Month: October 2012

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Skeptical Reporter for October 26^th, 2012

Sadly, the skeptics community has lost two great personalities this week. Leon Jaroff, a science writer and editor who persuaded Time Inc. to start Discover magazine in 1980, became its top editor and for many years wrote the popular Skeptical Eye column challenging pseudosciences, died Saturday at his home in East Hampton, New York. He was 85. Mr. Jaroff was managing editor of Discover, a monthly, for four years, overseeing cover articles on the search for life in space, the evolution of sex and the secrets of the brain, among other topics. Also, the Center for Inquiry marks with great sadness the passing of Paul Kurtz, founder and longtime chair of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry, who died at the age of 86. A philosopher, activist, and author, Kurtz was for a half-century among the most significant and impactful figures in the humanist and skeptic movements.

For many women, premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, is a familiar preamble to their monthly cycle. But a new review of the data suggests that mood changes aren’t as closely tied to menses as many have assumed. A team led by Dr. Sarah Romans of the University of Otago in New Zealand reviewed 47 studies that followed women’s moods across the menstrual cycle. Only 15% of the studies found that women tended to have “classic” PMS: moods that worsened as the menstrual period approached and lifted when menstruation occurred. An additional 38% found PMS that lasted into menstruation or another cycle phase. However, a further 38% of the studies found no association between mood and any particular phase of the cycle. And 9% found that the worst moods actually occurred outside of the premenstrual phase. That means that little more than half of the studies (53%) found any link between menstruation and bad mood, and 85% didn’t find classic PMS. “The major finding of this review was that clear evidence for a specific premenstrual-phase-related mood occurring in the general population is lacking”, the authors concluded.

Why some people respond to treatments that have no active ingredients in them may be down to their genes, a study in the journal PLoS ONE suggests. The so-called "placebo effect" was examined in 104 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in the US. Those with a particular version of the COMT gene saw an improvement in their health after placebo acupuncture. The scientists warn that while they hope their findings will be seen in other conditions, more work is needed. Edzard Ernst, a professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, said: "This is a fascinating but very preliminary result. It could solve the age-old question of why some individuals respond to placebo, while others do not. And if so, it could impact importantly on clinical practice. But we should be cautious - the study was small, we need independent replications, and we need to know whether the phenomenon applies just to IBS or to all diseases." The placebo effect is when a patient experiences an improvement in their condition while undergoing an inert treatment such as taking a sugar pill or, in this case, placebo acupuncture, where the patient believes they are receiving acupuncture but a sham device prevents the needles going into their body.

Eating a raw food diet is a recipe for disaster if you're trying to boost your species' brainpower. That's because humans would have to spend more than 9 hours a day eating to get enough energy from unprocessed raw food alone to support our large brains, according to a new study that calculates the energetic costs of growing a bigger brain or body in primates. But our ancestors managed to get enough energy to grow brains that have three times as many neurons as those in apes such as gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. How did they do it? They got cooking, according to a study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "If you eat only raw food, there are not enough hours in the day to get enough calories to build such a large brain. We can afford more neurons, thanks to cooking " says Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a neuroscientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil who is co-author of the report.

Google Maps has officially stepped into what may be its most difficult challenge yet — mapping the alleys, ledges and trails of the world unreachable by Street View’s cars, tricycles and snowmobiles. The effort formally began on foot Monday as Google took three of its Trekker backpacks down into the Grand Canyon for the new gadgetry’s maiden voyage. “When we were designing Trekker, we really knew we wanted to take it to these rugged, remote locations. We worked really hard to make sure it was waterproof and could handle heat and cold and all kinds of abuse on the trail”, said Ryan Falor, a product manager on Google’s Street View special collections team. The Trekker — which looks like a Ghostbuster’s Proton Pack with an oversized soccer ball mounted on top and a USB-connected Android smartphone and was first shown off at a Google Maps event back in June. At that point, the device was still a prototype and a bit lighter than it is now. But after about a year and a half of prototypes and improvements, the Trekker is finally polished enough to collect 360-degree imagery for use in Google Maps Street View.

