Author: eddy

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Skeptical Reporter for September 21st, 2012

When hormone replacement therapy was found to cause an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease, many went in search of safer treatments to decrease their symptoms. In the ensuing decade black cohosh has won out as an overwhelming consumer favorite, now reaping millions of dollars in sales each year. But controlled trials of this supplement have seen mixed results, some case reports even suggesting that it can be toxic, damaging the liver. Damon Little, a bioinformaticist at The New York Botanical Garden and his colleagues an idea: to use DNA bar-coding to see if patients were actually taking pure black cohosh or some other related species. They were able to determine that one quarter of commercially available "black cohosh" pills were not the herb at all. Unlike drugs supplements are not required to be tested for safety or efficacy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before they hit the market. And testing to make sure the contents match the label are much more lax than it is for pharmaceuticals, opening the opportunity for mislabeling, whether it is accidental or intentional.

Childhood vaccines do not cause autism. Barack Obama was born in the United States. Global warming is confirmed by science. And yet, many people believe claims to the contrary. Psychological scientist Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia and colleagues highlight the cognitive factors that make certain pieces of misinformation so "sticky" and identify some techniques that may be effective in debunking or counteracting erroneous beliefs. The main reason that misinformation is sticky, according to the researchers, is that rejecting information actually requires cognitive effort. Weighing the plausibility and the source of a message is cognitively more difficult than simply accepting that the message is true. If the topic isn't very important to you or you have other things on your mind, misinformation is more likely to take hold. Even worse, efforts to retract misinformation often backfire, paradoxically amplifying the effect of the erroneous belief. In their report, Lewandowsky and colleagues offer some strategies for setting the record straight. Provide people with a narrative that replaces the gap left by false information. Focus on the facts you want to highlight, rather than the myths. Make sure that the information you want people to take away is simple and brief. Consider your audience and the beliefs they are likely to hold. Strengthen your message through repetition.

If you are not one to go for end of the world prophecies, but do like the idea of the Mayan calendar giving us hints for the future, then you can take part in a concert/party/sound healing event in Great Britain, in December. This is what the organizers of the party explain about the event: "December 2012 is being looked upon as the time of a significant spiritual shift in the collective consciousness of the planet into this new Golden Age. That’s why 12,000 people will be assembling in Wembley Arena on 12.12.12 to experience The Big Om mass sound healing event – an event with the power at a quantum level to shift the vibration of the planet – which will be live-streamed around the world. The Big Om is a five hour shamanic journey lead by metaphysical guru and sound healer Barefoot Doctor, starring Basement Jaxx plus introducing some of today’s leading electronic dance music acts/DJ’s plus a variety of gurus talking over the beats".

Apparently feng shui isn't really good for anything, not even for justifying hateful behavior. The owner of a small chain of Asian restaurants — two in Greenwich Village, of all places — canceled a same-sex wedding party after saying gay and feng shui don’t go together, a lawsuit charges. Newlyweds Barrett Greene and Thomas Eng say the owner violated their civil rights. The owner of Amber West Village is being sued by Barrett Greene and Thomas Eng after their planned wedding reception and rehearsal dinner was canceled. Despite the early hitch, their love story had a happy ending. The couple, who registered at Tiffany’s, got married in a rooftop ceremony at the Midtown Loft and Terrace on 29th St. on June 9. Their wedding website doesn’t say anything about that venue’s feng shui, though it does note that the teak lattice flooring might “pose some difficulty for women in very slender heels".

And now let's look at some news in science

Newly formed emotional memories can be erased from the human brain. This is shown by researchers from Uppsala University in a new study. The findings may represent a breakthrough in research on memory and fear. Thomas Ågren, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Psychology has shown, that it is possible to erase newly formed emotional memories from the human brain. When a person learns something, a lasting long-term memory is created with the aid of a process of consolidation, which is based on the formation of proteins. When we remember something, the memory becomes unstable for a while and is then re-stabilized by another consolidation process. By disrupting the re-consolidation process that follows upon remembering, we can affect the content of memory. "These findings may be a breakthrough in research on memory and fear. Ultimately the new findings may lead to improved treatment methods for the millions of people in the world who suffer from anxiety issues like phobias, post-traumatic stress, and panic attacks," says Thomas Ågren.

Researchers have developed a new "video" game for blind people that can help them learn about a new space using only audio cues. The system, developed by a team led by Lotfi Merabet of Harvard Medical School and Jaime Sánchez of the University of Chile, is called the Audiobased Environment Simulator and uses only audio-based cues to allow blind users to learn about the layout of a previously unfamiliar building. After playing the game, participants were better able to navigate a real-world version of the space explored in the virtual reality environment, confirming that the spatial information learned in the game was accurate and transferable. "Learning through such interactive games represents an innovative and motivating way to improve crucial skills that allow blind individuals to remain functionally independent," says Merabet.

