Slashdot Mirror

The video linked to by parent is complete quackery. The autism-vaccine link has been thoroughly disproven many times now. In countries where vaccinations are not combined or where vaccines do not contain thimerosal (e.g. Denmark, Japan), autism rates rise as much as anywhere else; the obvious and correct explanation is better diagnosis and a significant loosening of diagnostic criteria. Contrary to what the "doctor" in the video claims, most autistics do not have anything like the gastroenteritis symptoms that are supposedly indicative of "vaccine poisioning". His claim that 100% of autistics have such symptoms is am intentional lie. Here is some more real information on these issues from the good folks at Quackwatch.

Harvard isn't doing this out of the good of their own hearts. It's a federal mandate. One example is the NIH policy that now requires all articles produced from work funded by NIH to be available on-line to the public, free, within one year of publication. There's an article on it , the second one down on the top stories. Key line: "In accordance with federal law, the NIH now requires the submission of published articles resulting from NIH-funded research to PubMed Central." (emphasis mine) Journal copyright models are going to have to change, because to comply with the law, people will only be able to publish where they can then make the article public.

Here is one reference. Original references are usually much less alarmist than the stupid news stories created by journalists who don't understand what they are reporting. This is corn ethanol, which is known to be an inefficient source of energy, so the Science article comes as no great surprise--though it does contradict an earlier report in PNAS. The journalism mistakenly groups all biofuels with corn here (unless the article irresponsibly leaves out other references). Independent studies would need to be done for every biofuel source to warrant the sweeping generalizations of the Seattle Times article.

There should be a law.

Here is one reference. Original references are usually much less alarmist than the stupid news stories created by journalists who don't understand what they are reporting. This is corn ethanol, which is known to be an inefficient source of energy, so the Science article comes as no great surprise--though it does contradict an earlier report in PNAS. The journalism mistakenly groups all biofuels with corn here (unless the article irresponsibly leaves out other references). Independent studies would need to be done for every biofuel source to warrant the sweeping generalizations of the Seattle Times article.

There should be a law.

Because cutting off people's arms is counter to Western values. Pretty much all Muslim countries (Wahabis or not) practice that one. As are many Sharia laws for treating women.

OK, point granted: the body can cope with the formaldehyde produced during normal metabolism. Does that mean that the formaldehyde from the potentially rather different aspartame metabolism can be coped with? Not necessarily. In fact, there is data that shows that it cannot.

A Spanish research group has managed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9714421 to trace where the formaldehyde produced during aspartame metabolism binds. They did so by radiolabeling the methanol group of aspartame. The formaldehyde was found to bind to protein and DNA in various tissues, with the adducts accumulating under prolonged exposure.

This does beg the question how the formaldehyde is kept from doing damage during normal metabolism, as it is a pretty reactive molecule. Perhaps the normal metabolic pathway occurs inside a cell vacuole, thus keeping the formaldehyde segragated.

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-MH-99-010.html Yes, the government funds abstinence research.

I've found mention of a single prayer study funded by NIH, and there's a reasonable amount of literature, but I can't find a link to the grant.

The number of meaningful scientific discoveries made by large governments is very short.

"NIH Grantees Win 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine"

"NIH Grantees Win 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine"

"NIH Grantees Win..." Oh heck, this is getting boring. Let me just quote:

"Of the 81 American Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine since 1945, 62 either worked at or were funded by the NIH before winning the prize."
(source)

The number of meaningful scientific discoveries made by large governments is very short.

"NIH Grantees Win 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine"

"NIH Grantees Win 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine"

"NIH Grantees Win..." Oh heck, this is getting boring. Let me just quote:

"Of the 81 American Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine since 1945, 62 either worked at or were funded by the NIH before winning the prize."
(source)

The number of meaningful scientific discoveries made by large governments is very short.

"NIH Grantees Win 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine"

"NIH Grantees Win 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine"

"NIH Grantees Win..." Oh heck, this is getting boring. Let me just quote:

"Of the 81 American Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine since 1945, 62 either worked at or were funded by the NIH before winning the prize."
(source)

I believe I've found what you are looking for here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14520651

The first link on the (two link) list there: "A cornerstone of mitochondrial genetics, strict maternal inheritance, has been challenged recently by the study of a patient with mitochondrial myopathy due to a sporadic 2bp deletion. The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) harboring the mutation was paternal in origin, whereas the patient's blood was identical to the maternal genotype. To determine whether this is a common phenomenon, we studied mtDNA sequence variation between muscle and blood from 35 patients with sporadic mitochondrial myopathies, but detected no evidence of paternal mtDNA transmission. Our findings suggest that paternal transmission of mtDNA is rare and should not alter our genetic advice to families."

