Grossest/Coolest Thing You'll See This Week

I recently got basic cable for the first time in like 3 years, and not because I'm too good for TV but because I've been too poor. But my old friend really came through for me tonight as I was trying to think about my scientific topic for the week. I was watching Mythbusters and they were testing the myth that sneezes shoot out of your mouth at 100 m.p.h. and can fly over 30 feet. Well, as if it weren't bizarre enough to watch a man sneeze in slow motion, take a look at the 1:25 mark of the clip below and watch the same thing when said man has red food dye in his mouth. It's pretty delightful. Plus it makes me happy because I really don't feel like typing anything overly in depth for my science post this week so now I can just embed a video clip. Enjoy. Oh, and if I remember I think they busted the myth.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Step Right Up and Buy Your Own Bottle of Stupid Pills!

OK, folks, I have a hot finanical tip for you this week. Go out and buy stock in any company that produces phosphatidlyserine. Do it right now, and then start putting down payments on a new house, boat, and rocket ship that will take you to your own plot of land on Mars, because you are going to be Oprah rich once word gets out that phosphatidlyserine actually reverses the effects of Alzheimer's disease. If you weren't aware of this miracle of modern medicine, it's probably because it comes at the word of an unnamed supplement saleswoman who was secretly being recorded by an undercover representative from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). This is just one of several instances of world-class shenanigans perpetrated by sellers of herbal supplements, as reported by Kathleen Harmon in Scientific American.

Now, the "snake oil salesman" is nothing new. Since the beginning of civilization there has always been the miracle cure to pretty much everything, so I can't say that I'm overly surprised that some chicanery is afoot. What surprises me, however, is that it's not just coming from the guy who says he has a cream to make my dick grow three to four feet within a week. It's coming from people selling supplements that I see everyday at the store. While I'm not the kind of guy to take something like ginko, garlic, or echinacea, I always figured they had actual benefits for people who do use them. Apparently, however, whatever effects they do have aren't the ones being pitched by the people selling them.

According to snippets of conversations recorded by people planted by the GAO, phosphatidlyserine's ability to kick Alzheimer's ass is just the tip of the iceberg. Ginko biloba is harmless since it's an herb, so the FDA is obviously full of shit when they say "taking aspirin and ginko biloba together can cause a bleeding risk." Ginseng totally won't hurt you if you are diabetic, because it is a "sugar metabolism" (what the fuck does that mean?). And apparently, you can just go ahead and replace that prescription medication you've been wasting money on with.....get ready for it.....garlic! Who knew? I guess the bad odor that garlic gives your breath is from the trail of dead ailments that it leaves in its wake.

This man will never die. Ever.

Now, as if it's not bad enough that the imbeciles selling these things are either knowingly or unknowingly passing out obviously bad information, Harmon also points out in her report that 80% of these pills have been found to contain trace amounts of lead, along with mercury, cadmium, or arsenic. Granted, none of the levels of these metals have been at what the FDA considers hazardous, but I think the obvious question here is WHY IN GOD'S NAME ARE THERE ANY METALS IN THESE PILLS AT ALL?!? I mean, honestly...arsenic? That just seems like a deliberate act of mean-spiritedness of Grinch-like proportions.

So, how is it that relatively intelligent people (let's just assume) are being duped into believing the local junior college drop out who tells them that garlic that has been laced with lead is a reasonable replacement for actual medicine? Oddly enough, I think I understand the mentality that would render a person susceptible to being fooled in such a way. I am a person who is fairly confident in the merits of medical science. But to be honest, whenever I take an aspirin or a shot of NyQuil, a tiny voice in the back of my head is telling me that the only power, if any, that the medicine has comes from someone telling me that it's good for me. So when people read a label that says something like "good for mental health" and then have a salesperson add, either by stupidity or by malfeasance, that it will cure Alzheimer's disease, then at the time it might seem reasonable. I guess the only cure for being duped in such a way is to remember that whenever someone is trying to sell you something, be it dietary supplements or anything else, they might not have your best interests in mind, so take a minute to really think about if you really need or even want what's being sold. Or, just say screw it and enjoy your lead pills.

Doctor Responsible for MMR Vaccine/Autism "Study" Told to Fuck Self, Horse He Rode In On

I'd like to thank future Mrs. Grump for pointing this story out for me, as it gives me a scientific topic to cover for the week and, more importantly, it gives me the opportunity to rant on one of the more prominent rat bastards in recent history: Dr. Andrew "vaccines cause autism" Wakefield. The BBC reported yesterday that Dr. Wakefield has been removed from the medical registry by the General Medical Council. The GMC concluded that during his study where he links the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism, Dr. Wakefield utilized ethics slightly below those of Dr. Nick Riviera.