The Biggest Loser might be a TV ratings winner, but its extreme depiction of exercise is more likely to turn people off than get them off the couch, according to new research from the University of Alberta. Researchers in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation found that watching a short video clip of the Biggest Loser fueled negative attitudes toward exercise, raising further questions about how physical activity is shown in the popular media. "The depictions of exercise on shows like The Biggest Loser are really negative," said lead author Tanya Berry, Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity Promotion. "People are screaming and crying and throwing up, and if you're not a regular exerciser you might think this is what exercise is -- that it's this horrible experience where you have to push yourself to the extremes and the limits, which is completely wrong."  Berry said the results debunk the belief held by some researchers and many in the popular media that shows like The Biggest Loser can be motivational and get people off the couch. In fact, the negative portrayals of exercise are counterproductive to public health campaigns.

Researchers in the US have been shocked to discover a beluga whale whose vocalizations were remarkably close to human speech. While dolphins have been taught to mimic the pattern and durations of sounds in human speech, no animal has spontaneously tried such mimicry. But researchers heard a nine-year-old whale named NOC make sounds octaves below normal, in clipped bursts. The whales are known as "canaries of the sea" for their high-pitched chirps, but while a number of anecdotal reports have described whales making human-like speech, none had ever been recorded. Once they identified NOC as the culprit, they caught it on tape. They found that vocal bursts averaged about three per second, with pauses reminiscent of human speech. Analysis of the recordings showed that the frequencies within them were spread out into "harmonics" in a way very unlike whales' normal vocalizations and more like those of humans. They also found that the mimicry was no easy task for NOC. "Our observations suggest that the whale had to modify its vocal mechanics in order to make the speech-like sounds," said Sam Ridgway, president of the National Marine Mammal Foundation and lead author on the paper. "The sounds we heard were clearly an example of vocal learning by the white whale."

A small British company has developed a way to create petrol from air and water, technology it hopes may one day contribute to large-scale production of green fuels. Engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis in northern England, say they have produced 5 litres of synthetic petrol over a period of three months. The technique involves extracting carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water, and combining them in a reactor with a catalyst to make methanol. The methanol is then converted into petrol. By using renewable energy to power the process, it is possible to create carbon-neutral fuel that can be used in an identical way to standard petrol, scientists behind the technology say. "It's actually cleaner because it's synthetic. You just make what you need to make in terms of the contents of it, so it doesn't contain what might be seen as pollutants, like sulfur", Peter Harrison, chief executive officer of AFS, said in an interview. The work is part of a two-year project that has so far cost around 1 million pounds. AFS plans to build a commercial plant in the next two years that will produce around 1,200 liters a day of specialist fuels for the motorsports.

And now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

Romanians’ smoking habits will be analyzed in a five year study by the Davidson College, in the United States , and the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Targu Mures, Romania. The research will be coordinated by professor Kristie Folley and professor Balacz Peter, from the University Semmelweis in Budapest, who is in charge of a similar project in Hungary. The project aims to study smoking in teen and children groups, in pregnant women and people with cardiovascular diseases. Also it will try to answer questions about the high rate of failure in quitting smoking. Romania has a high rate of both active and passive smokers and a lot of those trying to quit aren’t able to do so.

Links:

• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/business/media/leon-jaroff-editor-at-time-and-discover-magazines-dies-at-85.html?_r=0
• http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news/cfi_mourns_the_death_of_paul_kurtz_its_founder/
• http://centerforinquiry.net/paul_kurtz_obituary
• http://healthland.time.com/2012/10/22/pms-is-a-myth-new-study/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20042128
• http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/10/raw-food-not-enough-to-feed-big-.html
• http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/10/google-trekker-backpack-maps-the-grand-canyon/
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121025122429.htm
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20026938
• http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/19/uk-science-petrol-idUSLNE89I02920121019
• http://www.realitatea.net/fenomenul-fumatului-in-romania-a-alertat-lumea-stiintifica_1037889.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:06 — 9.0MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for October 19^th, 2012

We begin this edition of the skeptical reporter with an announcement.

