with the strongest evidence for the vitamin's protective role in multiple sclerosis. Sunlight and vitamin D may be potent immunomodulatory agents by down-regulating Th1-driven immune responses and inducing the synthesis of antimicrobial peptides considered as natural antibiotics of the immune system. Similarly to multiple sclerosis, we propose in CD the so-called north-south gradient may be partly explained by variations in the degree of sun exposure, with vitamin D being a "seasonal stimulus". These observations may yield a better understanding of the pathophysiology of Crohn's disease and pave the way for developing new therapeutic approaches for an incurable disease. Whether a low vitamin D status is associated with an increased risk of Crohn's disease in the general population and whether vitamin D and heliotherapy may be effective in treating Crohn's disease will require additional investigations.
"""

How to get adequate vitamin D:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

You could try a blood test for vitamin D right now as recommended there to see if you are deficient in vitamin D, and, if you are seriously deficient, you might talk with your doctors about trying vitamin D3 supplements first (or maybe even an injection of a megadose by a doctor in your situation) before trying surgery (or maybe a UV-B lamp if you can't absorb vitamin D supplements well right now). Have you noticed any correlation with the seasons? Is it a little better in summer? A little worse in winter?

Do you avoid the sun? I would think it would be common in writer types like Dan O'Bannon, or some other media people who work indoors a lot. Vitamin D deficiency is at epidemic levels across the USA and may be linked to a host of issues from cancer through autism to depression. Even if adequate vitamin D did not help with Crohn's, it might at least help with other issues that stem from it.

Obviously, there may be other factors as well (other vitamins -- vitamin A relates to membrane health but every one might be an issue, or other environmental issues). Best of luck finding something that works for you, and then afterwards in rebuilding strong roots in your life whatever they may be, relationships, hobbies, philosophies, laughter, helping others, enjoying time in nature, and so on, to help you weather the storms of life and Crohn's disease.

So your comment is proof that we don't all know this already, but some of us do, thanks, and and an article about that would be much more interesting than this better-career-choice food fight fare.

Yes, there are significant biological differences between the brains of men and women... different hormones, different development, different structure. Actually, the way a man's brain works is more like the way a computer works, because there is more localized processing taking place; the way a woman's brain works is more like the way a computer network would work, because there are more connections and communication between processing centers. Two different designs, two different results, and if there were more articles about that than about this garbage, then no one would be surprised.

I think you're deliberately misunderstanding a patented product produced by genetic manipulation so that you can introduce a completely unrelated topic.

Genes are not patentable.

Sequences of genes are patentable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_patent

Many of the farmers sued by Monsanto have never used Monsanto seed and never had Monsanto seeds end up in their fields.

Often, GE pollen crosses a few fields and contaminates neighboring farms. Monsanto's agents do (sometimes illegal) spot-checks and discover that a farmer's crop contains genes from the Monsanto seeds and then they sue to confiscate the entire crop or to force the farmer to incinerate his fields as an infringer.

It is not the presence of the original product (the Monsanto seeds) that they sue over. It is the presence of sequences of genes that they own the rights to. If the only thing that they had rights to were the original seeds then they would have no standing to sue over hybrids from pollen from their seeds.

The situation is getting worse as time goes on and courts get involved more often. When they sue, they try to cover as many broad arguments as they can. Companies patenting sequences of RNA are now even claiming rights over the proteins and DNA that the RNA codes for. As they usually sue poor agrarians who can't afford to put up a good defense, bad judgments are becoming strong precedents.

Look up "product by process" for more info.

Here's a start for you:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2220018/

Patents on human genetic compositions of matter cover a broad array of chemicals and technologies. For example, human insulin, human growth hormone and many other proteins that can be isolated and purified from human blood or urine can be patented. Further, synthesized products can be covered by various patent claims, including (1) claims to the sequences used (both the sequence to be transcribed into RNA and proteins as well as promoter sequences); (2) the virus or other vectors containing the claimed sequence; (3) transfected cells, cell lines and nonhuman organisms created and used in these processes, and, perhaps most importantly, (4) the proteins or other therapeutic products made by these claimed processes. The last, called 'product by process' claims, allow patent owners to prohibit the use or sale of products made by the claimed processes, regardless of where the product is made.

Saying they've "cracked" the code to these two cancers (skin and lung) is not really as big a step as the title implies. They've found the genetic mutations associated with the cancers. That's probably the easy part (and it wasn't so easy). The problem in studying cancer is that the function of genes is often dynamic and interdependent. Think of a room with 30,000 light switches. Sometimes light switch #5 will turn on the light bulb, but sometimes it won't. It depends on whether light switch # 7, 100, and 10542 are all on simultaneously or not. And if switch #2742 is on, the light, if it's on, will be very dim. This why even though we give a cancer a single name - e.g. "melanoma" - there are often very different mutations present, any one or multiple ones which can affect the person's survival, but not necessarily all the time. There are cancers which reliably result from single mutations, but the most common ones are due to mutations in many many different genes. To the point that most cases of cancer can or should be considered unique.

IMHO, where I think the results of these studies may be most helpful with regards to treating people successfully is figuring out which mutations cause the cancer to spontaneously regress, whether it's by self-destruction or immune mechanisms. Even then, maybe it's not even because of a cancer mutation. Maybe some people possess some genetic trait in their immune system that allows them to destroy cancers. In which case, too many people would be looking in the wrong haystack for a needle.

