crome.org

The bastards at Zicam have a product that can actually make you lose your sense of smell. Permanently!

It turns out they kept over 800 complaints of loss of smell secret and did not inform the FDA as they are required to do.

The active ingredient, Zinc, has been shown to maybe shorten colds, if taken at the very onset of colds.  This is apparently a pretty tenuous link to begin with.  Any risk of such a serious side effect in an attempt to alleviate a self limiting disease (a cold) is absolutely not worth it, and does not pass the FDAs muster for safety.

The FDA has issued a warning, and with any luck will put those asses out of business for damaging people needlessly.

Zicam has removed the nasal products from the market, but are keeping 17 other versions on the market.   Check their official website: http://www.zicam.com/.

Read more here:  http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=zicam

A decade ago the US government set up a department to study alternative medicine.

Here are the results:

• Echinacea doesn’t work for colds
• Ginkgo biloba doesn’t improve memory
• Glucosamine and chondroitin don’t help arthritis
• Black cohosh doesn’t work for menopausal hot flashes
• Saw palmetto doesn’t work for  prostate problems
• Shark cartilage doesn’t help cancer

The only positive result so far is that ginger capsules *may* help with nausea from chemo therapy.  And that link isn’t even clear.

What a huge waste of money.

We should shut down any government funded research into specifically ‘alternative’ medicine, and let the alternative medicine fight for the same research dollars as main stream medicine (a.k.a. medicine that’s proven safe and effective).   There already is a branch of legitimate research into botanical remedies — that should be how research is funded.  Simply being called ‘alternative’ should not get any special research dollars from me and you.

Read the MSBC article, or listen to the SGU Podcast on the subject.

At Newquay’s Blue Reef Aquarium, fish started disappearing from one of their reef tanks.  After observing for some weeks, nobody could figure out what was happening.  So there was nothing left to do but disassemble the reef rock by rock.  About half way through, they found Barry, a 4-foot long marine worm.

Thanks for the link Rob.

Barry; likes to hide, eat fish. Click image for more

Spontaneous human combustion is real.  Well, the story that there are people who have combusted, leaving only the hands feet and head, with little burning on surrounding material, is true.  Of course, the cause of the combustion is the question.  It’s not really spontanious, but rather that the people are rendered inside their own clothes, in an oxygen poor environment, and their clothes act as wicks for the rendered fat.

Read this excellent description of the process here at NeuroLogica.

So, the fossil below is really cool, and important, but the hype is overblown.  Give this podcast a little listen to put it in perspective.

SGU 200th episode

Also, ScienceNow talks about the non-impressiveness of the fossil.

Check out the nifty development at Science Now.

Click image to go to the story.

Highlight. The structure of the new infrared protein, and a shot of it glowing inside a living mouse (inset). Credit: X. Shu et al., Science, 8 May 2009, p. 804

Fluorescent proteins are used all the time in labs for tracing molecules and tracing gene expression.  That’s a really nifty way to reverse-engineer how life works.  But, the fluorescent proteins in normal use in labs work in visible light, which doesn’t travel too far through tissue.  Infrared light goes much farther.

So, some guys decided to try making some infrared fluorescent proteins.  They basically took a protein that already absorbed light in infrared and basically mutated and replicated it, and found that it fluoresced a little.  With more mutation and selection, they were able to make a protein that shone 4 times brighter.

This will let scientists track gene expression deeper into the interior of living organisms.

Read more here.

This is taken directly from a chiropractic web site.  I shit you not.  It’s an outrage.

What’s the harm in believing in the Chiropratic cult?  This kind of horrible medical and financial advice.  Read more at http://whatstheharm.net/.

How can I protect myself from swine flu? Build your immune system! Get adjusted! Studies show that being adjusted twice a week can increase your immune system function by up to 400%.

Rob sent me a really interesting article on these two Italian brothers who were able to record the first men in space, as well as some lots cosmonauts.

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html

Check out this stingray!

Rob turned me on to this book, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air.  This is a really good treatment of the world’s energy consumption and production, and how much energy could possibly be produced by various means.  He reduces all energy production and consumption tot he same units, so it’s easy to grok.  The book is free and downloadable in PDF form.

For example, you hear that unplugging your cell phone charger when not in use will save the planet.  Well, your cell phone charger takes 0.5 watts, and if plugged in all the time it takes 0.5 W * 24  hours/day = 12 W-hour/day Driving your car takes about 40 kW, and if you drive for 1 second a day, that’s 40,000 W * 1 s / (3600s/h) / (24h/d) =  46W-h/day.  So… unplugging your phone charger when not in use is approximately equivalent to 1 second of driving.

If unplugging your phone charger when not in use makes you feel good, that’s fine, but don’t think you’ve done your part because you do this.  It’s pissing in the wind.  We need to make BIG changes to have BIG effects.

Another fascinating tidbit:  A single annual intercontinental flight on an airplane that’s 80% full consumes approximately the same amount of fuel & energy as a daily commute of 30 miles in your car!  One flight, and you’ve doubled your annual fuel consumption!