With the combined power of NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes as well as a cosmic magnification effect, a team of astronomers led by Wei Zheng of The Johns Hopkins University has spotted what could be the most distant galaxy ever detected. Light from the young galaxy captured by the orbiting observatories shone forth when the 13.7-billion-year-old universe was just 500 million years old. The far-off galaxy existed within an important era when the universe began to transit from the so-called "Dark Ages." During this period, the universe went from a dark, starless expanse to a recognizable cosmos full of galaxies. The discovery of the faint, small galaxy opens up a window into the deepest, remotest times of cosmic history.

More than 2 million consumers got to gloat about their shrewdness in procuring an iPhone 5, with its larger screen and 200 additional features through its new operating system. But once the novelty wears off, will they still enjoy their purchase? It depends on why they bought it, says new research from a marketing professor at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. Across five studies and four product domains, Joseph Goodman, assistant professor of marketing, found that consumers fail to estimate their feature usage rate before purchasing multifunctional products, which negatively affects product satisfaction. "When they do actually elaborate on usage, then they tend to buy lowered featured products, and they tend to be more satisfied with their purchase, regardless of whether they buy a high or low feature product", Goodman says.

And now, in local news from Romania we learn that

 Romania will finally get its Magurele project of building a laser and the laboratories for the "Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics ELI-NP". Financing has been approved by the European Union for the large project that will involve 40 academic institutions from 13 member states of the EU. The project will give a boost to Romanian research and will help with numerous studies in the fields of nuclear physics, astrophysics, materials science and many others. Currently Romania puts away only 0.5% of its Gross Internal Product for research and development.

Links:

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=black-cohosh-dna-barcode
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120919191212.htm
• http://thebigom.org/about-the-big-om/
• http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-09-17/news/33907103_1_feng-shui-rehearsal-dinner-gay-managers
• http://scienceblog.com/56740/fear-can-be-erased-from-the-brain/
• http://phys.org/news/2012-09-people-accurate-mental-video-game.html
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120919135419.htm
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120921123952.htm
• http://www.realitatea.net/laserul-de-la-magurele-comisia-europeana-a-aprobat-finantarea-megaproiectului-romanesc_1011023.html?utm_source=Cub-it_stiinta&utm_medium=Clicks&utm_campaign=trkweb

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:03 — 7.4MB)

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Skeptical Reporter for September 14th, 2012

TruthMarket, a division of Truth Seal Corporation, announced it plans to play an aggressive role in improving the state of political and commercial communications by launching its Marketplace for Truth Telling. TruthMarket offers the public a platform that enables grass-roots crowd-funding of citizen campaigns to publicly expose false claims and reinforce true claims. Cash incentives will encourage individuals to initiate, challenge or prove political, commercial and science claims. Rick Hayes-Roth, Ph.D., the founder of TruthMarket, states that "false claims, half-truths and biased polls are polluting public dialogue, tainting public opinion and undermining politics, commerce and public trust. Instead of getting angry, he adds, it is time to do something constructive and give the public a mechanism to openly challenge false claims and reinforce honest dialogue.

Add Bigfoot research to the recession-proof industries. A website called All over Albany has alerted the Internet to a job opening on Craigslist that "for a primate-lover with an open mind and a (preferably) four-wheel-drive vehicle" could be the opportunity of a lifetime. The Craigslist post, which seeks a research assistant, explains: "Not for profit organization, located in Whitehall, NY is a high-energy, team-oriented research entity that is involved in the tracking, documenting, and study of cryptozoological creatures, with a deep interest in the study and search of bipedal primitive apes. We seek an experienced researcher with a deep understanding of cryptozoology, primatology, with a good background with scientific research and interest in great apes." Some of the research assistant's responsibilities will be to "investigate, document and interview individuals with reported Bigfoot sitings," and an appropriate candidate must be prepared for "occasional travel to remote areas."

The first ever study of the adverse effects of acupuncture in state-funded acupuncture clinics in the UK has found that the procedure is largely safe, but not as safe as advertised. In extreme cases, it could even put lives at risk. Despite this, claims that acupuncture is completely safe could soon lead to the procedure being funded by Medicare, the US government-funded medical benefits programme. Acupuncture is already government-funded in much of Europe. Investigators from the National Patient Safety Agency assembled all reports of adverse events following acupuncture treatment in NHS clinics between 2009 and 2011. In these clinics, acupuncture is provided by conventionally qualified doctors and therapists, who are also trained to perform acupuncture. The investigators found 325 reports of adverse effects. Some of the reports were merely of sloppy practice. In 100 cases, patients were left with needles still in them, sometimes hours longer than intended or even after they or the staff went home. Some needles subsequently had to be surgically removed.

Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline will open a new research unit in China to look at traditional Chinese medicine. According to the company, Innovative TCM will be one of GSK's R&D programs in China, aiming to transform TCM from an experience-based practice to evidence-based medicines through innovation and differentiation. Zang Jingwu, senior vice president and head of R&D China, explained that the newly formed unit is working with academic TCM experts in China to develop new TCM products for the benefits of patients in China and the rest of the world. The strategy is to integrate the existing TCM knowledge of diseases with modern drug discovery technology and clinical trial methodology. "We are developing novel therapeutic TCM mixtures as prescription medicines through innovative extraction methods and combinations, and we use clinical data/evidence to differentiate from existing TCM products on the market," he said.

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

A Japanese mathematician claims to have the proof for the ABC conjecture, a statement about the relationship between prime numbers that has been called the most important unsolved problem in number theory. If Shinichi Mochizuki's 500-page proof stands up to scrutiny, mathematicians say it will represent one of the most astounding achievements of mathematics of the twenty-first century. The proof will also have ramifications all over mathematics, and even in the real-world field of data encryption. The ABC conjecture, proposed independently by the mathematicians David Masser and Joseph Oesterle in 1985 but not proven by them, involves the concept of square-free numbers, or numbers that cannot be divided by the square of any number. The conjecture has also been described as a sort of grand unified theory of whole numbers, in that the proofs of many other important theorems follow immediately from it. "If the ABC conjecture yields, mathematicians will find themselves staring into a cornucopia of solutions to long-standing problems," the mathematician Dorian Goldfeld of Columbia University explained.

Social isolation in youth may wreak havoc on the brain by disrupting a protein crucial to the development of the nervous system's support cells, new research finds. A new study in mice finds that when the animals are isolated during a crucial early period, brain cells called oligodendrocytes fail to mature properly. Oligodendrocytes build the fatty, insulating sheathes that cushion neurons, and their dysfunction seems to cause long-lasting behavioral changes. Research in rhesus monkeys and humans has shown that social isolation during childhood has an array of nasty and lifelong effects, from cognitive and social problems in neglected children to working memory troubles in isolated monkeys. These children and monkeys also show abnormalities in the white matter of the brain, which includes support cells such as oligodendrocytes as well as the fat-covered neural projections that act as the brain's communication system.

The giant rocket NASA is building to carry astronauts to Mars and other destinations in deep space may cost $500 million per launch when it's flying regularly, space agency officials have declared. NASA is eyeing $500 million as a target right now for the Space Launch System (SLS) when it begins making roughly one flight per year, which could begin happening after 2023. But things could change as the SLS program ” which was just announced in September 2011” matures, officials said. "We still are working on our contracts and where we're going. Plus we're in the development phase, and you really have to have a little bit more of a steady-state flight launch to be able to get the more efficient launch rate. But that's the number we're using right now" SLS deputy project manager Jody Singer, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said during a presentation at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SPACE 2012 conference in Pasadena, Calif. NASA unveiled the SLS just two months after the last flight of its venerable space shuttle program, which was grounded in July 2011 after 30 years of orbital service.

Dark energy, the mysterious substance thought to be accelerating the expansion of the universe, almost certainly exists despite some astronomers' doubts, a new study says. After a two-year study, an international team of researchers concluded that the probability of dark energy being real stands at 99.996 percent. But the scientists still don't know what the stuff is. "Dark energy is one of the great scientific mysteries of our time, so it isn't surprising that so many researchers question its existence. But with our new work we're more confident than ever that this exotic component of the universe is real even if we still have no idea what it consists of" co-author Bob Nichol, of the University of Portsmouth in Engalnd, said in a statement. Scientists have known since the 1920s that the universe is expanding. Most assumed that gravity would slow this expansion gradually, or even cause the universe to begin contracting one day. But in 1998, two separate teams of researchers discovered that the universe's expansion is actually speeding up. In the wake of this shocking find which earned three of the discoverers the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 researchers proposed the existence of dark energy, an enigmatic force pushing the cosmos apart. Dark energy is thought to make up 73 percent of the universe, though no one can say exactly what it is.