I don't know which is funnier, the fact that you guys seem to think Google is the only way to use the internet (Much like my grandmother thought AOL was the only way to use the Web) or that the guy claiming to value privacy so much is, according to his signature, longing for a return to the halcyon days of the Patriot Act, Warrantless Wiretapping, and Not Requiring Consent to Release Medical Records

Seriously, have you no sense of cognitive dissonance?

That's not actually in line with most of the studies that have come out over the past 10-15 years. Sure, there are a lot of quack methodologies, but following an accepted, mainstream program of counseling for a disorder for which the program is recommended by a mainstream body like the APA, carried out by properly accredited specialists, is generally associated with better-than-control outcomes (and better than informal counseling by a primary-care physician). Here and here are two recent systematic meta-analyses of the results for depression (the best-studied disorder).

Whether counseling is better or worse than drugs is more up in the air, and seems to depend pretty heavily on the demographics, the specific disorder, the type of counseling, the type of drugs, and the time period of which you're looking (and even within all those, there are huge variances among studies). This survey is typical of the generally mixed/inconclusive results such comparisons come up with. (In addition, most disorders are much less well studied than depression, and sample sizes, especially within demographically comparable groups, are much smaller.)

In any case, I'm not aware of much in the way of peer-reviewed research that supports a hardline "pills are effective, and counseling is not" claim.

Hmm, for fun, I chose a random name (Roger Aamodt, PhD), from that list of scientists rejecting climate change. Roger appears to work for the National Cancer Institute, which I hear is heavily involved in climate analysis. Here's a grant proposal showing his research interest in breast cancer: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-CA-02-024.html

But you know, maybe we should be letting these guys publish in Nature on climate change, they are scientists after all.

I'm way late to this conversation, but you can objectively say that your boss is wrong.

General consensus in scientific community is that office noise involving speech associated with open cubicle environments can have a significant negative effect on job performance, job satisfaction, and stress levels of employees. Office "white noise" (ie: people walking, doors opening/closing, printers, keyboards, etc.) have much less of or an insignificant effect.

As for listening to music, the same applies but results vary depending on the individual. Music that is interpreted by the individual listener primarily on a melodic or rhythmic level have a positive effect on mental-spatial performance. Lyrics in songs that are not tuned out by listeners generally has the same negative effect as office noise involving speech.

However, as others have noted, the decision your boss is making may not (or likely isnt') be based on evidence and may be prompted by something else unrelated to job performance (music is just the scapegoat).

I'd say the best thing to do is make sure before/after effects of are objectively measured (not just for performance but also for job satisfaction).

A little public skepticism might actually be a good thing. We (and particularly the media) are far to quick to believe every new study that comes out, even though most published research turns out to be wrong.

High Functioning Autism isn't really a condition that impairs people from doing more complex work.

Indeed. I have done quite a bit of thinking/independent study on this issue, and I think the best way to describe the difference between an "Autistic" brain and a "Neurotypical" brain is by comparing a GPU to a CPU.

A neurotypical or 'normal' brain is incredibly parallel, much like yon super-powered GPU's. This parallelism is what allows the average person to walk, chew gum, carry on a conversation, breathe, and at the same time remember that they left the front door unlocked. Scans of autistic brains, however, show markedly decreased inter-connectivity (and increased inner-connectivity) between the many regions of the brain [Citation 1 and 2]. Therefore, it seems that a brain affected by an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may, in some aspects, resemble the far more serially designed CPU.

[Note: I understand that ASD can manifest itself very severely, extremely limiting the sufferer's interaction with the outside world. I also know that there are other theorized neurological mechanisms at work in ASD. For this though experiment, I want to look at an example HFA versus a comparable IQ neurotypical, to cut down on experimental "noise".]

The popular high-functioning autism (HFA) labels "linear thinking" and "highly logical" can easily be traced back to a more serial brain, but there are plenty of other examples in the autism spectrum syndromes. ASD sufferers are also very vulnerable to sensory over-stimulation--especially from multiple senses simultaneously, as the data simply cannot be processed at the rate that it is arriving. At the same time, someone with ASD may be able to capture many more minor details of a single input (be it visual art, a complex symphony, etc.) than the average person. The focus on depth rather than breadth in a subject of study is a major characteristic of HFA.

I have a fairly mild case of Asperger Syndrome (yes, professionally diagnosed... just listen to my point, okay?), so I have a few specific examples... For example, take my earlier walking and talking experiment: If I am carrying on a conversation while walking, I stop moving whenever I need to think about and formulate my next response. I was (unfortunately) well known in high school and college for my all-around clumsiness, and yet I have the fine motor control and "muscle memory" to beat the most tediously annoying NES games or to manipulate and solder miniature surface mount components. Similarly, I am a semi-professional trumpet player, but I cannot grasp the idea of using two hands at once on the piano to play two different rhythms, despite years of trying. I consider myself a fairly skilled driver, and even enjoy singing to the steering wheel... but as soon as I find myself in heavy traffic, I cannot carry a note nor remember the lyrics to anything on the radio. It gets turned off immediately. This also explains why I fail so miserably at the "cocktail party effect", as, from my perspective, I hear everyone in the room at once and there is no hope of picking out a single conversation.

and people with these two conditions are the kinds of people who would can get good educations and be great programmers.

