The Unquantified Placebo Effect

Upon viewing the Headline - No Standard for the Placebo? I had hoped for something more in line with my current interests. Alas no, the news item relates to how the placebo pill contents are rarely published and may have important bearing on experimental results. I was off on a completely different tangent, wondering about the variability of the placebo response and the implications this has for interpreting clinical trial results. Turns out it is rather variable.

More Glory For Open Access Scientific Publishing

Open Access Publishing is where researchers can submit their results to an Open Access Journal, such as found on Biomedcentral, and is freely available to everyone. This study highlights how open access publishing is promoting increasing citation of studies. Makes sense, especially in an age where there is so much like research(wasteful duplication?). So why pay exorbitant fees for download a paper when you can go to an open access site to find similiar if not identical findings? It is not uncommon to look for a paper, land on a journal website, only to be advised you can download the paper for $30 USD for 7 days viewing. That is a ripoff.

Open access publishing began about a decade ago and is becoming increasingly popular. That, together with the rise of sites like Scientific Blogging and Science Blogs, allows the average person much greater access to scientific research and scientists. So I imagine the life of the science writer is becoming increasingly difficult.

The major reason open access publishing took off is because journal publishers were charging outrageous fees for publishing the work of scientists, even going so far on occasion as to charge scientists for publishing their research, and then making very fat profits from journal sales. So I imagine there are many publishers who hate these sites Biomedcentral, Highwire Press, and PLOS.

Patrick Lockerby: October Arctic Ice Update

Patrick provides extensive analysis and nice graphics to keep us informed of Arctic Ice movements.

Product Warning - MMS and alkalinity

This product, MMS, touted as a cure of everything from AIDS to cancer, is dangerous. (The product warning can be found here.) It equates to eating bleach. Relates to the idea that alkalinity is the key to killing cancer. Which is odd because I've read abstracts showing how alkalinity definitely helps some cancers survive. But there is no point looking at scientifically derived information because as Deepak Chopra would say, "that is based on Newtonian Mechanics, we're into Quantum Healing now". High school chemistry is sufficient, you don't have to be Quantumy to deal with this.

If your pH ranges are skewing there is something wrong with your diet. If you have to keep taking something to restore your pH values then you are potentially masking a serious illness. It may even be the case that your body is shifting the pH towards more acidic or alkaline for a specific reason. pH values may well vary throughout the day. For example, one study on retina found pH values ranging from 7.0 - 7.8. This circadian dependent shifting of pH values is entirely consistent with circadian dynamics in general. Life abhors stillness, our bodies and cells are typically in constant flux. It is as if it is easier to maintain a dynamic system that it is cycling through various phases rather than static. Perhaps not so surprising when you have feedback loops that directly impinge on other feedback loops. In that scenario perhaps it is impossible to obtain a "steady state". On the other hand, do "steady states" ever exist? Now if you'll excuse me, Bodhidharma is seeking my advice regarding a severed finger ... . 

Dancing at the End of Time

"If you're standing on thin ice you may as well dance."

Steven Cummings, Australian Singer

You have to wonder about the unbounded optimism of our political leaders. At present there is yet another big meeting, this time in Japan, to try and find strategies to prevent the further transformation of the environment. Dreamers, silly little dreamers. Too late, that boat has sailed and was last seen wallowing in the horse latitudes.

Eco transformation is happening now. Even by Greenie logic it must be conceded that we have introduced so much novelty into the "web of life" that we must have irretrievably perturbed the "balance of nature" and so have inexorably set in train processes which will entail a eco-transformation that we will neither be able to predict or control.

A Remarkable Anti-Inflammatory diet

You can download the press release here. This is a startlingly good result, so good I want to see it followed up. It could be too good to be true or wonderful.

The results in brief ...

The results show that the food portfolio significantly reduced inflammation. Furthermore, LDL-cholesterol was reduced by 33%, blood triglycerides by 14%, blood pressure by 8 % and a thrombotic risk factor by 26 %. In addition, the subjects’ cognitive functions were improved after the food portfolio compared with the reference food.

Enjoy Airline Food - Wear Ear Plugs

This news item from Physorg throws some light on the complexity of tasting. We might think it is just about taste buds and smell. Think again, our senses are not as separate as we are inclined to believe.

Professor Holick on Vitamin D

This news link from Physorg has an interview with the man who kept promoting vitamin D when everyone else thought the sun was enough.

The Price of Freedom

US War Crimes: Cancer Rate in Fallujah Worse than Hiroshima

....

“This is an extraordinary and alarming result,” said Busby, a professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Ulster and director of scientific research for Green Audit, an independent environmental research group. “To produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened. We need urgently to find out what the agent was. Although many suspect uranium, we cannot be certain without further research and independent analysis of samples from the area.”

Busby told an Italian television news station, RAI 24, that the “extraordinary” increase in radiation-related maladies in Fallujah is higher than that found in the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the US atomic strikes of 1945. “My guess is that this was caused by depleted uranium,” he said. “They must be connected.”

Cannabis, Schizophrenia, Cognition, and Autoimmunity

When I was writing up the earlier piece last night I came across some searches from Norml, the rabidly pro marijuana organisation. The search page had the extract - schizophrenics have improved cognition if smoking pot. At the time I dismissed it but today I realised I was being silly, there is a very good neuroimmunological explanation for why cannabinoids can be helping schizophrenics.