Category Archives: Science. Or Not.

I am happy to see Vanderbilt in the forefront of such important research!

Posted on by
1

“What I tell patients is, if you like coffee, go ahead and drink as much as you want and can,” says Dr. Peter Martin, director of the Institute for Coffee Studies at Vanderbilt University. He’s even developed a metric for monitoring your dosage: If you are having trouble sleeping, cut back on your last cup of the day. From there, he says, “If you drink that much, it’s not going to do you any harm, and it might actually help you. A lot.”

 

Officially, the American Medical Association recommends conservatively that “moderate tea or coffee drinking likely has no negative effect on health, as long as you live an otherwise healthy lifestyle.” That is a lackluster endorsement in light of so much recent glowing research. [my emphasis]

via Prof. Reynolds.

Tuberculosis outbreak in Florida. Lovely.

Posted on by
Reply

A single schizophrenic patient had circulated from hospital to jail to homeless shelter to assisted living facility, living in dorm housing in many locations. Over and over, the patient’s cough was documented in his chart, but not treated. It continued for eight months, until he finally was sent under court order to A.G. Holley [a recently closed TB hospital]. That year, 2008-2009, a total of 18 people in that community developed active tuberculosis from the strain called FL 046 and two died.

. . .

“We thought after 2008 that we had it contained,” Harmon said. “It was not contained. In retrospect, it would have been better to inform the general population then.”

The word is out now and MY do politicians and public health officials in Florida look bad!

Zollverein Essen – the herbarium

Posted on by
Reply

I’m still posting pictures from Germany! This was taken inside a display at the Zollverein XII museum in Essen. Sandwiched between glass plates were examples of all the flora found on the grounds as they were transforming the old factories into a culture-space.

This is about my favorite picture of me (me me!) this year.

My Zollverein XII photos on Flickr.

Therapeutic use of alcohol accessories in a nonalcoholic method

Posted on by
1

After all these years of wrist problems driven by repetitive stress, I have finally found the platonic wrist-and-hand icer! My faithful Vacu Vin Rapid Ice Wine Chiller does the trick better than anything — insert hand, wait until numb (with cold, people, with cold!), remove.

Oh – the leak in the living room ceiling is repaired – but the hole is even bigger than it was last time. The drywall to repair it is standing in the hall, though, so there’s hope.

Mona Lisa Overdrive

Posted on by
Reply

The Prado has made an amazing discovery underneath the upper layers on their copy of the Mona Lisa. Even the UNDERpainting and pentimenti (the revisions) match the original. They don’t think the hand is Leonardo’s, but they’re not sure WHAT they think.

Here’s the story, but in case you are close to using up your 10 page views/month at the New York Times, go directly here – the neatest interactive feature of all time.

So why should we bow to science if they can’t reproduce their results?

Posted on by
Reply

We shouldn’t.

Cancer stuff. Don’t they care to be right? Evidently not.

Having spent several hours today at the annual task of sorting out position requests . . . that is, who gets to hire new folks next year, this is particularly liberating.

(I typically tell students that I’m not skeptical about science, just about scientists. This doesn’t change that.)

Here’s the ever-interesting Derek Lowe (one of my long-time permanent blog-reads) on the article. One interesting note: “it’s not fraud if you’re fooling yourself, too.”

via Vox Poupuli