Maybe it even goes back farther... Just a thought: what if our ancestral tribes benefited from having one or two members of the village who were driven to become advance scouts, staying away from the hubbub of a communal life but still sending back vital information and benefiting to the tribe as a whole? Just a thought...

High Functioning Autism isn't really a condition that impairs people from doing more complex work.

Indeed. I have done quite a bit of thinking/independent study on this issue, and I think the best way to describe the difference between an "Autistic" brain and a "Neurotypical" brain is by comparing a GPU to a CPU.

A neurotypical or 'normal' brain is incredibly parallel, much like yon super-powered GPU's. This parallelism is what allows the average person to walk, chew gum, carry on a conversation, breathe, and at the same time remember that they left the front door unlocked. Scans of autistic brains, however, show markedly decreased inter-connectivity (and increased inner-connectivity) between the many regions of the brain [Citation 1 and 2]. Therefore, it seems that a brain affected by an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may, in some aspects, resemble the far more serially designed CPU.

[Note: I understand that ASD can manifest itself very severely, extremely limiting the sufferer's interaction with the outside world. I also know that there are other theorized neurological mechanisms at work in ASD. For this though experiment, I want to look at an example HFA versus a comparable IQ neurotypical, to cut down on experimental "noise".]

The popular high-functioning autism (HFA) labels "linear thinking" and "highly logical" can easily be traced back to a more serial brain, but there are plenty of other examples in the autism spectrum syndromes. ASD sufferers are also very vulnerable to sensory over-stimulation--especially from multiple senses simultaneously, as the data simply cannot be processed at the rate that it is arriving. At the same time, someone with ASD may be able to capture many more minor details of a single input (be it visual art, a complex symphony, etc.) than the average person. The focus on depth rather than breadth in a subject of study is a major characteristic of HFA.

I have a fairly mild case of Asperger Syndrome (yes, professionally diagnosed... just listen to my point, okay?), so I have a few specific examples... For example, take my earlier walking and talking experiment: If I am carrying on a conversation while walking, I stop moving whenever I need to think about and formulate my next response. I was (unfortunately) well known in high school and college for my all-around clumsiness, and yet I have the fine motor control and "muscle memory" to beat the most tediously annoying NES games or to manipulate and solder miniature surface mount components. Similarly, I am a semi-professional trumpet player, but I cannot grasp the idea of using two hands at once on the piano to play two different rhythms, despite years of trying. I consider myself a fairly skilled driver, and even enjoy singing to the steering wheel... but as soon as I find myself in heavy traffic, I cannot carry a note nor remember the lyrics to anything on the radio. It gets turned off immediately. This also explains why I fail so miserably at the "cocktail party effect", as, from my perspective, I hear everyone in the room at once and there is no hope of picking out a single conversation.

and people with these two conditions are the kinds of people who would can get good educations and be great programmers.

Maybe it even goes back farther... Just a thought: what if our ancestral tribes benefited from having one or two members of the village who were driven to become advance scouts, staying away from the hubbub of a communal life but still sending back vital information and benefiting to the tribe as a whole? Just a thought...

Sex differences in toy preferences in children are marked, with boys expressing stronger and more rigid toy preferences than girls, whose preferences are more flexible. Socialization processes, parents, or peers encouraging play with gender-specific toys are thought to be the primary force shaping sex differences in toy preference. A contrast in view is that toy preferences reflect biologically-determined preferences for specific activities facilitated by specific toys. Sex differences in juvenile activities, such as rough-and-tumble play, peer preferences, and infant interest, share similarities in humans and monkeys. Thus if activity preferences shape toy preferences, male and female monkeys may show toy preferences similar to those seen in boys and girls. We compared the interactions of 34 rhesus monkeys, living within a 135 monkey troop, with human wheeled toys and plush toys. Male monkeys, like boys, showed consistent and strong preferences for wheeled toys, while female monkeys, like girls, showed greater variability in preferences. Thus, the magnitude of preference for wheeled over plush toys differed significantly between males and females. The similarities to human findings demonstrate that such preferences can develop without explicit gendered socialization. We offer the hypothesis that toy preferences reflect hormonally influenced behavioral and cognitive biases which are sculpted by social processes into the sex differences seen in monkeys and humans.

We have already payed for the vast majority of the research articles indirectly through taxation.

What you haven't paid for is the publisher's bandwidth to provide those articles for download. The compromise, at least for biomedical research, is that NIH provides hosting for all federally funded research results at PubMed Central. It's a requirement of NIH grants that publications be deposited in PMC, where they are freely available within 12 months of publication.

I don't understand why Google searches seem more likely to bring up publisher websites than PMC, or even the PubMed abstract than the PMC full text. I imagine it's a PageRank phenomenon and the general obscurity of PMC.

I've run across several things from Japan that are either science not supported elsewhere or pseudo-science, depending on -- well, on which you believe.

There's 10 times more schizophrenia in the US than Japan. Environment? Cultural? No, books. The diagnostic criteria used in Japan is far more stringent, with 90% of what we'd call schizophrenia being called something else by them. How do you tell who's right? Either by where you're standing, or by knowing a lot more about schizophrenia than anyone else on the planet, because both are based on correct but incomplete science, thus conflicting results.

In EEG research Japanese studies often include analysis of 'midline frontal theta', and hardly anyone other than them ever does. It's there, but western research only notes the existence. Japanese science claims it correlates to personality and clinical diagnoses. There are other constructs they include in studies that are otherwise complete and correct in western terms, most of them also relate to the same personality construct.