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

Romanian students could soon be learning using e-books. Minister of Education Ecaterina Andronescu has declared that ebooks represent a necessity for the countries education and could help make learning more fun for students. "We have introduced this system of learning in graduate education and it has been received very well by students and I think the same ebook would be appreciated by pupils as well. If we introduce e books, students wouldn't have to carry as much to school, a problem that has been long raised by parents, the press and teachers. Also, I believe the younger generation is much more attracted to new things. An e-book would represent new technology that would be interesting to the young students", the minister has explained.

Links:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/9/prweb9883997.htm
http://www.livescience.com/23132-bigfoot-job-posting.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22247-acupuncture-treatment-is-not-as-safe-as-advertised.html
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-09/07/content_15743913.htm
http://www.livescience.com/23075-mathematician-claims-proof-of-connection-between-prime-numbers.html
http://www.livescience.com/23169-social-isolation-changes-brain.html
http://www.space.com/17556-giant-nasa-rocket-space-launch-cost.html
http://www.livescience.com/23125-dark-energy-real-universe-expansion.html
http://www.realitatea.net/ministrul-educatiei-manualele-inlocuite-cu-ebook-uri-elevii-ar-scapa-de-greutatea-ghiozdanului_1006193.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:59 — 6.4MB)

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Organic produce and meat typically is no better for you than conventional food when it comes to vitamin and nutrient content, although it does generally reduce exposure to pesticides and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to a US study. Crystal Smith-Spangler, who led a team of researchers from Stanford University and Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care, reviewed more than 200 studies that compared either the health of people who ate organic or conventional foods or, more commonly, nutrient and contaminant levels in the foods themselves. The foods included organic and non-organic fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, poultry eggs and milk. Smith-Spangler and her colleagues found there was no difference in the amount of vitamins in plant or animal products produced or ganically and conventionally – and the only nutrient difference was slightly more phosphorous in the organic products. Smith-Spangler said it was uncommon for either organic or conventional foods to exceed the allowable limits for pesticides, so it was not clear whether a difference in residues would have an effect on health.

A study suggesting climate change deniers also tend to hold general beliefs in conspiracy theories has sparked accusations of a conspiracy on climate change-denial blogs. The research, which will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science, surveyed more than 1,000 readers of science blogs regarding their beliefs on global warming. The results revealed that people who tend to believe in a wide array of conspiracy theories are more likely to reject the scientific consensus that the Earth is heating up. University of Western Australia psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky based the findings on responses from an online su rvey posted on eight science blogs. According to the paper, Lewandowsky approached five climate-skeptic blogs and asked them to post the survey link, but none did. Now, climate-skeptic bloggers are striking back with a new conspiracy theory: that the researchers deliberately failed to contact "real skeptics" for the study and then lied about it.

The inventor of the World Wide Web has denied there is an "off-switch" which could turn off the internet across the globe. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who launched the web on Christmas Day 1990, said the only way the internet could ever be entirely shut down is if governments all over the world co-ordinated to make it a centralized system. It comes after moves by the Egyptian government last year to suppress use of the web led to speculation that the Hosni Mubarak regime had found a kill switch for the internet. "The way the internet is designed is very much as a decentralized system. At the moment, because countries connect to e ach other in lots of different ways, there is no one off-switch, there is no central place where you can turn it off” Berners Lee explained.

The fortunes of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) are about to be transformed with the help of the magical waters of homeopathic medicine. UK's new health minister, Jeremy Hunt – who replaced Andrew Lansley in a government reshuffle – thinks that homeopathy works, and should be provided at public expense by the NHS. Since news of his appointment emerged, senior scientists have spoken up. John Krebs, professor of zoology at the University of Oxford, said: "There is overwhelming evidence that homeopathic medicine is not effective. It would be a real blow for those who want medicine to be science-based if the secretary of state were to promote homeopathy because of his personal beliefs." Edzard Ernst, former director of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, UK, added: "To praise the positive contribution of homeopathy to the NHS does not bode well for the new person in charge of UK healthcare. One can only hope that with the reality of the new job, there will be a more rational insight in the actual evidence on this topic."

And now let’s look at some news in science
It took hard work, determination and a lot of ingenuity for a pair of spacewalking astronauts to fix a key power system aboard the International Space Station. NASA space flyer Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide spent nearly 6 1/2 hours outside, in the vacuum of space to properly install a pair of bolts that had caused problems for the pair during a previous spacewalk last week. In addition to their regular spacewalking gear, Williams and Hoshide were armed with some makeshift tools — including an improvised wire cleaner and a toothbrush — to help them get the job done. On Aug. 30, Williams and Hoshide completed a marathon spacewalk that lasted more than 8 hours, but the astronauts were thwarted by a stubborn bolt and were unable to finish connecting the so-called main bus switching unit. The stuck bolt forced NASA to add an extra spacewalk, but they managed to get the job done.

