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This page shows you the most recent publications within this specialty of the MedWorm directory. This is page number 3.

Beauty Science and St. Valentines Day
Happy Valentines Day everyone! To celebrate here are five of our favorite posts from the past: When Chemicals Attract Beauty Science for Valentines Day Roses Are Red, Our Planet Is Blue… Valentines Day Experiments For Kids The Deadly Danger Of Valentines Day Image credit: xkcd.com
Source: thebeautybrains.com - February 14, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: thebeautybrains Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs

Introduction to the Real-time PCR
from David Rodríguez-Lázaro and Marta Hernández writing in Real-Time PCR in Food Science: Current Technology and Applications:Food safety and quality control programs are increasingly applied throughout the production food chain in order to guarantee added value products as well as to minimize the risk of infection for the consumer. The development of real-time PCR has represented one of the most significant advances in food diagnostics as it provides rapid, reliable and quantitative results. These aspects become increasingly important for the agricultural and food industry. Different strategies for re...
Source: Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists. - February 14, 2013 Category: Microbiology Source Type: blogs

Are You an Ambitious Life Science Student? Intern at the SENS Research Foundation this Summer
Here is a great opportunity for undergraduate and recently graduated life scientists: a chance to intern this coming summer at the SENS Research Foundation, an ambitious and well-connected organization that funds work on repairing the cellular and molecular damage that causes aging. If this is an area of applied medical biotechnology that interests you - and it should, as today you stand at the ground floor of a field that will expand in decades ahead to dwarf present behemoth research communities like the cancer establishment - then I encourage you to apply. If this isn't your cup of tea, then point it out to any biologis...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 14, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

8 (Slightly Snarky) Tips For Courteous Traveling
Few things will jack up a traveler's day more than a flight delay and they aren't always the result of weather like Hurricane Sandy or last weekend's snowstorm Nemo. Sometimes travelers themselves can cause a plane to sit on the runway longer than necessary, so today we're taking on that challenge. I've had years when I've traveled just four times and other years it's been more like 24. Regardless of the frequency, I sincerely do my best to be uber-conscious of manners, courtesy and try to avoid annoying or inconveniencing others. If you aren't a frequent flier, you may not even be aware that some of the things you do may ...
Source: Your Life. Organized. - February 14, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: MonicaRicci Source Type: blogs

Prognosis: Weeks to Months – On the End of an Era at San Diego Hospice
On February 14th, 1977, a group of volunteers offered support to 10 patients who were nearing the end of life, and in doing so formed the foundation of what would grow into the largest academic hospice in the US – caring for upwards of 1000 patients each day at its peak, and training hundreds of hundreds of clinicians in the specialty of palliative care. Just a day shy of its 36th anniversary, it was announced that San Diego Hospice would be closing. As an alumnus of the fellowship program at San Diego, I am one of many who are grieving this news. I write here, not so much to share my grief, but rather to ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - February 14, 2013 Category: Palliative Carer Workers Authors: Suzana Makowski Source Type: blogs

Ending the long gap (the RA's purine-regulation manuscript)
Aarrghhh! So long since I've posted any science here (or for that matter any teaching on RRTeaching). This short post is just to get me going again... The Research Associate recently gave me a new version of her manuscript on how purine nucleotides regulate the development of natural competence, and we just finished discussing how the various pieces of information should be organized. She starts with the evidence that disproves my once-favourite hypothesis that competence genes are repressed by the purine repressor PurR. She then presents new evidence that providing cells with a purine nucle...
Source: RRResearch - February 14, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Rosie Redfield Source Type: blogs

PCORI News Plus FDA Suggestons on Comparative Effectiveness Research
The Board of Governors of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) at its 19 November 2012 meeting in Boston, MA adopted 47 revised methodology standards that are intended to guide the comparative effectiveness research (CER) funded by PCORI, reported RAPS. The Board also authorized at the meeting the development of three new CER funding announcements: Treatment options for uterine fibroids, the safety and benefits of treatment options for severe asthma, and fall prevention in the elderly. One of the bigger pieces of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was the i...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 14, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs

White House PCAST: Rival Countries Gaining on US Medical Research Spending
The Nation once led the world in investments in research and development (R&D) as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), but more recently, the United States has been investing less in R&D than other leading and emerging nations invest. Moreover, U.S. industry has been shifting its investments toward applied R&D, narrowing the support for basic and early-stage applied research, which is crucial to transforming innovation. Without adequate support for such research, the United States risks losing its leadership in invention and discovery—the driving force behind the new industries and jobs that have p...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 14, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs

Nature: 14 February 2013
This week, modelling the dramatic landscape on asteroid Vesta, the US stem cell company offering unapproved therapies, and the sweet smell of attraction.
Source: Nature Podcast - February 13, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Nature Publishing Group Source Type: blogs

Policy-based evidence. Department of Health and Prince’s Foundation censor accurate information about magic medicines
This report is really quite contentious and we may well be subject to quite a lot of challenge from the Homeopathic community if published. What on earth? The DH seems to think that that its job is not to present the evidence, but to avoid challenges from the homeopathic community! And true enough, this piece is missing from the final version. A bit later, the NHS Choices draft was censored again “A 2010 Science and Technology Committee report said that scientific tests had shown that homeopathic treatments don’t work” But again this doesn’t appear in the final version. The comment, apparently fr...
Source: DC's goodscience - February 13, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: CAM CNHC College of Medicine Department of Health George Lewith homeopathy Michael Dixon National Health Service Prince of Wales Prince's Foundation Academia alternative medicine badscience David Mattin Sunjai Gupta Source Type: blogs

Mouse Models of Inflammation Are Basically Worthless. Now We Know.
We go through a lot of mice in this business. They're generally the first animal that a potential drug runs up against: in almost every case, you dose mice to check pharmacokinetics (blood levels and duration), and many areas have key disease models that run in mice as well. That's because we know a lot about mouse genetics (compared to other animals), and we have a wide range of natural mutants, engineered gene-knockout animals (difficult or impossible to do with most other species), and chimeric strains with all sorts of human proteins substituted back in. I would not wish to hazard a guess as to how many types of mice h...
Source: In the Pipeline - February 13, 2013 Category: Chemists Tags: Animal Testing Source Type: blogs

Sciencebase grilled by students
UPDATE: 2012-02-13 It’s on again and this year I can offer a little advice on how to get a popular science book published if any students are interested in hearing my thoughts on that. Also, I’ve dropped the price for students on the PDF version of Deceived Wisdom for the next couple of days. Once again, I’ll be attending the annual media careers event at Cambridge University, where students and alumni get a chance to chat with members of the media about careers in journalism, broadcasting, film, publishing, science communication, media law and media management. The previous event attracted around 328 stu...
Source: Sciencebase Science Blog - February 13, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science cambridge grill sciencebase students Source Type: blogs

Sciencebase to be grilled by Cambridge students again
UPDATE: 2012-02-13 It’s on again and this year I can offer a little advice on how to get a popular science book published if any students are interested in hearing my thoughts on that. Also, I’ve dropped the price for students on the PDF version of Deceived Wisdom for the next couple of days: Please wait... Deceived Wisdom, DRM-free PDF version now just £3 as part of this event. Once again, I’ll be attending the annual media careers event at Cambridge University, where students and alumni get a chance to chat with members of the media about careers in journalism, broadcasting,...
Source: Sciencebase Science Blog - February 13, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: David Bradley Tags: Science cambridge grill sciencebase students Source Type: blogs