Here's where culture shoulders in. The clinical construct so often studied in Japanese science is that of 'extroversion'. In western science that's one end of a range, the other being introversion. In western culture the latter is more often a social problem, being related to shyness and to that ubiquitous fear, speaking in public. If anything, extroversion is preferred here. In Japan, where the culture of conformity can be described with the phrase "the nail that stands out gets pounded down", introversion is closer to successful cultural adaptation than its opposite.

Related, when researchers started looking at the perceptual crossover effect called synesthesia, they were amazed to find that it did not exist in Japan. When neurological evidence was found explaining its nature, they started to wonder why Japanese did not have this unusual wiring. When they went to study it experimentally, they included a test to check for non-conscious manifestations of synesthesia. Lo and behold, the Japanese have this just as often as everyone else. But they deny it and claim nothing unusual happens. Far be it from the Japanese to go around admitting to being different.

I personally have a beef with the construct 'personality' and how it's studied. But the research constantly shows something there, and biochemical testing does support some of it. In our tobacco and Parkinson's studies we examined monoamine oxidase activation in the mitochondria of platelets. That's the stuff that deactivates dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin and a few other neurotransmitters prior to recycling. Differenes in MAO activation mean differences in the amount of those chemicals, and so a difference in brain operation. Now this is nuts and bolts stuff I can wrap my pragmatic methodologist's head around. Hell yes there's scientific backing. NIH's National Library of Medicine database PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez shows about 150 if you simply search for "blood mao personality". With other search terms related to blood or its components, and personality one can probably get a good idea that personality is based in the physical body, and can sometimes be detected in blood.

But ABO typing related to personality? Preposterous. So don't go to PubMed, don't put the three words "blood type personality" into the search term bar, and don't look through over 1,000 results, 75 of which are reviews covering up to decades of research and 175 having free full text available should one want to not read any of the actual work done. That's what today's "skeptic" does. Rather than researching claims to see if there's support, they simply criticize, often using derogatory language. It is not skepticism to assume one is correct and someone else wrong. That's pre-judging, the latin term often used being a direct translation of that: prejudice. There's safety in ignorance -- it makes one correct, and skeptics seem to need to be correct

NCCAM started as a promise to put "complimentary and alternative medicine" (CAM) to scientific scrutiny, with politically predictable results.

As much as I love science (and how!), I'm ambivalent about even the idea of NCCAM. Testing herbal remedies... I don't know, maybe we'll find something great. But testing things like homeopathy, which even NCCAM admits "a number of its key concepts are not consistent with the current understanding of science, particularly chemistry and physics," is just a waste of resources.

Is it so hard to give enough information to find the actual publication that has the important details? I'm taking it as a given that the Telegraph can't be bothered to explain -how- this is different from earlier muscle cell cultures, but at least they could give me enough info to find articles that will tell me that. I mean, did these researchers actually publish a real paper in a peer-reviewed journal or did they just bypass that and go straight to the telegraph?

What's new about this?

Muscle cells have apperantly been cultured since 1968, although there isn't much about whether or not these cells proliferate in culture. A paper from 1988 claims to have gotten progenitor cells to turn into muscle cells in culture.

This article, still not a paper, from scientific american suggests that at least one Dutch researcher is interested in turning embryonic stem cells into meat. Those cultures don't last very long either according to the article: "Unfortunately, Roelen's cultures only survive a few months before they sputter, failing to reproduce because of genetic problems—their chromosomes become deformed or cells end up with too many copies. His group also works with adult stem cells extracted from skeletal muscle—a direct approach for in vitro meat."

I guess this might be the article in question, Roelen reports isolating a progenitor cell type that can be directed to either increase their numbers or turn into muscle cells. That’s almost a year old though. This article is more likely the one that sparked the telegraph article, the lab discusses factors that affect that culture system.

Post, quoted in the telegraph article, doesn't appear to be too directly involved, his research interests seem more about blood vessels and I couldn’t find any papers from his lab that looked relevant, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search on pubmed.

Is it so hard to give enough information to find the actual publication that has the important details? I'm taking it as a given that the Telegraph can't be bothered to explain -how- this is different from earlier muscle cell cultures, but at least they could give me enough info to find articles that will tell me that. I mean, did these researchers actually publish a real paper in a peer-reviewed journal or did they just bypass that and go straight to the telegraph?

What's new about this?

Muscle cells have apperantly been cultured since 1968, although there isn't much about whether or not these cells proliferate in culture. A paper from 1988 claims to have gotten progenitor cells to turn into muscle cells in culture.

This article, still not a paper, from scientific american suggests that at least one Dutch researcher is interested in turning embryonic stem cells into meat. Those cultures don't last very long either according to the article: "Unfortunately, Roelen's cultures only survive a few months before they sputter, failing to reproduce because of genetic problems—their chromosomes become deformed or cells end up with too many copies. His group also works with adult stem cells extracted from skeletal muscle—a direct approach for in vitro meat."

I guess this might be the article in question, Roelen reports isolating a progenitor cell type that can be directed to either increase their numbers or turn into muscle cells. That’s almost a year old though. This article is more likely the one that sparked the telegraph article, the lab discusses factors that affect that culture system.

Post, quoted in the telegraph article, doesn't appear to be too directly involved, his research interests seem more about blood vessels and I couldn’t find any papers from his lab that looked relevant, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search on pubmed.