Merseyside Skeptics are giving the UK’s top psychics, including Sally Morgan, the opportunity to demonstrate they can talk to the dead. This is what Michael Marshall, vice president of the organization explained about the event: “If the mediums are right and the dead really can get in touch, it would have a profound effect on the way we understand our lives. Which is why it was so frustrating that Sally Morgan – the UK's most commercially successful psychic – refused to take part in a simple test of her abilities last year. Fortunately, not all psychics think there are better things to do than to validate their profession, which is why I'll be working once more with Professor Chris French and science writer Simon Singh to test the paranormal abilities of two professional psychics on Sunday, with the results to be announced on 31 October. This year we have widened our challenge to include the other top mediums currently touring the UK, formally inviting Colin Fry, Gordon Smith, T J Higgs and Derek Acorah. If any one of the top five touring psychics in the UK wishes to prove themselves once and for all, they'll be very welcome to participate in our test, which takes place at Goldsmiths, University of London”.

And now for some skeptical news

Some corporate disclosures are so delightful it's best to just let them speak for themselves. This week a Nevada-based company called Psychic Friends Network Inc. released a copy of its latest investor presentation as part of a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Psychic Friends Network, which used to advertise heavily using television infomercials starring singer Dionne Warwick, went bust in 1998 when its parent company at the time filed for bankruptcy. Now it's back. And it is promising to "leverage an iconic brand name using new technologies and social media to re-establish PFN as the industry leader for daily horoscopes and psychic advice". And the company is forecasting $64 million of net income for fiscal 2015. Then again, the first page of the presentation includes some important cautionary language. "Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements," it says, "because PFN can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct".

Brazilian police fearing a mass suicide that was going to take place this week, intervened to rescue the children of a doomsday cult who had barricaded themselves inside a house to await "the end of the world". Authorities believed that the members were ready to kill themselves by drinking soup laced with poison after the group's leader, the "prophet" Luis Pereira dos Santos, convinced his followers that the Apocalypse was coming. Last month Santos convinced his 113 followers to leave their jobs, give away all their possessions, and take their children out of school. On Thursday evening, 50 military policemen forced their way into the home and removed 19 babies and children after they received "credible" information that the group had planned to kill themselves by drinking poison. Police say that during the operation, a "significant quantity" of rat poison was found at the residence. The children will be placed in care homes. Children's judge Maria Luiza de Moura issue the protection order that allowed the police to remove the children, and said: "We believe that a mass suicide or murder may happen using a soup ingested by cult members. The adults are free to act of their free and spontaneous will, but we have to make sure that nothing happens to the children”.

In a highly unusual move, Academics Review, an association with global membership including academics, researchers, teachers and authors who commit to peer review for the purpose of establishing sound science, criticized popular television celebrity dr. Mehmet Oz for his show on genetically modified crops and foods. This is what the organization explained: "An October 2012 airing of the Dr. Oz television program includes the use of graphic images alleging associations between specific health risks and foods from crops produced using agricultural biotechnology.  We the undersigned academics, scientists, researchers, health and related professionals find these claims and corresponding graphic representations to be highly misleading and irresponsible. Dr. Mehmet Oz has repeatedly allowed Jeffrey Smith, an activist with no scientific or medical background or other relevant credentials, to appear on his program and make claims that GMOs are somehow associated with human health and safety risks. As Dr. Oz  and his producers have been repeatedly informed: The safety of biotech-derived foods has been thoroughly addressed by the international scientific community through decades of peer reviewed, published research. We urge Dr. Oz to make an immediate public statement disavowing these misleading health claims promoted by his show, and we urge his program promoters, sponsors and distributors to reevaluate their continued involvement with this or any programs which promote such baseless and irresponsible health claims".

Unknown gunmen have killed a polio vaccinator in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan, highlighting resistance to the country's immunization campaign, officials say. The shooting happened in the provincial capital Quetta a day after a three-day campaign kicked off across the country. Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is plagued by sectarian violence between the minority Shi'ite and majority Sunni community, as well as by Taliban attacks and a separatist insurgency. The Taliban have banned immunizations in some areas, condemning the campaign as a cover for espionage since a Pakistani doctor was jailed after helping the CIA track down al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden using a hepatitis vaccination program.

And now let’s look at some news in science.

Since public health officials began recommending in 2006 that young women be routinely vaccinated against HPV, many parents have hesitated over fears that doing so might give their children license to have sex. But research published in the journal Pediatrics may help ease those fears. Looking at a sample of nearly 1,400 girls, the researchers found no evidence that those who were vaccinated beginning around age 11 went on to engage in more sexual activity than girls who were not vaccinated. “We’re hopeful that once physicians see this, it will give them evidence that they can give to parents,” said Robert Bednarczyk, the lead author of the report. HPV, the most common sexually transmitted virus in the United States, can cause cancers of the cervix, anus and parts of the throat. Federal health officials began recommending in 2006 that girls be vaccinated as early as age 11 and last year made a similar recommendation for preadolescent boys. The idea is to immunize boys and girls before they become sexually active to maximize the vaccine’s protective effects. According to research, nearly a third of children 14 to 19 years old are infected with HPV.

