Myth Dispelled: Shoe Size, Penis Size Not Linked is another popular Yahoo story today. I doubt this will dispell the myth at all. People will probably forget the story in a few days. But what I'd like to point out is that rather than spoon feeding us the conclusion, or at least in addition to being spoon fed, I wish the reporters would provide some real data as well.
"In all, 104 men had their penis measured and had their shoe size recorded." That's all the data they gave. While the interpretations of the scientists might be useful, it shouldn't be that hard in such a long story to give us the outliers, the median numbers and some data...or at least a link to the full data.
For all we know, this whole study may have been undertaken just to get some publicity...which it did achieve...
Belly Size Better Gauge of Heart Risk Than Obesity is one of the most popular news stories on Yahoo today. One day I will share some thoughts on diets and the debate between Protein/Carbs & Low Fat diets. But it's interesting that this bit of news came out today. The folks who wrote Protein Power have said the same thing some time ago.
Judge throws out lawsuit alleging cell phones cause brain tumors
I wonder if timing affected this case. I had a cell phone right when they came out and started feeling sick after using it. Getting weird sensations in my head. I eventually got rid of it and feel great about it. I took to calling it the "cancer phone" for quite some time. Doctors and Scientists I spoke to about it said there is nothing to prove a connection between cell phones and cancer. It took a few years for that study to make the connection. But having read Becker's The Body Electric, combined with that sick feeling I'd get, the results of the study didn't surprise me at all. If I can dig up a link to that study I will do so.
While this face
which is supposed to be a realistic rendering of King Tut's Face, is interesting, the casual reader might attribute more to this reconstruction than is appropriate. The key quote here is:
"Robin Richards, a facial rebuilding expert from University College London, scanned the features of people of the same age, sex, build and ethnic group as Tutankhamen to create an approximation of skin type, which was wrapped onto the 3D digital skull. "
This site did some research on what that quantity of Uranium can do. Worth a look.
This story made me laugh. When I read the first section, the first thought that came to my mind is that just as easily as coming from Mars, this bug could have been created by....the process described in the second section!! And I was thinking that the ideal place for this to be done was a Russian lab during the heyday of the Cold War. Interesting that the people suggesting this may have come from Mars are Russian Scientists.
Charles and Voyager have commented on this topic as well.
I bet this will go nowhere for some complicated reasons but this is a wonderful development and technology.
I still don't quite understand trackback. I have one already and it seems to mean that someone linked to me and you can find the link in the "trackback" section of that entry. How it all happened? No clue. So now they are getting more complicated. Pingbacks. I didn't really understand most of this page, but it's probably rather interesting:
Pingback vs. Trackbak
And if someone can tell me how to fill in those "ping urls" field in Movable Type, I'd most appreciate it.
Well, if we had any doubts as to whether or not Al-Qaeda had some form of nukes, I guess we can lay that question to rest now. Even though the attached article doesn't mention which group these criminals were attached to, it's pretty obvious isn't it?
Are there any experts reading this who can comment on how much damage 33 pounds of weapons-grade Uranium can cause? Can the detectors around NYC detect this quantity before it gets in? How hard is it to combine this uranium with a "dirty bomb" and cause major havoc in Manhattan?
Sat Sep 28,10:27 AM ET
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish paramilitary police have seized more than 33 pounds of weapons-grade uranium and detained two men accused of smuggling the material, the state-run Anatolian news agency said on Saturday.
(Captured weapons-grade uranium weighing more than 33 pounds is on display at the paramilitary police headquarters of southeast province of Sanliurfa, Turkey, September 28, 2002. Turkish gendarmes seized the uranium and detained two men accused of smuggling the material, Anatolian Agency said. Authorities believe the uranium came from an eastern European country and has a value about $5 million.)
Officers in the southern province of Sanliurfa, which borders Syria and is about 155 miles from the Iraqi border, were acting on a tip-off when they stopped a taxi cab and discovered the uranium in a lead container hidden beneath the vehicle's seat, the agency said.
The incident happens at a time of mounting speculation the United States could launch a military attack on neighboring Iraq for its alleged program of weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. President George Bush has accused Baghdad of clandestine efforts to develop a nuclear bomb as his administration works to build international support for an operation to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Officials at Ankara's Atomic Energy Institute would not confirm they had been notified about the material, which Anatolia had reported.
"Our investigation on whether the uranium was destined for a neighboring country is continuing," a Sanliurfa police official was quoted as saying by Anatolian.
Police officials in Sanliurfa and Ankara declined to comment on the case.
Authorities believe the uranium came from an east European country and has a value of about $5 million, Anatolian said.
It was not immediately clear when the operation was carried out. Anatolian only gave the first names of the suspects, which appeared to be Turkish.
Smugglers use Turkey's porous eastern border to import drugs, and hundreds of thousands of migrants each year illegally cross the rugged frontier on their way to more affluent European Union nations.
Police in Istanbul seized more than 2.2 pounds of weapons-grade uranium last November that had been smuggled into Turkey from an east European nation. The smugglers were detained after attempting to sell the material to undercover police officers.
Science is supposed to be objective. Unbiased. Certainly if the person performing an experiment has a monetary stake towards having the outcome of an experiment go a certain way, that taints everything. And yet our society seems to believe that Medicine is scientific when in fact it is corrupt to the very core.
The focus of the vast majority of the Medical field revolves around drugs. Dr. Robert O. Becker provided a first hand perspective as to how and why this occurred. It all dates back to the helplessness society felt when someone got pneumonia and the great relief penicillin brought to society. But like with most things that start with the best of intentions, money and power has long since taken over.
Pharmaceutical companies control medicine today. I have once close friend who is a Doctor. I have enjoyed many events gratis thanks to being invited by salespeople of the Pharmaceutical companies. They cater to Doctors because they want to get the Doctors to prescribe their drugs. Not because it's scientific. Not because it's best for the Doctor's patients, but because it makes money for the Drug Company who pays the salary of the salesperson.
I also have a friend who is a researcher. For a very big drug company. She has done lots of research on lots of studies. Very well respected in her field. So I said, wow, you must have been published hundreds of times. She said no. Huh?
Why, I asked. It turns out that the pharmaceutical companies don't like to list all the names of the scientists who worked on a study because then when it shows up in the periodicals the Doctor's read, it doesn't look "seemly". Despite knowing the answer, I asked why? She said, well let's take Viagra as an example. If you have a hundred scientists working on Viagra trials and they all work for Merck, and all their names and the name "Merck" is all over the study it doesn't carry the same weight as if it was an independent study, does it? She's right, no it doesn't. But the fact remains that pharmaceutical companies do studies on drugs they have a vested interest in and these studies have a huge impact on what drugs become popular as does the sales efforts of the pharmaceutical companies. Not to mention the TV ads for Ambien and Claritin etc...
And she told me some other details about how they find the volunteers to do the studies. Just frightening. She told me herself that she doesn't trust any study she reads anymore...and this is her job!!
Shameful, isn't it?
One of the biggest problems with science is that scientists tend to make these big bold assumptions and then get dogmatic about it. We seem to need to find the "best theory" that fits the evidence rather than be content with saying "we don't know". And once a theory "gains favor" by the establishment, it is almost impossible to knock it down. When it comes to the Big Bang, there we make enormous assumptions. We've developed all this math and physics and assume that the laws that fit so well on this planet are also true for objects so far away. It has gotten to the point that scientists feel free to make mathematical calculations as to what things were like during the first moments of creation. And they have the gall to actually believe that their calculations actually approximate reality! That's why I prefer engineers to theoreticians. When an engineer builds something, either it works or it doesn't. A physicist doesn't actually have to be correct. Who can prove the past? One of the biggest assumptions made by the Big Bangers is that we can measure the accurate distances of celestial objects by virtue of their "redshift". Read up about Halton Arp if you have an open mind. And The Big Bang Never Happened by Eric Lerner is a great read too.
This is just a theory based on my experience. Someone came up with the concept of 20/20 vision (if you know the history of it or a url which describes it, please let me know), probably by doing a study where charts were placed 20 feet away from many individuals and a typical text size visible by the average person was determined. At some point, "eye doctors" decided to start testing individuals for how well they see and if someone had "worse" vision than 20/20, they were "prescribed" eyeglasses.
It has been my experience that as soon as I got new glasses, I would get headaches and feel very uncomfortable. It would take a few weeks to get used to the glasses and within a few months my vision would get worse. I was just a kid when this all happened and never realized the ramifications of what was happening until much later. So when my vision would get "worse" I would go back to the eye doctor and get new glasses. This cycle kept repeating itself until one time I decided to live with the "inferior" vision. But by then the damage had been done and I now have 10.00 thick glasses and can barely see anything without them.
Again, it's a theory, but I firmly believe that the cause of my bad vision is the false assumption that vision below 20/20 is "bad" for you. I believe your eyes "want to see" at a certain level and by prescribing glasses your eyes adjust downward to the level they want to be. I only wish that eyes had the ability to readjust in the other direction by stopping to wear glasses.
If you'd like to see more info on how we are being misled by the "eye doctors" in our society, just pay a visit to Surgical Eyes to see what Lasik has done to a lot of people.
I need to reread my entry and make it a bit clearer, but essentially I believe that the glasses I've been prescribed caused eyestrain and this eyestrain contributed to the worsening of my vision. Funnily enough, today I ran across MESH DiaWebLog which had a link to Will sitting too close to the TV, reading with bad light, etc., ruin your eyes? article at The Straight Dope.
I would like to thank my brother for introducing me to the world of blogging and encouraging me to start one. Now let's see if he notices that I am finally here :)