Hi, everybody!

Hi, Dr. Nick!

Rot in hell, you quack!

First of all, the guy is a gastroenterologist. Would you let your dentist study the effects of radiation on your sperm count? Then what the hell business did this guy, who specializes in the digestive tract, have in linking the MMR vaccine to autism? Well, his business was that he was being paid by lawyers acting on behalf of parents who claimed MMR vaccines hurt their children. So, Wakefield just so happened to have concluded that MMR vaccines caused bowel problems and also led to autism. Maybe he just tacked on that bowel problems bit to justify having a vaccination study performed by a goddamn gastroenterologist. "But wait," you may point out, "just because Wakefield happened to find the results that he was paid specifically to find does not mean that his results were not accurate." That may be true, but I'd say that having the majority of your colleagues call "bullshit", and then having most of the people who supported Wakefield in his study retract their claims a few years later may indeed indicate that he wasn't entirely correct in his findings.

Keep in mind, however, that the GMC didn't boot his ass because he was wrong. They kicked him out because he quite obviously had no grasp on the concept of ethics. Ethics, for example, are what keeps someone from "carrying out invasive tests on vulnerable children which were against their best interests." One such test was performed at his son's birthday party, where he paid the young guests money to take their blood. Oh that's just great. As if kids didn't already have enough to worry about when a stranger offers them money.

And the GMC might not have been reprimanding him for being wrong about his findings in this particular case, but that sure as hell doesn't mean that the general public shouldn't be giving him shit. And we should also be giving shit to all of the people with no scientific background who somehow gave credence to this guy's malarkey, causing a drastic reduction in vaccinations and a spike in measles outbreaks. I, for one, am looking directly at you, Jenny McCarthy. And to think, I used to be in love with you back when you were a quirky, sexy Playmate of the Year/MTV host and I was just a player of Magic: the Gathering/virgin.

But now, you've convinced yourself and others that you are a medical expert because your son has autism. And I realize that I have no idea what that's like to have a loved one who suffers from autism, and I take no pleasure in your pain. But when I have the lion's share of the medical community saying that MMR vaccinations do not lead to autism, I just can't find it in myself to side with the host of Singled Out. Plus, I still blame you for turning Jim Carrey from a harmless, rubber-faced goofball, to this:

I honestly have no words

So take a minute to celebrate today as the GMC scores one for logic and further exposes a "doctor" as a fraud. But we really need to do a better job at calling celebrities out on their bullshit. We can't take information as valid just because someone has the fame to make themselves heard even if they are totally unqualified in their assertion. I mean, would you believe Heidi Montag if she told you that she got Down's Syndrome from one of her many plastic surgeries. Although, now that I think of it, we may be on to something there.

This Just In: Processed Meat.......is BAD for you!

In news more shocking than Clay Aiken coming out of the closet, the BBC filled everyone in on the secret that eating processed meat is bad for your heart. According to the article, foods such as sausage and bacon are even worse than natural red meats such as beef and lamb, likely due to "the salt and preservatives added to processed meats." Well, I can't help but think one thing when knowledge like that is dropped on me: No. Fucking. Shit.

Pictured above: someone who may not be concerned with eating only lean meat

Did anyone take a minute while writing this story to think that pretty much everyone on the planet knows that processed meat might just be bad for you? Well, if we're going to take the day to state the obvious, I have a few more conclusions that I'd like to share:

• Sitting in an ergonomic chair is better for your back than sitting on a bear trap.
• Cats walk on four legs and not seven.
• The word watermelon is actually made up of two words: water and melon.
• Many people who enjoy movies starring Scarlett Johansson do not necessarily believe that she is a good actress.
• 2 + 2 does not equal Christmas tree.
• Full lobotomies are not good for short-term memory.
• Full lobotomies are not good for long-term memory.
• NFL quarterbacks are often under more pressure than NFL spectators (I'm sure John Madden has said this at least once)
  
• The Jewish culture may have been misrepresented in Germany during the 1930s and 40s.
• People usually prefer the taste of pumpkin pie to that of pet lizards that have been named Pumpkin.

Since we're out to enlighten one another, feel free to comment on any other important discoveries that you have made throughout the week. It's important to spread the knowledge, people.

