The Great Beyond

Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

Another popular press release to help us through August.

Today it is being widely reported (BBC, CBS, CTV) that fruit juices, including grapefruit, orange and apple, can reduce the effectiveness of medication, potentially wiping out the beneficial effects.

The “new evidence” is attributed to a presentation by David Bailey from the University of Western Ontario at the American Chemical Society conference in Philadelphia, although even the abstract indicates that this was a review presentation.

Continue reading "Fruit juice keeps journalists busy " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Chemistry, Health and medicine | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NASA says it has solved the shaking problem that threatened its shuttle-replacement rocket Ares, which we first wrote about in January.

The agency no longer thinks Ares is going to tear itself apart but it is worried about what the shakin’ could do to its astronauts. So it is going to sit said astronauts on 16 big springs. As AP notes, this is “a space-age version of the rusty springs under old pickup trucks”.

Florida Today explains:

A spring-and-damper ring will separate the first and second stages of Ares 1 rockets, which NASA is developing for missions to the International Space Station, the moon and later Mars. Sixteen actuators that act like shock absorbers also will be added to the bottom of the rockets, significantly reducing the gravitational forces and vibrations astronauts will be exposed to in flight.

“It’s a lot like the shock absorbers on your car,” said Steve Cook, the Ares project manager told a teleconference (Space.com). “It isolates the vibrations just travelling through the structure, all the way up to the seat.”

Image: NASA

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Space and astronomy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

‘Unseen Bigfoot corpse more likely a big fat lie’
Xinhua puts an uncompromising headline on the obituary of this nonsense story.

‘Is There a Pharmacist in the House?’
Inside Higher Ed explores the explosion of US pharmacy schools.

‘Take care when handling those hallucinogenic plants’
Kevin Short, Daily Yomiuri Columnist and professor at Tokyo University of Information Sciences, has a warning based on a personal (and trippy) experience.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Ones that got away | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

NASA has released this rather wince-worthy picture of July’s test of the Orion crew exploration vehicle under the headline NASA Tests Launch Abort Parachute System.

Its rather dry announcement notes: “The mock-up used during the July 31, 2008, test of the parachute system for the recovery system of the Orion spacecraft was severely damaged when a test set-up chute failed to properly inflate and caused the parachute system to fail.”

NASA Watch is, unsurprisingly, unimpressed:

Nowhere does NASA mention that the vehicle slammed into the desert floor or crashed. They just say that “the result was a landing that severely damaged the test mock-up.” Nor has NASA issued a media advisory or a press release to alert people of the images it claimed that it did not have last week.

More photos below the fold.

Continue reading "NASA crash pictures" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Space and astronomy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

Five European Magpies (Pica pica) have provided the “first evidence that non-mammals can recognise themselves”, says the Daily Mail.

In the paper published online at Plos Biology the level of self-recognition of Gerti, Goldie, Harvey, Lilly and Schatzi was measured in “mark tests”.

Each of the magpies was observed when it had a brightly coloured mark placed on the throat, under the beak, that could only be seen in a mirror. The observations were made in a cage with a mirror and a cage with a grey non-reflective plate instead of the mirror, and then repeated with ‘sham’ markings, black dots which were not visible against the black of the birds feathers. You can see videos of the birds in the supporting information online.

Initially, as each bird explored the mirror, all displayed aggressive behaviour towards the mirror, such as picking a fight. But for Gerti, Goldie and Schatzi this behaviour stopped quickly, and in the mark test they all showed self-directed behaviour, with Gerti and Goldie managing to remove their marks after a few minutes.

Continue reading "Bird brained?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

‘There should be no question, in our country, of choosing between bear and man’
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, backs ursine ménages a trois the reintroduction of bears to the Pyrenees.

‘Confused sea turtles march into Italian restaurant’
And they weren’t eaten, according to Reuters.

‘Wild dolphins tail-walk on water’
“We can’t for the life of us work out why they do it,” Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society told the BBC.