Why was this moderated troll ? Just because the moderator doesn't have sex often enough to have statistically experienced or witnessed this ? Oh, I forgot this is slashdot.

Newsflash, condoms do break occasionally. They also slip.
The below study shows a 2% rate of failure per condom, and 2.7% per person.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8070546

Iriki, Tanaka, and Iwamura published a paper in 1996 showing that, when macaque monkeys were given a rake with which to retrieve distant objects, the receptive fields of neurons coding for the body schema of the hand changed to encompass the rake. I haven't read the Rizzolatti paper yet, and I'm sure that it adds something new to the research, but this basic idea was around more than 10 years ago.

Seriously? You didn't find anything like, say, this?

"The conflict between the host and the RM gene system may have contributed to the spread and maintenance of the RM gene complexes. In this way, they resemble proviruses and other genetic elements that are often called selfish genes or selfish genetic elements (8). In general, two homologous alleles in diploid eukaryotic cells segregate in a one-to-one ratio at meiosis. This Mendelian law of segregation is violated by some genes in a process called ?meiotic drive.? These selfish genes are preferentially transmitted over the other, nonself alleles (8). In particular, the action of maternal-effect selfish genes, which cause postfertilization killing (9), appears to be quite similar to the action of the RM gene complexes, i.e., the loss of the selfish gene leads to killing of the progeny by the residual gene product. Thus, the RM gene complexes warrant the term ?selfish genes? in the genetic sense of the term."

Not sure how that is a straw man.

Because sickle cell is not selfish, which was one of the conditions I listed. That'd be like you claiming that wearing lead shoes and being way out at sea without a boat is lethal, and me saying, "Hey, a man survived without a boat recently" while ignoring the lead shoes aspect.

Sickle cell anemia (two recessive genes) is 100% lethal if modern medicine is not available

From the Wikipedia article:

"The allele responsible for sickle-cell anaemia is autosomal recessive and can be found on the short arm of chromosome 11. A person who receives the defective gene from both father and mother develops the disease; a person who receives one defective and one healthy allele remains healthy, but can pass on the disease and is known as a carrier."

and...

"The disease is chronic and lifelong. Individuals are most often well, but their lives are punctuated by periodic painful attacks. Life-expectancy is shortened, but contemporary survival data is lacking. Older studies indicated that sufferers could live to an average of 40 to 50 years, with the average age for males being 42 and the average age for females being 48."

40-50 years isn't past reproductive age why?

Well, believe me when I say I am no where near qualified to speak on this level and be of any help to anyone, except maybe as comic relief. That being said, the dude running these trials, one Dr. Gordon Dougal, is probably the best guy to contact in regards mixing your Optical Topography therapy with the 1072nm IR therapy he apparently specialises in. 1072 can apparently cause a whole range of GoodThings(TM) from age-restoration effects in the epidermis to significantly reduced healing times for treatment of the herpes simplex-2 virus in cold sores, genital herpes and skin herpes outbreaks. There's a paper on pubmed here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=16046143&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum . Hope this is of some help to you.... I'd suggest e-mailing this guy and asking him about his project. Whilst he does run/partner a company that seems to be making a whole raft of devices for the treatment of cold-sores and age-restoration therapies, he nonetheless is working with University's on it, if only to provide accurate peer-accredited evidence to back up his devices claims. They really do appear to work. It seems it is definitely worth a trial run of building one of these helmet jobs using the LED's I mentioned above and trialing it on patients for possible effects. It's been shown time and time over that 1072nm (and those near to it) wavelength light has no detrimental effect on patients, as evidenced by the fact this guy's devices are licensed for usage now. It works for stimulating cell growth in the skin; why not the brain?

And the recurrent cerebellar architecture reflects this automatic function: Porrill, Dean, Stone

LOL. Let me guess, you're from Lake Wobegon.

(shakes his head at all the people who fail to understand age risks, mortality, and what living in specific countries means)

Well, unlike most Americans, half my relatives made it to 100. And I haven't lived here my whole life. Even the NIA knows what our actual mortality rates are - and they're not good. Which is the field of research I work in.

I couldn't find a link to read the article but here is the abstract.

For the lazy: Middle aged / young rats are put in a 3D maze with some middle-aged mice receiving 6 minute daily doses of IR. Middle aged mice treated with IR show (nebulously-termed) improved memory but do not navigate the 3D maze more quickly as a result.