Seeing as you can find bacteria over a mile deep in South African gold mines I doubt that even the poles and mountains are bacteria free.

The top scientist is R Gallo at the Dept of Dermatology, Univ California San Diego. I couldn't find a mention on his web site, but the link below lists all his pubished papers.
From the abstracts, I would speculate that the idea is something like this

the normal skin bacteria - the microflora - secrete various antimicrobials peptides, that is compounds which are toxic to other bacteria. If you wash to much, you don't have the right peptides on your skin. at th bottom is an abstract from a recent paper

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=search&db=pubmed&term=Gallo%20RL

from this, the following article appears to have the clearest abstract:

J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2009 Sep;124(3 Suppl 2):R13-8.
Antimicrobial peptides and the skin immune defense system.

Schauber J, Gallo RL.

Department of Dermatology and Allergology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.

Our skin is constantly challenged by microbes but is rarely infected. Cutaneous production of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is a primary system for protection, and expression of some AMPs further increases in response to microbial invasion. Cathelicidins are unique AMPs that protect the skin through 2 distinct pathways: (1) direct antimicrobial activity and (2) initiation of a host response resulting in cytokine release, inflammation, angiogenesis, and reepithelialization. Cathelicidin dysfunction emerges as a central factor in the pathogenesis of several cutaneous diseases, including atopic dermatitis, in which cathelicidin is suppressed; rosacea, in which cathelicidin peptides are abnormally processed to forms that induce inflammation; and psoriasis, in which cathelicidin peptide converts self-DNA to a potent stimulus in an autoinflammatory cascade. Recent work identified vitamin D3 as a major factor involved in the regulation of cathelicidin. Therapies targeting control of cathelicidin and other AMPs might provide new approaches in the management of infectious and inflammatory skin diseases.

PMID: 19720207 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

an article of interest
J Invest Dermatol. 2009 Aug 27. [Epub ahead of print]
Selective Antimicrobial Action Is Provided by Phenol-Soluble Modulins Derived from Staphylococcus epidermidis, a Normal Resident of the Skin.

Ah, the same tired and inaccurate claim.

Ever hear of the cochlear implant, developed in OZ?

We punch significantly above our weight in the medical research area.

Does the US govt PAY for that supposed 82%?

How much is done by big pharma, for huge profits?

You cant count that as govt spending you know.

In fact according to the study I just looked up;

We identified 1 485 749 articles published by authors from the European Union and the four candidate countries and 1 356 805 articles published by US authors.

See;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1179763/table/tbl1/

Funny that looks like Eurpoe is more than 50%.

Seems you have poosted a classic case of 85% of statistics are made up on the spot.

How about using a credible source of information instead of getting your"facts" from Fox news?

Allow me to extensively quote John Cook (http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-do-the-hacked-CRU-emails-tell-us.html), as he is closer to the topic than I am.

What do the suggestive "tricks" and "hiding the decline" mean? Is this evidence of a nefarious climate conspiracy? "Mike's Nature trick" refers to the paper Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries (Mann 1998 http://www.elmhurst.edu/~richs/EC/FYS/Mannetal.OriginalPaper.pdf), published in Nature by lead author Michael Mann. The "trick" is the technique of plotting recent instrumental data along with the reconstructed data. This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.

The "decline" refers to the "divergence problem". This is where tree ring proxies diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960. The divergence problem is discussed as early as 1998, suggesting a change in the sensitivity of tree growth to temperature in recent decades (Briffa 1998 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692171/pdf/43XA8LK6PCMVMH9H_353_65.pdf). It is also examined more recently in Wilmking 2008 ( http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/741/2008/cpd-4-741-2008.pdf ) which explores techniques in eliminating the divergence problem. So when you look at Phil Jone's email in the context of the science discussed, it is not the schemings of a climate conspiracy but technical discussions of data handling techniques available in the peer reviewed literature.

In the skeptic blogosphere, there is a disproportionate preoccupation with one small aspect of climate science - proxy record reconstructions of past climate (or even worse, ad hominem attacks on the scientists who perform these proxy reconstructions). This serves to distract from the physical realities currently being observed. Humans are raising CO2 levels ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm ). We're observing an enhanced greenhouse effect ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm ). The planet is still accumulating heat ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm ). What are the consequences of our climate's energy imbalance? Sea levels rise is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise.htm ). Greenland ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/greenland-cooling-gaining-ice.htm ). Arctic ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-sea-ice-melt-natural-or-man-made.htm ). Globally, glacier ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/himalayan-glaciers-growing.htm ). Antarctic ice loss is accelerating ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm ).

When you read through the many global warming skeptic arguments ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php ), a pattern emerges. Each skeptic argument misleads by focusing on one small piece of the puzzle while ignoring the broader picture. To focus on a few suggestive emails while ignoring the wealth of empirical evidence for

This kind of thing is actually a documented mental illness (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1151359 among others). It began with The Exorcist leading to a bunch of people suddenly, literally, living in fear of their lives of being possessed by the devil. Later people watching Jaws, including some people living in Kansas far from any body of water that could reasonably contain a shark, became so afraid of shark attacks that they couldn't leave their homes. It doesn't happen often, but for those afflicted it can apparently be almost completely debilitating.

not "nym." NIMH.

It seems that the exact mechanism is not entirely clear (though some prominent hypotheses have been advanced), but there is no shortage of studies that show gender ratio changes in populations exposed to particular chemicals.