Scientists will have just 24 hours to conduct an experiment 16 years in the making if all goes well in Antarctica. In October, a team of U.K. scientists will complete the journey to find life in one of the least likely places: a lake buried beneath nearly 3 kilometers of ice on the frozen continent. The team is expected to start drilling into the ice atop Lake Ellsworth by December. A separate expedition will start in October as U.S. scientists look for life under another system of lakes and rivers underneath the ice in western Antarctica. The two forthcoming ventures will join a third, the Russian Antarctic Expedition that in February successfully drilled into Lake Vostok, Antarctica's largest sub glacial lake, larger than Connecticut, under nearly 4 km of ice. "It's a basic curiosity-driven question," said Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Bristol and principal investigator on the U.K. effort. “Wherever we find water on planet Earth, we always find life and there might be a relationship between life and water.” If the group does not identify life, Siegert said the experiment would provide a major finding for the scientific community.

Physicists have "teleported" quantum information farther than ever in a new study. This kind of teleportation isn't quite what Scotty was "beaming up" on television's Star Trek, but it does represent teleporting information from one place to another. A team of scientists from Austria, Canada and Germany have now beamed the quantum state of a particle of light from one island to another 143 kilometers away. "One can actually transfer the quantum states of a particle — in our case a photon — from one location to another location without physically transferrin g this photon itself," explained physicist Xiaosong Ma of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. This achievement beat the previous quantum teleportation distance record of 97 km, set by a Chinese research group just months ago. It represents a significant step toward establishing a "quantum internet" that could allow messages to be sent more securely, and calculations to be completed more quickly, scientists say.

China has fully embraced the American dream by snapping up new cars as a sign of middle class prosperity, but only at the growing cost of traffic jams and polluted cities. A Chinese municipality has finally taken the bold step to restrain the worst excesses of automobiles by restricting ownership of new cars through auctions and lottery systems. The move seems as astonishing "as if Detroit or Los Angeles restricted car ownership," according to Keith Bradsher of the New York Times. Automaker s have Beijing's support in opposing additional car ownership restrictions for fear of hurting China's economic growth. But this could represent a sign of change in Chinese priorities and values."

And now, in local news from Romania we learn that
The National Ethics Council has decided that former minister of Education Ioan Mang has plagiarized the work of other researchers, from several scientific papers. The decision has yet to be announced officially as the Council is still waiting for the Ministry of Education’s Judicial Department notification on the matter. The issue was finally settled after Mang was forced to resign as minister of Education following accusations that he was guilty of plagiarism.

This show was recorded today, the 7th of september 2012.

Links to the original articles:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/04/organic-foods- no-better-nutrient
http://www.livescience.com/23027-link-between-climate-denial-and-conspiracy-beliefs-sparks-conspiracy-theories.html
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/inventor-denies-off-switch-124607511.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22241-hail-jeremy-hunt-the-new-minister-for-magic.html
http://www.livescience.com/22979-spacewalk-space-station-fix-toothbrush.html
http://www.livescience.com/23002-search-for-life-antarctica-lake-ellsworth.html
http://www.livescience.com/22955-quantum-teleportation-distance-record.html
http://www.livescience.com/22931-city-brakes-car-ownership.html
http://www.realitatea.net/consiliul-national-de-etica-ioan-mang-a-plagiat_1002557.html

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:11 — 6.5MB)

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Skpetical Reporter for August 31st, 2012

Keywords: skeprep, skeptical reporter, science, skepticism, news, skeptics in Romania, podcast, creationism, Kentuky, Creation Science Hall of Fame, Creation Museum, Ark Encounter, scientists, world, Texas, fossils, churches, school, health, Ayurvedic medicine, pregnant women, India, lead poisoning, heavy metals, minerals, medicine, CDC, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, United States, ESP, China, children, reading, course, Your Baby Can Read, reader, company, false advertising, informercials, videos, scientific studies, defendants, program, Neil Armstrong, death, heart surgery, Moon, astronaut, giant leap, hero, giant leap, Apollo 11 spacecraft, lunar surface, bionic eye, prototype, 24 electrodes, Dianne Ashworth, retinitis pigmentosa, vision, implant, song, Mars, Curiosity, Reach for the Stars, will.i.am, Gale Crater, Pasadena, educational event, flying drone, quarotor, robot, EEG headset, brain signals, chinese researchers, diabled people, soldiers, battlefields, plagiarism, Student ARC, Clean Romania, universities