Doesn't sound like such the panacea the Dailymail article makes it out to be.

Several studies have addressed what happens when you have subjects play games during EEG, PET or near-IR spectroscopy evaluation. Frontal cortex deactivation never occurred once in any of the subjects. In fact, every study found increased prefrontal cortex activation relative to control.

Next time, you may want to consider checking PubMed or PSYCLIT before you go spouting medicobabble. I've heard it does wonders for your prefrontal cortex. Might even make you more intelligent.

Several studies have addressed what happens when you have subjects play games during EEG, PET or near-IR spectroscopy evaluation. Frontal cortex deactivation never occurred once in any of the subjects. In fact, every study found increased prefrontal cortex activation relative to control.

Next time, you may want to consider checking PubMed or PSYCLIT before you go spouting medicobabble. I've heard it does wonders for your prefrontal cortex. Might even make you more intelligent.

Several studies have addressed what happens when you have subjects play games during EEG, PET or near-IR spectroscopy evaluation. Frontal cortex deactivation never occurred once in any of the subjects. In fact, every study found increased prefrontal cortex activation relative to control.

Next time, you may want to consider checking PubMed or PSYCLIT before you go spouting medicobabble. I've heard it does wonders for your prefrontal cortex. Might even make you more intelligent.

Several studies have addressed what happens when you have subjects play games during EEG, PET or near-IR spectroscopy evaluation. Frontal cortex deactivation never occurred once in any of the subjects. In fact, every study found increased prefrontal cortex activation relative to control.

Next time, you may want to consider checking PubMed or PSYCLIT before you go spouting medicobabble. I've heard it does wonders for your prefrontal cortex. Might even make you more intelligent.

Analyses of M. genitalium suggest it may have orginally had methylation capabilities, but has lost them over time: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=206970&blobtype=pdf

In our analysis, restriction enzyme digestions of M. genitalium genomic DNA, using MspI and HpaII, did not support the fact that CpG methylation currently exists in this genome as evidenced by the identical pattern produced by both restriction enzymes (data not shown). Whether the disparity in CpG dinucleotides in the M. genitalium genome is the result of a now extinct CpG methylase activity or related instead to the codon usage of this organism will require further analysis.

But the name. Oh my god, the name. Anything with "my" in front of it sounds like the intended audience is a four year old. "it's mine! my computer. my space. my toybox! I'm special. This is mine!"

So my guess is you would refuse treatment for tuberculosis with mycomycin because it sounds childish?

mycomycin

n 1: a highly unsaturated antibiotic acid obtained from an actinomycete

Mycomycin: a new antibiotic with tuberculostatic properties.

But hey, I'd rather say MySQL than MS-SQL any day of the week. MS - its a debilitating disease.

OK, I'm not an expert in biosecurity, but wouldn't the reduced air pressure in the room be accomplished by pumping air out of the room?

The Class III cabinet is operated under negative pressure. Supply air is HEPA-filtered and the cabinet exhaust air is filtered through two HEPA filters in series, or HEPA filtration followed by incineration, before discharge outside of the facility.

That's only because of the way those particular sites decide to define mental illness. From the National Alliance on Mental Illness:
"Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning." link Their definition page then goes on to use mental illness and mental disorder interchangeably.

And from the NIMH it also tends to use disorder and illness interchangeably in this page: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-numbers-count-mental-disorders-in-america.shtml

Digitization of actual content came later. When I started graduate school in 1998, I can still remember going to the old, crusty "bowels" of the health sciences library and looking up academic journals by hand -- it was really a royal PITA because the amount of journal articles you'd have to look up was quite astronomical, and you'd have to take several trips between your table/desk in the library and the shelf, to work on a given problem. But we found the information we needed.

By the time I graduated however, it got much better! The ACS put their entire archives since the 1800s online, and several other publishers got into that game as well. So now, you could search online and find the info you needed as well. The problem (that still remains, unfortunately), is that publishers are still clinging to their old, archaic copyright policies, and if your institution doesn't have access, you get a page asking you to pay. And the fees, for single articles, are astronomically effing ridiculous -- $50 or so for a single article!!!! Who in the h*ll is going to pay for that?!?! I understand that publishers do need to make a certain amount of money, within reason. Although I don't buy their justification of publishing costs -- these days, the typesetting is all done in desktop word processing, by the authors! And authors are asked more and more to do actual editorial tasks. Peer review doesn't even cost as much, since the experts don't get paid to do it. So the journals asking for $50 or so for a single article are just extorting people for far too much than they should actually be charging! Fortunately, it looks like the academic publishing market is slowly moving more in the direction of open access.