I vaguely recall seeing evidence that some chemicals do actually have a debilitating effect on sperm carrying the Y chromosome but other possibilities include fewer Y sperm being produced and Y embryos being less likely to implant successfully or more likely to miscarry.

Commentary: Monkeys, girls, boys and toys: A confirmation Comment on “Sex differences in toy preferences: Striking parallels between monkeys and humans” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643016/

You mean this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2069903 "Range perception through apparent image speed in freely flying honeybees."

I get really annoyed when people take a holier than thou attitude based on conjecture and anecdotal evidence. This spreads misinformation. The fact that you've been modded up to +4 is well-intentioned but not necessarily deserved. Now I'm not going to shove my degree in your face but I will point you to research articles.

Proteolytic and lipolytic responses to starvation.

Energy metabolism in feasting and fasting.

I get really annoyed when people take a holier than thou attitude based on conjecture and anecdotal evidence. This spreads misinformation. The fact that you've been modded up to +4 is well-intentioned but not necessarily deserved. Now I'm not going to shove my degree in your face but I will point you to research articles.

Proteolytic and lipolytic responses to starvation.

Energy metabolism in feasting and fasting.

There a few points which should be made about the first story and the Denver study (didn't bother reading the second).

Firstly, they did lose weight. On average about 3kg (7 pounds) over 12 weeks.

Secondly these folk were obese when they started out. Presumably they haven't been exercising much and on average their hearts, muscles and bones aren't that strong. 55% HR could probably be achieved just by raising themselves up out of a chair. If these people kept exercising for longer than the 12 weeks they would start to see physiological changes: 1. a stronger heart pumping a higher volume of blood per stroke 2. a higher volume of blood 3. stronger muscles and bones 4. more capillaries and mitochondria in muscle tissues etc .

A year later these people would be able to sustain much higher work rates at the same percentage of maximum heart rate, they would also be capable of exercising for longer periods and more often. The weight loss would quicken over time until their bodies came to reflect their new lifestyles.

Thirdly this stuff about low intensity leading to maximum weight loss because it's in the high "fat burning zone" is utterly wrong. Whilst the percentage of of calories taken from fat is higher at lower intensities, the total energy used at high intensities is so much greater that more fat is burnt overall (i.e 40% of 1000 is more than 80% of 300). Also it's really the total energy spent that matters.

The point is exercise DOES work. A little exercise only works a little. If you want big results you need to build up to higher intensity and more frequent workouts. Running is the best exercise for weight loss and general health. Cycling and swimming are also great.

The author of this article probably should read this study: Reduced disability and mortality among aging runners: a 21-year longitudinal study

Based on my hasty research, the majority of this bill looks like a good idea, but you hit the one thing about it that I am most strongly against. Now, I'm admittedly not the healthiest individual. I don't exercise nearly as much as I should, but I don't drink or gorge myself on soda and onion rings all day either. Point is, I'm in good overall health and there's no way in hell I should be FORCED to subsidize the expensive care and treatment of those who can't be bothered to look after their own well-being.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we're talking about government-mandated health care with nationwide obesity skyrocketing from about 10% to 30% over the course of the last 30 years. (Source.) If we keep this up, literally half the population will be obese in 10-20 more years. Why should these people get a free ticket for all of their self-inflicted bodily harm on my dime? Is there anything in the bill that will address the obesity epidemic directly and lessen the NEED for health care in the first place? I'm still researching the answers, but I'd be very surprised if it did.

I have no problem with the government mandating immediate, unconditional, professional care for all emergency and urgent cases. Even if the patient admits up-front that they are in the country illegally and there is no reprisal (i.e., a friendly visit from INS) for doing so.

I have no problem with employers offering health insurance to all employees, even healthy ones. I don't even have too much of a problem with the government requiring employers to offer health insurance, though there should be a limit on the number of employees and/or the amount of profit that the company makes before those requirements kick in. The company should also be able to reduce the employee's pay according to how much the insurance plan costs them.

But purchasing insurance should not be mandatory, period. If I don't work for a company that provides health insurance gratis, and/or I chose to opt-out of health insurance, I pay a 2.5% penalty on my income taxes according to H.R. 3200. Just what this recession needs.

I'm curious to know what happens to the self-employed, contractors, or freelance types? If they don't go out and deliberately purchase health insurance, are they subject to the 2.5% income tax penalty? I guess the only way to escape paying for something you don't use would be to not make any money at all. Fuck it, I'm going to quit my job and beg on the street corner for change.

Then there are summaries like this which throw everything and the kitchen sink in. What's worse, there is only one submitted link, so it's not like there are multiple sources gathered together making this summary long, it's just a lazy submitter cutting and pasting from the article.

I'm not quite sure what your complaint is. It's too long but doesn't include enough sources? The actual article is here and the free abstract is here. The article is 6 pages long, and is obviously quite dense. The slashdot summary is more for general audiences, Greg George could have included more material from the original source, but you're already saying tl:dr. Summarizing biomedical research so that everyone can understand it but including all the essential details is frankly something even biology professors rarely achieve.

Growing axons is a nice step, but Christopher Reeves is dead already. It'll be hard to get another celebrity to put their weight behind this kind of research.