After flying to an altitude of more than 39,000 meters in a helium-filled balloon, Felix Baumgartner completed a record breaking jump for the ages from the edge of space, exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane. Austria's Felix Baumgartner earned his place in the history books after overcoming concerns with the power for his visor heater that impaired his vision and nearly jeopardized the mission. Baumgartner reached an estimated speed of 1,342.8 km/h (Mach 1.24) jumping from the stratosphere, which when certified will make him the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall and set several other records while delivering valuable data for future space exploration. The 43-year-old Austrian skydiving expert also broke two other world records (highest freefall, highest manned balloon flight), leaving the one for the longest freefall to project mentor Col. Joe Kittinger. Baumgartner and his team spent five years training and preparing for the mission that is designed to improve our scientific understanding of how the body copes with the extreme conditions at the edge of space.

European astronomers have discovered a planet with about the mass of Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system, the nearest to Earth. It is also the lightest exoplanet ever discovered around a star like the Sun. The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the southern skies and is the nearest stellar system to our Solar System, only 4.3 light-years away. It is actually a triple star, a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component known as Proxima Centauri. Since the nineteenth century astronomers have speculated about planets orbiting these bodies, the closest possible abodes for life beyond the Solar System, but searches of increasing precision had revealed nothing. Until now. "Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days," says Xavier Dumusque, lead author of the paper on the discovery.

A European team of scientists has built the first atlas of white-matter micro-structure in the human brain. The project's final results have the potential to change the face of neuroscience and medicine over the coming decade. The work relied on groundbreaking MRI technology and was funded by the EU's future and emerging technologies program with a grant of 2.4 million Euros. The participants of the project, called CONNECT, were drawn from leading research centers in countries across Europe including Israel, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Denmark, Switzerland and Italy. The new atlas combines three-dimensional images from the MRI scans of 100 brains of volunteers. To achieve this, CONNECT developed advanced MRI methods providing unprecedented detail and accuracy. Currently, biomedical research teams around the world studying brain science rely on a brain atlas produced by painstaking and destructive histological methods on the brains of a few individuals who donated their bodies to science. The new atlas simulates the impossible process of painstakingly examining every square millimeter of brain tissue (of which there are around 100 million per brain) with a microscope, while leaving the brain intact. The key novelty in the atlas is the mapping of microscopic features (such as average cell size and packing density) within the white matter, which contains the neuronal fibers that transmit information around the living brain.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

A classification of institutions with research activities in the country revealed a startling situation: a lot of private universities came on lower positions than high-schools, environment agencies and factories. the list, put together by the scientists' association Ad Astra, looked at ISI Thompson scientific articles, that have an international importance and impact. In other words, high-school students learn from better trained teachers, that are more interested in quality research than some students in universities.

This was Miruna for the Skeptical Reporter. This show was recorded today, the 19th of October 2012. Thank you for listening.

Links:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/oct/16/psychics-prove-powers-scientific-test
• http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-19/the-psychic-friends-network-cannot-predict-its-future.html
• http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/19072
• http://academicsreview.org/2012/10/dr-oz-presents-highly-innacurate-information/
• http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/world/gunmen-kill-polio-vaccinator-in-pakistan/story-e6frfkui-1226497408141
• http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/hpv-vaccination-does-not-change-sexual-behavior/
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121014170655.htm
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121016184436.htm
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121019082132.htm
• http://newsbv.ro/2012/10/13/colegiul-national-grigore-moisil-in-topul-cercetarii-romanesti/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:53 — 8.9MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for October 12^th, 2012