So, organisms will just take the traits from that make cells of the anti-biotic taking organism resistant to the anti-biotic. Problem solved.

This doesn't happen... the reason animal cells aren't killed by antibiotics is because of fundamental differences between eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The ribosomes, used to make proteins are very different. Also, other antibiotics attack DNA gyrase and the formation of cell walls, which animals don't have.

Instead, bacteria can either mutate or readily swap/steal genes from other bacteria* to make proteins to destroy antibiotics (penicillinase), enable them to pump antibiotics out of themselves, or change the site of bacterial action just enough to make the antibiotic no longer work.

To get back on topic, one major problem with a "supercow" is that all the clones would have the same MHC. Genetic diversity at these genes ensures that at least some individuals in a population will be able to present an effective immune response to any pathogen.

*Specifically, pathogenic ones can obtain them from harmless bacteria that have evolved resistance through too much exposure to antibiotics.

You 'make' nitrogen with energy, using the Haber-Bosch process. When oil is the cheapest way to acquire energy (as used to be the case) people will make it with oil.

The cheapest way to make nitrogen is to drink and piss. Urea is high in nitrogen. A good way to see this in action, so to speak, is to piss in one spot on grass. Within a few days a brown spot will appear there, that brown spot is a nitrogen burn. If you garden mix 1 part urine with 10 parts water and use it to water your plants. They'll love you for it. Of course you can't do that if you want organics as organics prohibits it.

Feeding babies an exclusive diet of milk results in malnutrition.
There, fixed it for you:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002448.htm

Breastfeed, or use an infant formula. DUH! Cow's milk isn't a direct substitute for formula or breastmilk, and soy milk isn't always the proper replacement for milk. But neither is cow's milk.

fine. i'll stop being lazy, a little.

this is the FIRST study showing that faith has no impact on one type of serious disease that comes up in a pubmed search. it is MORE recent than the one i had read.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17636153?ordinalpos=12&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

To cook something (as in heating the water inside that thing) the frequency must be around 2.4GHz.

Where did you get that idea? A broad range of radio frequencies (RF) have been used for many decades for industrial heating - most commonly in the megahertz region. No doubt any of these industrial heaters could easily cook food if you cranked up the intensity. This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating/ reference directs itself to the theory behind dielectric heating, which is not limited to gigahertz radiation. A Google search on RF heating yielded many interesting articles and applications, but few mentioned the actual frequencies employed. Finally, I found an article "Radio frequency heating: a potential method for post-harvest pest control in nuts and dry products" http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?&pubmedid=15362185/ where they state they are using a 27 MHz radio frequency (RF) system.

Here in Georgia, they have been running ads and propaganda about how drinking under 21 is harmful and illegal, including parent's hosting of "drinking parties" for their underage kids. While the laws here are obviously different and still heavily conservative/religiously based (one of 3 states with no sales on Sunday still enforced as a State law, which the governor refuses to repeal (vetoed again last year on the basis that it teaches "time management") ), citing that drinking anytime, any amount before being exactly 21 years old as harmful is ridiculous. Kids will do stupid things, and when I have them, if they want to drink, they will whether I want them to or not. I would rather they do it with supervision of an adult, preferably me. This is about as idiotic as the policy of "stop handing out condoms because it encourages sex" crap. Arresting parents for doing what they are supposed to: monitoring and supervising their kids to keep the stupidity under control, is counter productive. Its also evidently not a state law as identified here, though they sure make it seem that way.

To re-link this thread back to the article, kids do stupid things, but the control of that stupidity is their parent's responsibility. The school really has no right to dig into the non-school activities unless it poses a threat to the school itself. If, as has been said higher up, these activities were reported to the school, the school's responsibility ends at notifying the parents and possibly local authorities (if legal infractions are severe enough: ie property damage).

Enough ranting....

Tm

My two-minute Pubmed screening (dinner's getting cold) shows that it seems that this guy's more recent papers, at least, are all technical note-like submissions in online journals. He also has some noted conflicts of interest. However, there is one pilot study. I don't know if this link will work without going through Pubmed, but this is a year-old pilot study that is probably not the one referenced in the article. They basically conclude, like so many other pilots, that the treatment is promising but needs more rigorous study.