And of course, THAT is the critical step, having a good celebrity endosement, that is holding spinal cord repair back. It's a well known fact that scientists won't try anything unless there's a sympathetic celebrity asking them to do it. It's a morale thing, after Mr Reeves died, they just all lost hope, figured there was no point in trying anymore, and became shoe salesmen ~.

corrected link

Normally you'd expect the psychology of priming to catch this one: a linear extrapolation is worthless when medical technology continues to change as fast as it does. Diabetes continues to exist in 50 years? On the near side of the apocalypse? I highly doubt it. Excepting curvature, we can thus conclude that women are getting fatter.

Some people see this phase we're in where the genomics/proteomics researchers are discovering that nothing is as simple as we told the investors as evidence that progress in medical science has taken a coffee break. Hardly. For the last century, the foundation of modern medicine has been statistical epidemiology: trying to find a needle in a haystack with a densitometer.

The profit model for the pharmaceutical industry is to spread the benefit of a drug over the largest study population where the effect remains statistically significant. Cholesterol levels too high? Add Lipitor to the water supply. It could be that only 10% of the people who take Lipitor actually benefit. But then, if this were determined, they'd have to charge ten times as much per treatment to maintain existing revenues, and fewer uninsured would be able to pay, and we might have to let some future president actually preside.

We are right now in the heart of the transition to etiology based medicine. Among the problems are how to pay for it without using giant studies designed to implicate everyone. This isn't so different from the transition of observational taxonomy (A and B share the same egg tooth dimple) to taxonomy with a genomics turbo assist. I recall in the early 1980s, this transition was not widely welcomed among traditional taxonomists. Unreliable, they complained. Now you couldn't do taxonomy any other way, and a lot of old arguments are long gone in the rear view mirror. The new bionic taxonomy is better, stronger, faster.

We're in that deceptive interlude after pressing the ignite button on the Saturn V rocket where the flame and rumble have erupted out the bottom, while the rocket itself just kind of shivers there, apparently going nowhere.

The combined propellant flow rate of the five F-1s in the Saturn V was 3,357 US gallons (12,710 l) per second, which would empty a 30,000 US gallons (110,000 l) swimming pool in 8.9 seconds. Each F-1 engine had more thrust than all three space shuttle main engines combined.

A decade or two later, you're praying for center-engine cutoff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_8_acceleration.gif
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank/genbankstats.html

Swell time to extrapolate the fate of humanity on a straight line. Besides, I have evidence to the contrary.

Interesting to look at the HapMap. You should feel very safe if your driver is of sub saharan African descent. They don't seem to have the minor allele at all http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/projects/SNP/snp_ref.cgi?rs=6265#Diversity . Of course one allele rarely controls the whole show.

In the biological sciences, the government effectively sets the starting salary benchmark through postdoctoral fellowship stipends. They're $40-50k, for people with 0-5 years postdoctoral experience, 5 years of grad school, and 4 years of undergrad. At that salary level, competition is relatively modest, with success rates in the 25-30% range. ie: 4 applicants for each of the 600 available positions. The NIH stipend becomes the benchmark for other biological postdocs, which then become the benchmark for other science postdocs, and the starting point for negotiating faculty salary and for recruiting into industry. Likewise, the NIH salary cap ($196,700) becomes the de facto benchmark for senior faculty salaries.

Well, for the NIH, at least, here is a source with much more recent figures. And while "about a decade" is an exaggeration (a decade ago, Clinton still had over a year to go in office) it is undeniably true that the NIH budget was "essentially flat" during the Bush years. The year-over-year increases barely kept pace with inflation in most cases, and sometimes fell behind. I don't know about NSF and other non-DoD scientific funding agencies, but I'm guessing they suffered the same fate.

Smoking cigarettes makes it less likely you will ever get parkinsons (source). Which chemical is it, nicotine, harmaline, what? At first noone knew... its probably nicotine. How is it doing this? Theres a crapload of different versions of nicotinic receptors, is somehow interacting with a specific protein that makes up one of them (seems most likely) or even sticking to some other thing in your body and changing what that protein/whatever does (less likely)? Probably nicotinic receptors... which kind? Theyre made of combinations of 5 different proteins that arrange together to form the receptor, theres 17 proteins that could be part of these that could theoretically arrange in any combination you want...someone had to narrow down the possibililties. So ok theres only like 6 different combinations of these subunits we find in the parts of the brain that are supposedly involved in parkinsons (knowing which parts were involved was its own whole multimillion dollar expenditure) which one (or maybe more than one) of those is what nicotine is interacting with to make smokers less likely to develop Parkinson's? Probably ones containing a4B2 (alpha4 and beta2 are names for 2 of the 17 possible subunits). Whats special about those? What type of neurons are they located on? Is nicotine doing this at the cell surface... or getting into the cell and doing something before these receptors even reach the surface? Is it increasing synthesis of these, or decreasing degradation? Where exactly is it sticking... how is the binding site shaped and what amino acids are involved... and what chemical and structural properties should a chemical have to make this anti-parkinsonian effect happen?

Once you know that, you can design a drug to fit, but then you also want to figure out how to make it also have chemical and structural properties that make it not altered to some nonfunctional form by your liver enzymes, pass the blood brain barrier, etc, that way people can just down a pill rather than get shots... or worse need to get the drug injected into their central nervous system in some way.

Its all very boring to anyone who doesnt like a good, complex mystery... but someone should be doing it because there are ways to figure out each step of the way (it might take a couple years and a bunch of money but its doable). And this isnt even my field.

Most reports are that swine flu has been mild compared to the typical in most individuals. This includes reports that some exposed have never developed any symptom. The reported numbers for swine flu rely on the presumption of swine flu rather than the regular seasonal flu, not actual tests. That is, died so must have been swine flu.

What evidence there is suggests that children and the elderly should have priority for vaccination (greater potential benefit for the same risk). Healthy adults should be at the end of the list.

Fucking shit, could you cram any more potently concentrated misinformation into a single post?

The swine flu is *usually* a mild flu, just like the regular seasonal flu. But it *is* killing healthy young people, which the regular flu does not. It's landing them in the hospital, and then killing them after prolonged ICU courses. The mortality rate for pregnant women hospitalized with novel H1N1 infections is about 50% based on case series from several hospitals, including my own.

There is no "presumption" here. Novel H1N1 is tested via PCR of nasal swabs or sputum samples, and/or at autopsy on lung tissue. Every suspicious hospitalized case in California (at least) is tested like this. For certain, every death in the hospital is definitively tested. There is no "presumption". Novel H1N1, followed by bacterial superinfection, is what is killing these healthy young people. Just like in 1918.

The formal CDC recommendations are that *young* people be first in line for the vaccine. OK, pregnant women, infants and the immunocompromised are first, but of the general public, young people are next. For once, the elderly can safely wait, since most have partial immunity from the 1957 pandemic H1N1, and the most severe cases of novel H1N1 are in young people, not old (where it's acting much like the seasonal flu).

Seriously, read the CDC recommendations on who should get the vaccine. In fact, the CDC has an unbelievable website on novel H1N1 with the best real data available on rates, outcomes, and recommendations.

Read a few of the emerging case reports, like the these 68 young people in Oceania who were in the ICU on heart-lung machines, of whom 1/3 died. Or the 10 young ICU cases from Michigan back in the spring.

This is serious stuff, and healthy young people (especially pregnant) are at risk. If you want relative risk, then know that the swine flu has already, beyond any doubt, killed more young healthy Americans than the number who got Guillain-Barre from the 1976 vaccine, and the flu season hasn't even started yet. Get the vaccine.

Most reports are that swine flu has been mild compared to the typical in most individuals. This includes reports that some exposed have never developed any symptom. The reported numbers for swine flu rely on the presumption of swine flu rather than the regular seasonal flu, not actual tests. That is, died so must have been swine flu.

What evidence there is suggests that children and the elderly should have priority for vaccination (greater potential benefit for the same risk). Healthy adults should be at the end of the list.

Fucking shit, could you cram any more potently concentrated misinformation into a single post?

The swine flu is *usually* a mild flu, just like the regular seasonal flu. But it *is* killing healthy young people, which the regular flu does not. It's landing them in the hospital, and then killing them after prolonged ICU courses. The mortality rate for pregnant women hospitalized with novel H1N1 infections is about 50% based on case series from several hospitals, including my own.

There is no "presumption" here. Novel H1N1 is tested via PCR of nasal swabs or sputum samples, and/or at autopsy on lung tissue. Every suspicious hospitalized case in California (at least) is tested like this. For certain, every death in the hospital is definitively tested. There is no "presumption". Novel H1N1, followed by bacterial superinfection, is what is killing these healthy young people. Just like in 1918.

The formal CDC recommendations are that *young* people be first in line for the vaccine. OK, pregnant women, infants and the immunocompromised are first, but of the general public, young people are next. For once, the elderly can safely wait, since most have partial immunity from the 1957 pandemic H1N1, and the most severe cases of novel H1N1 are in young people, not old (where it's acting much like the seasonal flu).

Seriously, read the CDC recommendations on who should get the vaccine. In fact, the CDC has an unbelievable website on novel H1N1 with the best real data available on rates, outcomes, and recommendations.

Read a few of the emerging case reports, like the these 68 young people in Oceania who were in the ICU on heart-lung machines, of whom 1/3 died. Or the 10 young ICU cases from Michigan back in the spring.

This is serious stuff, and healthy young people (especially pregnant) are at risk. If you want relative risk, then know that the swine flu has already, beyond any doubt, killed more young healthy Americans than the number who got Guillain-Barre from the 1976 vaccine, and the flu season hasn't even started yet. Get the vaccine.

My understanding of going to joystick would be partly to help avoid injuries. Based on old info that most injuries are caused by steering wheels.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1550802

But it seems that not everybody agrees with that point anymore:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=3&ved=0CBoQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0196064404014295&ei=KGHfSrbPB4iV8AafheRp&usg=AFQjCNF3Hc3LBRutgb4K_3CJDHGJsH6QvA

Swine Flu WILL kill your children - its a disaster!
Nevermind the auto accidents, cancer, and homicide

THE TOP THREE CAUSES OF DEATH BY AGE GROUP

0-1 years:

        * Developmental and genetic conditions that were present at birth
        * Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
        * All conditions associated with prematurity and low birth weight

1-4 years:

        * Accidents
        * Developmental and genetic conditions that were present at birth
        * Cancer

5-14 years:

        * Accidents
        * Cancer
        * Homicide

Have you got a reference to a double blind study done on high risk people comparing placebo and a flu vaccine?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10498559 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7966893 are the best I can find, which do seem to contradict the claims in the article.

Note, I have nothing against vaccines. My kid got a flu vaccine this year and is up to date on all his other ones. I'm not an anti-vaccine nut who think that all our health issues are caused by vaccines :)