j7uy5 | October 6, 2006This is
another one of those pilot studies that may or may not go
anywhere. Even if it doesn't it might contribute to our
theoretical understanding of major depression.
One nice thing about it is that
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine" rel="tag">scopolamine
is old; presumably, it is not very expensive. That attraction
is offset, though, by the fact that the pilot study used intravenous
scopolamine.
One
interesting aspect of this study is that scopolamine is an
ingredient in nightshade, jimson weed, mandrake, and henbane.
It blocks a family of cholinergic receptors:…
j7uy5 | October 5, 2006Rupert Murdoch is a damn liar. Is there a journalistic board
of ethics? Can Fox's broadcasting license be revoked?
src="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/upload/2006/10/foxoreillymarkfoleydem100306uy5.jpg"
height="300" width="302">
I know
href="http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2006/10/fox_turns_foley_into_a_democra.php">Ed
and
href="http://scienceblogs.com/smoothpebbles/2006/10/in_the_fair_balanced_view_mark.php">David
are already all over this, but it is just so offensive, I had to join
the echo chamber.
j7uy5 | October 5, 2006Imagine what kind of money you could make, if you had a $15,000 device
that could slow the progression of Alzheimer disease. The
following clip is from a Medscape news article. (Free
registration is required to view it, but that is better than the
original journal article, which requires a subscription.)
Vagus
Nerve Stimulation Shows Promise as Alzheimer Disease Treatment
By Will Boggs, MD
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Sept 28 - Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is
safe and beneficial for some patients with Alzheimer disease, according
to a report in the August Journal of Clinical Psychiatry…
j7uy5 | October 4, 2006Caltech grad student Aron Meltzner used satellite imagery for his
research on the Aceh earthquake and resultant tsunami. Not
only did this result in a nice publication, he
got a nice write-up featured at NASA's Earth Observatory site.
href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Aceh/">Rise and
Fall: Satellites Reveal Full Length of Tsunami-Generating Earthquake
On December 24, 2004, Caltech geology student Aron Meltzner was on
winter break in Australia. Yes, he was technically on
vacation—snorkeling, seeing a coral reef for the first
time—but he was also trying to make an…
j7uy5 | October 4, 2006N-[4(2-Amino-4-hydroxy-pteridin-6-ylmethylamino)-benzoyl]-L(+)-glutamic
acid is the name of a vitamin. Since the full name is a bit
awkward, it is more commonly known as folic acid, or
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate">folate.
The common name is derived from the Latin word for leaf (follium).
It is a B-vitamin, necessary for metabolic steps involving the transfer
of single carbon atoms. It is needed in the replication of
DNA, which obviously is rather important. The need is
greatest when there is a lot of cell division.
In the 1980's it became apparent that relative…
j7uy5 | October 3, 2006The
href="http://www.ucsusa.org/">Union of Concerned
Scientists announced the winner of their
Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest: Dr.
href="http://www.evansville.edu/prospects/areasofstudy/history/faculty.asp?print=1&">James
Lachlan MacLeod, Associate Professor of History at the
href="http://www.evansville.edu/">University of Evansville.
According to his webpage,
MacLeod studied history at the University of
Edinburgh, where his doctoral research led to his book,
href="http://www.amazon.com/Second-Disruption-Presbyterian-Historical-Monographs/dp/1862320977/…
j7uy5 | October 3, 2006The best commentary I've seen so far about predatorgate is in the
href="http://www.bangornews.com/news/t/viewpoints.aspx?articleid=141292&zoneid=34">Bangor
Daily News:
Tuesday, October 3, 2006 - Bangor Daily News
As deplorable as former Rep. Mark Foley’s advances at pages
are, if Congress uses the salacious details of this episode to hide its
own sorry oversight record, in this and other recent situations, those
teen pages would be misused again. Nothing hides other faults like
possible sexual impropriety of an elected official.
The FBI is now looking into the alleged actions…
j7uy5 | October 3, 2006"College Town 'Poverty' Exposed:" Exposé or Rant?
The Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a story a couple of weeks ago, which
dealt with the issue of Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) going
to college towns. The article ran in Sunday's Ann Arbor News,
which is where I saw it. The article itself is available on
the
Internet,
href="http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/koff091806.html">here.
The gist of the story is this: the CDGB program is a federal program
that provides block grants to communities based upon their poverty
rates. College towns tend to have a high proportion of
college…
j7uy5 | October 2, 2006
href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2006/10/raise_the_gas_tax.php">Jonah
and
href="http://scienceblogs.com/nosenada/2006/10/if_we_did_raise_the_gas_tax_wh.php">Kevin
have already chipping in on this topic. Bob Lutz, the VP of
General Motors, turned a few heads. Not with an eye-catching
new auto design, but with a comment in the Wall Street Journal:
"I'd say the best thing the (U.S.) government can do
is to raise the
gas tax by 10 or 15 cents a year until it reaches European levels," Mr.
