5.11.2013

Philosophy in Physics

The last week of the spring semester at the community college where I teach is next week. I had my last lecture session that covered new material on Thursday. The last topic discussed in my “Elements of Physics” class was that of special relativity. I am always excited to discuss this topic with students, because it can be difficult to understand, yet beautifully simple and elegant. It almost gains a philosophical quality in the implications coming out of measuring spacetime.

Special relativity is based on two concepts known as Einstein’s postulates. There are various ways of restating these two points, but an example of a good summary would be: / read more…

5.11.2013

Will the Host of Skeptoid Lose His Voice?

No, it’s just a sensationalist headline. You should never trust headlines like that.

However I have been having some pain on my larynx when I speak, and it’s been going on for about six weeks. So I went in to see Dr. Michael Cho at Head & Neck Associates in Mission Viejo, CA for a laryngoscopy. This is where they slide a longer fiber optic camera called a laryngoscope up through your nose and down your throat, in order to have a look at the vocal cords and voice box. Yes, it feels pretty funky, although the nasal cavity and throat are numbed. / read more…

5.10.2013

Going to Mars with MAVEN

The Mars Rovers have shown us that minerals exist on Mars that only form in the presence of water. This discovery confirms the idea that the barren planet used to have potentially life-bearing water on its surface. Right now, the planet’s atmosphere is so thin that liquid water can’t exist because it evaporates too quickly into the diffuse air. What little water that still exists on the dusty planet is frozen in the subzero temperatures that exist over most of the surface. NASA is asking, “What happened to make the Martian atmosphere so thin?” and The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is going to provide the data to answer that question and many more. / read more…

5.9.2013

The Stem Cell Business – Part 2

Part one of this short series looked at unregulated stem cell clinics fleecing patients of their savings and robbing them of their health and even their lives. I had intended to write about the changes to regulation of stem cell therapies being debated in Italy but Orac beat me to the punch and I am not going to attempt to out Orac Orac. / read more…

SETI and Plausibility

Dr. Steven Novella MD is a well recognized leader in the skeptical community. He is personal skeptic hero of mine. I think you will see some of his thoughts and descriptions incorporated into my thinking. I often say I was always a skeptic, but the scientific skepticism movement was unknown to me before I heard my first Skeptoid podcast (Shameless skeptoid promotion but absolutely true). Skeptoid lit the fuse, but once a week was not enough. The next podcast I started following was SGU. Well known as The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. Although it is an ensemble cast it is primarily driven by Dr. Novella. The more involved I became in skepticism the more I wanted to emulate him. I respect him and I trust his attention to detail. I agree with his overall philosophies related to scientific skepticism. That does not mean that I blindly agree with everything he has to say. / read more…

5.7.2013

The harm in psychics

When we go to bat against people who prey on fear, uncertainty, grief, and ignorance, such as many psychics, we often hear “What’s the harm? If it makes people feel better, let them find their comfort” or something to that effect. Sylvia Brown yet again shows us the harm. / read more…

5.6.2013

Seven Brilliant Quotes? Not So Much

I feel like I have a pretty good eye for what’s real and what’s not, especially when it comes to memes and photos on the internet. So when I recently saw a friend post a picture on Facebook entitled “Seven Brilliant Quotes”, my radar for falsehood immediately lit up and I went to work researching. The picture is pretty much just that, seven collected quotes by great thinkers throughout the ages – some of which seem so fake they couldn’t possibly be real. / read more…

Herschel closes its eyes – for good

ESA, the European Space Agency, announced several days ago that their infrared space observatory, Herschel, has gone blind. The probe was specialized in observing near-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths, but had to be cooled to almost absolute zero in order to observe. This cooling was assured by an initial stock of 2300 liters of liquid helium, but this has evaporated and is now gone. Basically, the probe is no longer able to observe anything, and has to be written off.

Credits: ESA/Herschel/PACS, SPIRE/N.

Credits: ESA/Herschel/PACS, SPIRE/N.

Not that it was a failure.

/ read more…

5.4.2013

Roundup and Gut Bacteria

Note: I recently became a contributor over at The Skeptical LibertarianThere will be some cross-posting and similar topics covered. This is a benefit, however, as it has already brought to my attention new material which I might not have otherwise noticed. There is also other great material over there, so if you are looking to add to your reading – please check it out. Thanks to Daniel Bier for a whole new stack of material to use in my writing!

Daniel Bier, publisher and executive editor of The Skeptical Libertarian, brought to my attention a news story regarding a new published report on the active ingredient in Roundup® called Glyphosate. As he rightly points out, the conclusions and the mode of publications immediately raised some skeptical red-flags. So I started reading the study, and all I can do is shake my head at how poor the “science” really is in this paper.

The first red-flag comes right away in the article’s title: Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases. The terms “modern disease” and “gut bacteria/microbes/flora/etc” have been used and abused by pseudoscientific practitioners that promote fad diets (paleo and such), anti-vaccination people, anti-genetically modified food people, and other groups which employ the naturalistic fallacy. / read more…

5.3.2013

MercolaWatch:Supposed “report” comparing GMO and non-GMO corn

While it may appear that I attack every article that Joe Mercola writes, his “newsletter” averages two articles every day except for Sunday (about the same volume as the Skeptoid group blog, except everything is published under his own name). So my once a week notes represent < 10% of what's available in a given week. Anyhow, Mercola.com articles will usually cite something that at least appears on quick glance to be actual research, but on deeper investigate will turn out not to be. But in a recent anti-GMO entry he did not even go that far, but actually simply used as a reference an entry on another blog site, which itself provided no reference. Even I was surprised about the low effort on this one.

/ read more…