The Controversial Placebo Effect of Antidepressants
The article linked below captures many facets of the complicated beast known as psychiatry under the influence of corporate pressure from Big Pharma. In particular what struck me were the descriptions of how colleagues of Irving Kirsch, whose research exposes that antidepressants on the whole are no more effective than placebo, have been ostracized and [...]
Correlation n’ Causation
Can a Brussels Sprout save your life? I want to believe it’s true, but my inner skeptic says this is another superficial Yahoo science headline by someone too busy to read or think… Veggies Improve Breast Cancer Survival–Study Chinese women who ate cabbage, broccoli and leafy greens saw improved survival rates after breast cancer than [...]
Sugar: The Bitter Truth: “It’s Alcohol without the Buzz”
via Sugar: The Bitter Truth – YouTube. Just watched this. It’s long and quite technical in terms of biochemistry, but it makes the case strongly that fructose is a chronic toxin, as in soda is basically “alcohol without the buzz.”
The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction – NYTimes.com
Why (some of us) love fiction and feel like it is more powerful than real life at times. The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction – NYTimes.com.
Tornadoes make the earth move
Reblogged from Watts Up With That?: From Indiana University Scientists detect seismic signals from tornado Image courtesy of Earthscope, a National Science Foundation programEarthScope Program scientists are deploying thousands of seismic, GPS, and other geophysical instruments to study the structure and evolution of the North American continent and the processes that cause earthquakes and volcanic [...]
Transit of Venus
Friend Mary told me about a rare astronomical event called the Transit of Venus. This will happen June 5, 2012 when the planet Venus can be seen transiting the face of the sun. Viewed with protective lenses, of course. This chart from NASA gives the transit time for Providence. The next one is not until [...]
The New Frontier
It’s hard to believe fifty years have passed… COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – Astronaut John Glenn, marking the 50th anniversary on Monday of his historic flight as the first American to orbit the Earth, remembered it as the best day of his life. Glenn, 90, told an audience in Columbus, Ohio that the flight was the [...]
Blessed Solstice
Winter solstice takes place on Thursday, Dec. 22 at 12:30 a.m. EST. This lovely image is your tax dollars at work, from NASA.gov. The cool astronomical diagram is from the BBC. If you are even a little bit nerdy you will enjoy the explanation of how the seasons are measured. I never knew that winter [...]
New App Measures News Bias
I wonder how Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network news would rate on this? A new app takes the labor out of counting word use on network news. From Reuters, today… Ever wanted to know how biased Fox News and CNN really are? A new OS X app called News Mapper helps you to find out [...]
You Go, Girl!
A lot of great discoveries in physics were made by young scientists, this one is really cool… SYDNEY (AFP) – A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called “missing mass” of the universe during her summer break. Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie made the breakthrough [...]
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