A large amount of states these days have very different drinking laws than what people think. Basically everyone knows you can't purchase alcohol under the age of 21 (some places minor purchase isn't illegal but possession is so purchase basically is). What a lot of people don't know is that possession and consumption laws with regards to alcohol and minors (or at least people under the age of 21) are a lot different. For possession a good number of states have family, parental, and/or private property/home/residence exceptions for minors. I'm pretty sure a decent majority have such exceptions for consumption.

Either way a school's right to punish for such activities is definitely immoral in my opinion. Saying it's ok for a school to suspend extracurricular activities (which build good character) could open the door to eventually suspending kids from school for something that is truly a parenting problem. And i'm of the belief that suspending kids from school (unless they're doing something disruptive/harmful to the learning environment) hurts the kid more than it helps.

Want to know the laws in your state? There's a lot of good information on the nih website
http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/stateprofiles/index.asp

I am talking about multiplexing... I just believe there is more headroom to be had in the future with fiber vs copper.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=16190419&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

They would try it, but broken spinal cord develops scar tissue that axons can't penetrate.

Autism symptoms don't develop at 2 months, the time when the first vaccine is mandated.

Or, heck, even at birth, now that Hep-B shots before leaving the hospital are all the rage.

With "factual analysis" by morons like you backing them up, it's little wonder crap statistical analyses like "this doesn't cause Autism" is the major focus, when spending the money on finding out what *does* cause it would be real science, but that ain't happenin'.

If you had half a brain cell to rub together, you might also be interested in this article, which has not been refuted by anyone.

I don't see an education problem in Cuba

What about a vaccine for homosexuality or ambition? The vaccine presumes that there is something "diseased" about a cocaine user.

Addiction is a disease.

Do you oppose 12-step alcoholism treatment programs and drugs that help smokers quit on the same grounds?

And this may surprise you, but people make moral judgements about others all the time. That's hardly a violation of their rights. In fact, I'm going to make a moral judgement about you; that I think your opposition to a potential treatment for a debilitating disease makes you ignorant at best. I guess I'll be hearing from your lawyer shortly.

Twit.

Too bad HL7 is a complex piece of shit. Sure - you can encode anything... in the same way that I can encode anything with this interface: "Stuff"... just extend "Stuff" and away you go! Point is, it's way too generic and vague to be of much use (I worked in HL7 for years before our company had to ditch it - there was literlly no upside to the over-complication... ever try to transport a clinical event? Can take 50 objects where one would suffice before).

That said - there is one good thing to come from HL7 (through not directly from it - inspired by it): Metathesaurus. Forget about HL7... let's focus on a common grammar first. That's the true weak point here.

People put substantial monetary value on all kinds of things which have little actual utility. If this is crazy, it's a type of insanity which afflicts a large proportion (perhaps a majority) of the human race.

Decide for yourself:, quote: "Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older -- about one in four adults -- suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion -- about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 -- who suffer from a serious mental illness. In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada for ages 15-44. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. Nearly half (45 percent) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for 2 or more disorders, with severity strongly related to comorbidity."

CC.

The only alternative is to publish in open access journals, which is fine in principle. However, for a cash-strapped lab, it can be hard to pay open access fees for several articles a year, even with NIH funding.

Why would a lab have to pay open access fees? As long as it is digital it should be easy to submit the research to a database like PubMed.

• Children tend to snack on nutritionally-unbalanced food when watching television, eat unconsciously and eat enough to skewtheir daily caloric intake.
• For some reason, children watching television burn fewer calories than they would at just about any other physical activity, including just idly sitting or lying down.
• Children who were forced to watch less television lost weight.

I guess too much importance is given to wikipedia. Google shows wikipedia results among it's top 5. I understand open knowledge is good but take the case of medical information. Would information available on http://www.nih.gov/ be more trust worthy or that available on wikipedia ?

Vitamin D can also be gotten from quite a few sources, many of which are common in European diets... as well as among many other groups that live in the far northern regions. Inuit seem to do ok without the small benefit of very pale skin.

If you think self selection had nothing to do with it, explain Inuit to me, please? Northern tribes of Native Americans? They didn't end up blonde and white, nor red-haired and white. Theoretically we all diverged from largely similar stock, right? Aside from massive cultural differences, I don't see what would make a specific skin color that huge a difference between Northern Europe and North America.

Sorry, but I just don't see how there is a dramatic evolutionary need to be blonde in only one specific region of Northern Europe.

I'm going to say that it was 2 parts natural selection, 8 parts self-selection. It's just not that long a timeframe.

pointed a friend to the article, friend happens to be a bio-chem.. so she points me to this, link below, which is a summary submitted to US national library of medicine.. bit more meat to it than the news paper piece.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=18003942&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum