The Fount of Useless Information
Your place for useless information that just might possibly be interesting.
Vitamins: Too much of a not-so-good thing?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/19/health/vitamins-offit/index.html?hpt=hp_c4
This is an interesting issue. Much like the flu vaccine having dubious efficacy (where ‘dubious’ is being kind) over the last couple of decades mega doses of vitamins have been increasingly shown …
Opinion: Alternative healing or quackery?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/18/health/alternative-medicine-offit/index.html?hpt=hp_bn13
I particularly like this introduction…
…It used to be called “fringe” or “unconventional” medicine — or simply quackery. Today, it’s called “alternative,” “complementary,” “holistic” or “integrative.”
And it has moved into the mainstream. Hospitals
U.S. top court bars patents on human genes unless synthetic
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/13/us-usa-court-genes-idUSBRE95C0PW20130613
It has always stuck in my craw that the simple act of sequencing a gene could possibly be considered ‘novel, useful and non-obvious’, yet we have (had) thousands of …
Marks on Martian Dunes May Be Tracks of Dry-Ice Sleds
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-200
This is quite interesting…
Mars isn’t quite the dead planet it has been made out to be. Now, in addition to the dust storms (that sometimes cover the _entire_ …
MS Treatment That Resets Immune System Shows Promise In Safety Trial
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/261536.php
I mentioned earlier about some work using nanoparticles for work attempting to reset the immune system to stop attacking self. Well this article talks about an approach using …
Is Barefoot-Style Running Best? New Studies Cast Doubt
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/is-barefoot-style-running-best-new-studies-cast-doubt/
I talked earlier about my intention to try out ‘barefoot’ running (not really barefoot, more like a foot glove). After switching to jogging on the balls of my feet for about …
I feel sure I blogged about high fructose corn syrup at some point, but am not finding it in my searches…
Sweet Confusion
Does high fructose corn syrup deserve such a bad rap?
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/350460/description/Sweet_Confusion
Fructose has got a bad rap …
Is It Better to Walk or Run?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/is-it-better-to-walk-or-run/
I wonder if there is a confounding factor in that runners have generally more healthy behaviors than walkers (clearly both have better behaviors than couch potatoes) which could explain the weight discrepancy. …
Alien Debris Found in Lunar Craters
http://news.discovery.com/space/asteroids-meteors-meteorites/alien-debris-found-lunar-craters-130526.htm
Hard not to read the title and think it isn’t wack jobs talking about faces on Mars, but since it was in Google News’ science section I clicked on the link. Gratifyingly, it …
Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn’t
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/18/health/lifeswork-loftus-memory-malleability/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
I talk about my thoughts on the uselessness of human memory here and when I read the article linked above I found a whole lot of parallels. I was particularly interested in the …