Some Australian homeopaths claim they can treat anything from autism to deadly infections to violence, including domestic violence. Sydney clinic Homeopathy Plus, for example, promotes the use of homeopathy for potentially fatal anaphylactic shock and post-childbirth infections and director Fran Sheffield said homeopathy can treat “excesses of human behavior” including domestic violence. The Homeopathy Plus website links to an article that claims homeopathy is “a safe and effective way to treat the victims as well as the culprits of domestic violence” and contains a list of remedies for both victims and perpetrators. Asked whether she really believed homeopathy could treat domestic violence, Fran Sheffield explained that “uncontrollable rage and anger” were symptoms of an imbalance that homeopathy could fix. Australian Medical Association president Dr Steve Hambleton said homeopathy was not even “biologically plausible” and that it was dangerous to pretend it could work, and called for sanctions against “outrageous claims”. The NHMRC, Australia’s leading health expertise body, has formed a Homeopathy Working Committee to develop a position statement on homeopathy. A draft statement found it was unethical to use homeopathy because it doesn't work, and that it could be risky if using it caused someone to delay real, effective treatment.

Police are investigating a beauty clinic in Hong Kong after four women were hospitalized with septic shock after receiving a treatment experts say is usually only administered to cancer patients. Two women, aged 46 and 60, remain in a critical condition after being admitted soon after undergoing the procedure at the DR beauty clinic, according to a statement from the Hong Kong Department of Health. In a statement from the health department, which is investigating the matter, a spokesman said patients had received what's called a DC-CIK treatment, a procedure that involves, "concentration and processing of blood taken from the person, and subsequent infusion of the mixture back into the patient. According to the investigation, the treatment was provided by registered medical practitioner." Dr. Ho Pak-leung, President of the University of Hong Kong's Center for Infection declared that he had not heard of any scientific evidence that DC-CIK treatment was useful for cosmetic purposes. "I have serious doubts about the medical and scientific basis of the treatment," he said.

After eBay took a step in the right direction and banned the sale of magical objects and potions, the people selling such items found themselves in quite the unprofitable situation. So they promptly created their own auction website to make sure devoted clients of paranormal products could get their fix. This is what a statement by Carlos Portales, of the newly formed Magickals, said: "The 10th of September 2012, eBay ban directed at the Metaphysical Community has begun. The former eBay Metaphysical Community has been left in the dark to fend for themselves. Well no longer, a ray of light is being shown by a group of former eBay buyers, whom have banded together, to help out the industry they know, and love. They have come together, and created the new auction website, known as Magickals.com". The statement also explained that many sellers in the metaphysical community were devastated by the ban: "The most tragic situation this event has caused is, causing some former sellers to decide to outright retire. It has been a truly sad and abrupt, disbanding of a wonderful community that most of the mainstream public is unaware of".

In Great Britain the National Health Service has taken a look at the latest research in the use of Echinacea that made headlines. Newspapers reported that Echinacea could prevent colds after the results of the largest clinical study into the use of the herb were published. The NHS experts took a look at the study and found there were a number of problems with it. "What was not widely reported in the news was that the study also reported finding no significant difference between the groups when they looked at the number of colds each group caught. So, the difference seems to have been related to how long a cold lasted, rather than the frequency of cold. This randomized control trial was well designed and had a good sample size (755 participants), however, there are a number of oddities in the reporting of the study findings that cast a shadow of doubt over the results, such as: no declaration of funding and only partial disclosure of conflict of interests, no results table, limited reporting of unpleasant side effects, no estimates of error around the results reported, selective reporting of results and the applicability of the results to the general population. This news story should stand as a warning to journalists of the dangers of taking research at face value without bringing any critical faculties to bear".

And now lets look at some news in science

Orbiting a star that is visible to the naked eye, astronomers have discovered a planet twice the size of our own made largely out of diamond. The rocky planet, called '55 Cancri e', orbits a sun-like star in the constellation of Cancer and is moving so fast that a year there lasts a mere 18 hours. Discovered by a U.S.-France research team, its radius is twice that of Earth's with a mass eight times greater. That would give it the same density as Earth, although previously observed diamond planets are reckoned to be a lot more dense. It is also incredibly hot, with temperatures on its surface reaching 1,600 degrees Celsius. "The surface of this planet is likely covered in graphite and diamond rather than water and granite," said Nikku Madhusudhan, a Yale researcher. The study, in collaboration with Olivier Mousis at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in Toulouse, France, estimates that at least a third of the planet's mass, the equivalent of about three Earth masses, could be diamond. Diamond planets have been spotted before but this is the first time one has been seen orbiting a sun-like star and studied in such detail. "This is our first glimpse of a rocky world with a fundamentally different chemistry from Earth," Madhusudhan said, adding that the discovery of the carbon-rich planet meant distant rocky planets could no longer be assumed to have chemical constituents, interiors, atmospheres, or biologies similar to Earth.

Astronauts plucked a commercial cargo ship from orbit on Wednesday and attached it to the International Space Station, marking the reopening of a U.S. supply line to the orbital outpost following the space shuttles' retirement last year. After a two and a half day trip, Space Exploration Technologies' Dragon cargo ship positioned itself 33 feet away from the orbital research complex, a project of 15 countries, which has been dependent on Russian, European and Japanese freighters for supplies. Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide then used the space station's almost 18 meters long robotic arm to grab hold of the capsule. "Looks like we tamed the Dragon," commander Sunita Williams radioed to Mission Control in Houston. The Dragon's cargo includes a freezer to ferry science samples back and forth between the station and Earth. For the flight up, it was packed with chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream, a rare treat for an orbiting crew. The capsule is expected to remain docked to the station for about 18 days while the crew unloads its 400 kilograms of cargo and fills it with science experiments and equipment no longer needed on the outpost.

The unexpected survival of embryonic neurons transplanted into the brains of newborn mice in a series of experiments at the University of California, San Francisco raises hope for the possibility of using neuronal transplantation to treat diseases like Alzheimer's, epilepsy, Huntington's, Parkinson's and schizophrenia. The experiments, described this week in the journal Nature, were not designed to test whether embryonic neuron transplants could effectively treat any specific disease. But they provide a proof-of-principle that GABA-secreting interneurons, a type of brain cell linked to many different neurological disorders, can be added in significant numbers into the brain and can survive without affecting the population of endogenous interneurons. The survival of these cells after transplantation in numbers far greater than expected came as a shock to the team. The prevailing theory held that the survival of developing neurons is something like a game of musical chairs. The brain has limited capacity for these cells, forcing them to compete with each other for the few available slots. Only those that find a place to "sit" will survive when the music stops. The rest die a withering death. But what the research team found was very different: regardless of how many neurons they transplanted, a consistent percentage always survived.

Studying fruit flies has revealed strong evidence in favor of natural selection. Known as Drosophila Melanogaster, fruit flies left Africa tens of thousands of years ago, when humans migrated. Now the fruit flies, widely used for genetics research, are returning to Africa and establishing new populations alongside flies that never left, offering new insights into the forces that shape genetic variation. That's one of the findings from two new papers of researchers at the University of California, Davis, and their colleagues that describe the genomes of almost 200 strains of the tiny flies. The work reveals strong evidence of pervasive natural selection throughout the Drosophila Melanogaster genome, said Charles Langley, professor of genetics in the Department of Evolution and Ecology. That is in striking contrast with what is known of the human genome, which shows comparatively little evidence of adaptation over the last 100,000 years. The overall aim of the research is to better understand the forces that shape genetic variation, Langley said.

And in local news from Romania we learn that

A local skeptical blogger has come under fire after writing articles that prove a colon cleaning product, known as ColonHelp, does not work. After being threatened with lawsuits and warned to take down any articles in which the name of the product appears, the blogger was notified that the company that produces ColonHelp, Zenith Pharmaceuticals, has sued WordPress. The company is trying to remove all criticism related to its product, but provides no evidence that its product is effective. Their defense rests in "it's a really popular product". This is what the blogger at Insula Îndoielii had to say about the issue: "Right now I simply want it to be known that a company is trying to shut down a well-regarded blog for simply stating facts. Or let’s put it another way, fact-based opinions. Screw people having the right to express their opinions! They are claiming that I have affected their sales and brand image even though hundreds of thousands of people have used their products due to massive advertising campaigns. They have made 7 Million $ revenue in one year (as per documents submitted to the court). I want people to know that colon cleanses are a baseless, fact-less, silly product that is marginally helpful in limited cases and potentially dangerous if instructions are not followed".

Links:

• http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/claims-that-homeopathy-treats-domestic-violence-must-be-stopped-experts-say/story-fneuzlbd-1226491738872
• http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/08/world/asia/hong-kong-cancer-beauty-treatment/index.html
• http://news.yahoo.com/brand-mega-metaphysical-paranormal-auction-website-magickals-com-073655817.html
• http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/10October/Pages/Herbal-remedy-echinacea-does-protect-against-colds.aspx
• http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre89a0pu-us-space-diamond-planet/
• http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/bre8990tk-us-usa-space-spacex/
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121012102117.htm
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121012102605.htm
• http://insulaindoielii.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/colon-help-sues-wordpress/

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:29 — 7.7MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for October 5th, 2012

California has become the first state in the nation to ban therapy that tries to turn gay teens straight. Governor Jerry Brown announced that he has signed a Senate Bill, which prohibits children under age 18 from undergoing “sexual orientation change efforts”.  The law, which goes into effect on the 1st of January, prohibits state-licensed therapists from engaging in these practices with minors. "Governor Brown today reaffirmed what medical and mental health organizations have made clear: efforts to change minors' sexual orientation are not therapy, they are the relics of prejudice and abuse that have inflicted untold harm on young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Californians", Clarissa Filgioun, board president of Equality California, said in a press release. The bill was sponsored by Senator Ted Lieu who said bogus and unethical practices by mental-health providers to try to change a young person’s sexual orientation have resulted in irreparable psychological and emotional harm to patients.

Dozens of weight loss and immune system supplements on the market are illegally labeled and lack the recommended scientific evidence to back up their purported health claims, government investigators warn in a new review of the $20 billion supplement industry. The report, released by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, found that 20 percent of the 127 weight loss and immune-boosting supplements investigators purchased online and in retail stores across the country carried labels that made illegal claims to cure or treat disease. Some products went so far as to state that the supplements could cure or prevent diabetes or cancer, or that they could help people with HIV or AIDS, which is strictly prohibited under federal law. Consumers may not just be wasting their money on pills or tablets, but they could be endangering their health if they take a supplement in place of a drug thinking it will have the same effect, the report concluded. Federal regulations do not require the Food & Drug Administration to review supplement companies' scientific evidence for most of their products' purported health benefits before they hit the market. The Office of Inspector General found that in numerous cases, when companies did submit evidence to back up their health claims, it fell far short of government recommendations. One company submitted a 30-year-old handwritten college term paper to substantiate its claim, while others included news releases, advertisements and links to Wikipedia or an online dictionary, according to the report.

A chiropractor forged the signature of an Edmonton woman on a patient consent form, after she suffered a massive stroke that her family blamed on a neck adjustment. In early September 2007, Sandra Nette was left in so-called “locked in syndrome,” meaning she was so severely disabled that she was unable to walk and barely able to speak or swallow. Tests appeared to show tears in the arteries at the back of her neck. Nette and her husband, David, explained that she suffered the injuries after a neck adjustment by chiropractor Gregory John Stiles, from whom she had received treatment for years. The couple said Nette was not properly warned of the risks of the neck adjustment, and filed a $5 million lawsuit. And another man has revealed his health struggles after visiting a chiropractor. Richard Rossert of Nashotah suffered a vertebral artery dissection, or the tearing of an artery that supplies blood to the brain, that caused a stroke. This happened after the man returned from a visit to his chiropractor. “It happens a lot more than you realize,” said Attorney Karl Gebhard, who has worked on three of these types of cases so far.

Famous skeptic, science writer and libel reform campaigner Simon Singh has been threatened with legal action for criticizing a health magazine. Earlier this week, Singh took to the social media network Twitter to denounce a magazine called What Doctors Don't Tell You. Described by its editor, Lynne McTaggart, as being aimed at "intelligent women between 35-55" the magazine claims to provide information about what works and what does not work in both conventional and alternative medicines. Coverlines on the current issue include "sunbathe your diabetes away" and "how I avoided my hysterectomy through diet". Writing on Facebook, McTaggart called on the magazine's supporters to fight the actions of "bully boys" who wanted to push it off newsagents' shelves. Singh confirmed that he had contacted Comag, the distributors of WDDTY, to say that in his opinion the magazine was largely unscientific and was promoting advice that could potentially harm readers. "Also, many of the adverts appear to make pseudoscientific and unsubstantiated claims," he said. "I even offered to meet with Comag and introduce them to medical experts, but they have not accepted this invitation".