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Ones that got away | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Katrina Charles, BA Media Fellow

Does language determine thought? Not according to a new study of maths skills in children who speak languages with few number words (press release).

The Australian study investigated the number skills of children from two indigenous communities that did not have words or gestures for numbers – a group of Warlpiri speakers in the Tanami Desert, north west of Alice Springs, and Anindilyakawa speakers from Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria – as well as a group of indigenous children from Melbourne who only spoke English.

The researchers used four tests: sharing pieces of play dough among three toy bears; remembering how many number of tokens, and putting out the same number of tokens; remembering how many tokens, and then another additional group of tokens, and putting out the total number of tokens; and matching the number of taps to the number of tokens.

Continue reading "Does language determine thought? " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Merck is back in the media glare for alleged shady practices this week. This time round it’s for a sneaky trick known as ‘a seeding trial’: you pay for a randomized trial to get hundreds of doctors using your new drug.

“This practice—a seeding trial—is marketing in the guise of science,” write Harold Sox and Drummond Rennie, in an editorial in Annals of Internal Medicine. “The apparent purpose is to test a hypothesis. The true purpose is to get physicians in the habit of prescribing a new drug.”

In that journal researchers - led by Kevin Hill, of McLean Hospital, Belmont - use documents obtained through litigation to analyse the ADVANTAGE trial of drug Vioxx and to show that it was "designed and executed" by Merck's marketing division. These documents have previously been the source of other damaging allegations against Merck (see this Nature story).

The researchers’ paper notes:

Although billed as a gastrointestinal safety study, ADVANTAGE was actually a sophisticated marketing tool designed to allow optimal "seeding" of positive experiences with Vioxx among customers—primary care physicians—before its approval. As a result, 5557 participants received Vioxx and 600 investigators prescribed it just before it became available on the market, which generated positive publicity and anecdotes from physicians and patients

Continue reading "Merck under fire for ‘seeding trial’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Chemistry, Health and medicine | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this month we noted that the New Zealand Chiropractors’ Association was alleging defamation against the New Zealand Medical Journal and pharmacologist David Colquhoun of University College London.

Now their colleagues on the other side of the world have also called in the legal teams. The British Chiropractic Association is suing author Simon Singh over an article he wrote in the Guardian.

“It wasn’t a decision taken lightly,” Antoni Jakubowski, a member of the association’s governing council, told the Daily Telegraph. “I know that a lot of thought went into this.”

As the Telegraph points out it is quite unusual for Singh to be sued and the Guardian to be left well alone. The Quackometer blog has excerpts of the Guardian article that led to this action and links to a cache of the full piece.

Continue reading "Chiropractors get litigious, again" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Health and medicine | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Japan has stepped up its fight with anti-whaling protestors, announcing yesterday it will seek international arrest warrants for three people who attempted to stop its hunt in Antarctica.

“Whatever opinions they have over whaling, it is impermissible for them to take such violent measures which risk the lives of the people involved,” said chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura (AFP and others).

The allegations centre on three members of the controversial Sea Shepherd group – named as Jon Batchelor, Ralph Koo and Daniel Bebawi. Japanese news sources say those sought by the authorities are suspected of ramming Japanese ships and throwing ropes to jam their propellers (eg Yomiuri Shimbun).

Sea Shepherd says it was their ship that was rammed by a Japanese vessel. Captain Paul Watson said in a statement:

It’s a mystery to me why the Japanese police would target three relatively minor crewmembers. As captain, all Sea Shepherd crewmembers act in accordance with my orders. All activities opposing the illegal actions of the Japanese whaling fleet are my responsibility, yet no charges have been filed against me. This is absurd and makes no sense at all.

Previously on The Great Beyond
Shooting claim in whaling fight
Acid attack on Japanese whaling ship
Pictures spark new whale row
Whaling fight turns ugly
Japan abandons humpback hunt
Why shouldn’t we eat whales?

Posted by Daniel Cressey
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)