Lutz said, during an impromptu interview just before GM Europe's media
event last Thursday.…
j7uy5 | October 2, 2006
href="http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/entertainment/news/20060930p2a00m0et036000c.html">HOOPESTON,
Illinois -- A small-town theater owner says he was not trying
to send Hollywood a message when he shut down for two weeks rather than
show box-office leader "Jackass 2" or other new releases that he calls
"drivel."
But even if accidental, Greg Boardman's blank-screened protest is
getting a thumbs up from movie-goers who long for family fare and jeers
from others who say his theaters are one of the few diversions --
especially for children -- in this farming town of about 6,000 people…
j7uy5 | October 2, 2006This is from the journal Menopause. The
link goes to the abstract; a subcription is required for full access.
It is a pilot study with results that are not robust enough
to use in routine clinical decision-making, but it does indicate a
possible benefit to supplementation of venlafaxine (Effexor) with HRT
in depressed postmenopausal women.
href="http://www.menopausejournal.com/pt/re/menopause/abstract.00042192-200613020-00011.htm;jsessionid=Fg9ZyB1TT5h1lKGn52MG1XLKMd3v4rT7knF02TDQV2jRY25S6tvX%211096339265%21-949856144%218091%21-1">Menopause
2006 Mar-Apr;13(2):202-11.
Efficacy of…
j7uy5 | October 2, 2006Except I think it was a different DeVos. As linked by
href="http://markmaynard.com/index.php/2006/09/27/devos_the_domionist"
rel="tag">Mark
Maynard, the irascibly analytical frontman for the
href="http://www.monkeypowertrio.com/" rel="tag">Monkey
Power Trio, Rolling Stone has
href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7235393/the_crusaders/">an
article that states:
...The godfather of the Dominionists is
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._James_Kennedy">D.
James Kennedy [link added], the most influential evangelical
you've never heard of...
...While the…
j7uy5 | October 1, 2006Most people are bothered by those passages
of Scripture they do not understand,
but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
-- Mark Twain
HT: Ratboy's
Anvil
j7uy5 | September 29, 2006The voting closes tomorrow, so be sure to go vote for your favorite.
This is from a selection of political cartoons, in the "
href="http://ucsaction.org/campaign/vote_now_for_science_idol/forward">Scientific
Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest."
j7uy5 | September 29, 2006These two things might be connected. The Washington
Post reported yesterday on the findings of a CDC report on
emergency room preparedness. The Economic Policy Institute
reported on further erosion in health insurance coverage.
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092701831.html?referrer=scienceblogs.com">Crowded
ERs Raise Concerns On Readiness
By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 28, 2006; Page A11
Emergency rooms at many hospitals are routinely stretched to the
breaking point, raising concerns that they…
j7uy5 | September 28, 2006
The food bank, that is. This is from a sculpture contest.
The rule: everything had to be made entirely from canned
foodstuffs. The canned food is to be donated to a food bank
in LA.
href="http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-canned_j5ynw2nc,0,372926.photo?coll=la-home-headlines">
href="http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-canned_j5ynw2nc,0,372926.photo?coll=la-home-headlines">TENTACLE
SPECTACLE: “A Call to Arms” used 4,100
cans in 2005. After L.A.’s upcoming competition, structures
will be disassembled and cans given to Los Angeles Regional…
j7uy5 | September 27, 2006On the way home from work, one day last week, I
href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6096545">heard
some excerpts from the book,
href="http://www.bordersstores.com/search/title_detail.jsp?id=56030755">Imperial
Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone,
by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. (Chandrasekaran also has some articles in the
Washington Post, here:
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600193.html">1
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/08/28/DI2006082800508.html">2.)
It's a…
j7uy5 | September 26, 2006
Who is this? The first in a series of not-very-challenging
science questions...
Notice the resemblance to one of our ScienceBloggers.
This bust is in an engineering building on the University of Michigan's
North Campus.
j7uy5 | September 26, 2006
These are red crossbills (
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loxia_curvirostra">Loxia
curvirostra) photographed by Elaine R. Wilson.
She kindly uploaded the photo to Wikipedia, where it was
voted Feature Picture of the Day. Note: the image is
copyrighted, but the copyright holder permits the photo to be used for
any purpose. The full-sized photo, and accompanying
information, are
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Red_Crossbills_%28Male%29.jpg">here.
j7uy5 | September 26, 2006Someone around these parts was writing about
title="spelling and usage note"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile_pepper#Spelling_and_usage">chilies
recently, but failed to mention the best: Mesilla Valley chilies.
Zingerman's
sells "New Mexico chilies." Although it would be better for
them to specify "Mesilla Valley" chilies, the vast majority of New
Mexico chilies are from the Mesilla Valley.
From September 28 to October 3, 2006, Zingerman's is having their "
href="http://www.zingermansroadhouse.com/content/pages/events_05.php">New
Mexico Chile Harvest Specials."
What: …