And now let’s look at some news in science.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover checked in on Mars using the mobile application Foursquare. This marks the first check-in on another planet. Users on Foursquare can keep up with Curiosity as the rover checks in at key locations and posts photos and tips, all while exploring the Red Planet. "NASA is using Foursquare as a tool to share the rover's new locations while exploring Mars," said David Weaver, associate administrator for communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "This will help to involve the public with the mission and give them a sense of the rover's travels through Gale Crater." Back here on Earth, Foursquare users will be able to earn a Curiosity-themed badge on the social media platform for check-ins at locations that generate an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This partnership, launched with astronaut Doug Wheelock's first-ever check-in from the International Space Station, has allowed users to connect with NASA and enabled them to explore the universe and re-discover Earth.

In the first study of its kind, researchers have found that numbers of women in the science, technology and innovation fields are alarmingly low in the world's leading economies, and are actually on the decline in others, including the United States. The study maps the opportunities and obstacles faced by women in science across the US, EU, Brazil, South Africa, India, Korea and Indonesia. It was conducted by experts in international gender, science and technology issues from Women in Global Science & Technology and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. Despite efforts by many of these countries to give women greater access to science and technology education, research shows negative results, particularly in the areas of engineering, physics and computer science. Women remain severely under-represented in degree programs for these fields-less than 30% in most countries. In addition, the numbers of women actually working in these fields are declining across the board. Even in countries where the numbers of women studying science and technology have increased, it has not translated into more women in the workplace.

You may never have to worry about losing all the money in your account. A team of physicists is developing a scheme for noise tolerant and yet safely encrypted quantum tokens. Giving away the numbers of your card, your bank account and so on always holds the risk that the information may be duplicated and you will wake up penniless. Nature provides ways to prevent forging: it is, for example, impossible to clone quantum information which is stored on a qubit. But although safe, devices that use quantum information are generally quite challenged by noise, decoherence and operational imperfections. Therefore it is necessary to lower the requirements on the authentication process. A team of physicists at Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics, Harvard University, and California Institute of Technology has demonstrated that such protocols can be made tolerant to noise while ensuring rigorous security at the same time.

At a time when the value of gold has reached an all-time high, Michigan State University researchers have discovered a bacterium’s ability to withstand incredible amounts of toxicity in order to create 24-karat gold. “Microbial alchemy is what we’re doing – transforming gold from something that has no value into a solid, precious metal that’s valuable,” said Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. He and Adam Brown, associate professor of electronic art and inter-media, found the metal-tolerant bacteria Cupriavidus metallidurans can grow on massive concentrations of gold chloride – or liquid gold, a toxic chemical compound found in nature. In fact, the bacteria are at least 25 times stronger than previously reported among scientists, the researchers determined in their art installation, “The Great Work of the Metal Lover,” which uses a combination of biotechnology, art and alchemy to turn liquid gold into 24-karat gold. The artwork contains a portable laboratory made of 24-karat gold-plated hardware, a glass bio-reactor and the bacteria, a combination that produces gold in front of an audience.

And, now, in local news from Romania, we learn that

Due to abnormally high temperatures this month, apple trees in Sibiu district have blossomed. According to local people this phenomena is extremely rare, some stating that they have never seen such an odd thing in their entire lives. Expert horticulturist Ioan Anghel explains: "It's a rare event. There are some years when the autumn is long and because of high temperatures, apple trees blossom. Luckily this poses no problem and will not affect next year's harvest". The district of Sibiu has seen temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius in the past few weeks, 10 degrees higher than the season's average.

Links:

• http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/30/14159337-california-becomes-first-state-in-nation-to-ban-gay-cure-therapy-for-children?lite
• http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/supplement-makers-illegally-label-products-report-article-1.1174349
• http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/chiropractor-forged-consent-form-after-patient-s-stroke-1.982655
• http://www.cbs58.com/news/local-news/Local-man-suffers-stroke-after-visit-to--172314241.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/oct/03/health-magazine-sue-simon-singh-twitter
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121004121724.htm
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121003082719.htm
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121004093040.htm
• http://news.msu.edu/story/superman-strength-bacteria-produces-gold/
• http://www.agerpres.ro/media/index.php/life/item/150418-EXCLUSIV-Sibiu-Fenomen-foarte-rar-meri-infloriti-in-octombrie.html