Soon Hiring: DNA Sketch Artists

The Scientific American provided us with another reason to avoid masturbating when committing a crime in a story about how Danish scientists have utilized DNA from a 4,000-year-old tuft of hair to come up with a basic description of the man it was once attached to. They can actually spot variations in the genes that mark if a person will have features like brown hair or blue eyes, and this could be a big step in forensic investigations as a means for developing a basic description of a perpetrator if he leaves any DNA behind at a crime scene. Now, this isn't a magic wand by any means. Don't expect forensics experts to find spit on the ground at a crime scene and come out with a detailed rendering of the person's face.

That's him, officer! I'd know those nucleotides anywhere!

Instead, this type of research might help to narrow down the fields of search in an investigation. So if the police were investigating a sexual assault, for example, and by studying the variations in the DNA collected at the scene discovered the suspect had blond hair they could at least rest assured that Ben Rothleisberger didn't have anything to do with it this time (zing! I just dropped some topical humor on your ass).

A question raised by the article, however, is the matter of ethics when it comes to using this approach to forensics investigations. The article doesn't really get into exactly what the ethical dilemma comes from, but I'd imagine it's because DNA is only a starting point for our development, and environmental factors also play a role. Going back to our sexual assault case, let's say that the DNA investigation found that the person in question had a genetic proclivity for being an alcoholic. Well, this might mean the suspect is a fall-down drunk, or it could mean that as someone who likely has alcoholism running rampant in his family, the suspect has avoided drinking anything stronger than Jolt just to avoid ending up like the rest of their family. So if an investigator were to take too much stock in the alcoholic tendencies, they might get stuck on a theory and see any drunk walking down the street as a suspect.

You're going away for a long time you sick son of a bitch.

On the flip side, however, aren't we already in murky water when it comes to criminal investigations? My (potentially wrong) understanding of psychological profiling is to use what is known about the trends of people who have committed crimes in the past in order to get a sense for how/why a person would commit a current crime and use that knowledge as a way to find their suspect. Well it seems to me that there is a lot of educated guesswork involved here, so what's the problem with supplying more information through DNA research so that the guess is that much more educated? Should the findings from investigating DNA be the end-all be-all of the investigation? Of course not. But, used properly, it could be very useful as one piece of the whole puzzle. Or at the very least it could take racial profiling to a new level.

AAAAHHHHHHHHH!

Oh sweet Jesus what in the hell is that! Kill it! Burn it! Send it back to hell!

Ok, so in real life, this naked mole rat isn't all that big and appears to be pretty harmless aside from the damage it's done to my psyche. I was wandering around BBC News trying to find something interesting to wow you all with, and suddenly this little fucker burst out of my nightmares and into what's actually a pretty interesting article. It turns out the naked mole rat can tell us quite a bit about how hormones can affect social tendencies, as their distribution of oxytocin receptors cause them to be promiscuous while their more furry, less terrifying cousin the Cape mole rat have oxytocin receptor distribution that lead them to more monogamous relationships. Studies about the cause and effect of oxytocin has been linked to a human's ability to empathize and can even be connected to certain types of autism.

But in order for me to have absorbed all of those interesting tidbits, I've been forced to have two things permanently imprinted in my mind.

1)Those oxytocin receptors that are linked to social behaviors are distributed in naked mole rats to make them behave more like ants than like other mammals. This means that if you ever come across a naked mole rat, he likely won't be alone.


2) Some of the demons from the Hellraiser movies are, in fact, based in reality.











Sweet dreams, folks.

Stephen Hawking Claims That Aliens Are Just Like Us...

In that they are willing to screw over other civilizations in order to acquire resources for themselves. In an interview with the AFP, Stephen Hawking likens aliens landing on Earth to "when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out too well for the Native Americans."Now, no offense to Dr. Hawking, but it's quite an assumption to think that any race of aliens is likely to want to clear us out for all of our top notch air, water, and other natural resources. Isn't it just as likely that any race landing on Earth would look down on us as being a bunch of self-serving pricks? This weekend I Netflixed District 9, and somehow the movie's vision of stranded aliens being forced to live separately in run-down slums just doesn't seem too off-the-wall given our track record as a species. As is generally the case, my viewpoint on the matter has been shaped by George Carlin, who sums up the awkward relationship we'd have with advance alien life in the clip below (starting at the 3:05 mark, but if you're at all like me you'll want to just watch the whole video).