Job Posting: Medical Research Specialist
Medical Research Specialist Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine - Washington, DC 20016 The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit organization working toward compassionate and effective medical practice, research, and health promotion. For the last 27 years, PCRM has led the way for reforms of federal nutrition policies, and our clinical research programs are breaking new ground in diabetes, cancer, and other serious medical conditions. We have fought for an emphasis on prevention, higher ethical standards in research, and scientific advances in basic research and effective drug development...
Source: Non-Clinical Physician Jobs, Careers, and Opportunities - February 13, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Joseph Kim, MD, MPH Source Type: blogs

Much of Modern Aging Research in a Short and Pithy Nutshell
This caught my eye and I thought I'd share. The abstract is a good encapsulation of the majority of modern research into aging and longevity: understanding and explaining, with no great impetus to apply the knowledge gained to date. The ins and outs of aging and longevity As a nod to the oft-quoted evolutionary theorist George Williams, "It is remarkable that after a seemingly miraculous feat of morphogenesis, a complex metazoan should be unable to perform the much simpler task of merely maintaining what is already formed". How and why we age are mysteries of the ages. The "how" of this mystery is the purview of experi...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 13, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

The Media and Drug Policy: Where’s the Science?
Groping blindly toward a new framework. As states and the federal government clash at the legal, social, and political levels over legalizing marijuana, the science of drugs and addiction has taken a back seat. The dismal state of the addiction treatment business has recently been documented by Anne M. Fletcher in Inside Rehab, while over the past few years, drug policy officials in the U.S. have had to cope with three major developments: the medicalization and legalization of marijuana, the emergence of new synthetic drugs, and the abuse of potent prescription painkillers. Major media outlets have largely failed to high...
Source: Addiction Inbox - February 13, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs

No Meaningful Inclusion, No Community Living for NB Youth and Adults With Severe Autism Challenges
Resigchouche Regional Hospital Centre As an Autism Society New Brunswick representative I attended a meeting held at the Restigouche Regional Hospital Centre a few years ago to participate in a meeting to review the operations of the RRHC and to vote on its future, specifically whether to continue to operate or to close. I voted to continue to operate the RRHC. There were autistic adults who had been living there for many years. No alternative in New Bruns...
Source: Facing Autism in New Brunswick - February 13, 2013 Category: Autism Authors: Autism Reality NB Source Type: blogs

IVF and Indian society
India is a male-dominated, child (male child!)-obsessed society. When a couple faces infertility problem, it is the women are the ones who are blamed for their inability to get pregnant , and not the men. There are men who are reluctant to undergo infertility testing. There are mother-in-laws who adamantly deny the fact that their son could be infertile. The position of infertile women in Indian society is highly pitiable. They are generally viewed as being cursed as they are missing out on the ultimate blessing – motherhood ! Indian society is used to seeing women as baby-making machines. People believe that womanhood i...
Source: The Patient's Doctor - February 12, 2013 Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Tags: Health In vitro fertilisation India Family Reproductive Health ivf Clinics and Services Infertility Source Type: blogs

The Autism Connection
Should We Be Blaming Just Genes for the Increase in Autism? We can't blame our genes for this horrible disease anymore! What's causing the increase in Autism cases in children? The danger of having an autistic child is very real. According to the CDC about one out of every 100 children are born with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). But what is the cause of this horrible disease? For a long time scientists believed that autism is caused by bad genes. Until recently. Since 1980 there was a dramatic rise in the new cases of Autism. This was difficult to explain with bad genes, because if a disease is linked to gen...
Source: Doctor Kalitenko antiaging blog - February 12, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: admin Source Type: blogs

Preschool's Anvil Chorus
Andrew J. Coulson Act 2, scene 1 of Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore is marked by a lot Gypsy blacksmiths wailing away on their anvils. Sensibly enough, this has come to be called the “Anvil Chorus.” There is an equally clamorous chorus calling for universal federally-funded preschooling—one that president Obama may join this evening in his State of the Union address. It should be called the Anvil Chorus, too, because if it is successful it will tie an anvil ‘round the neck of early education and American taxpayers. The trouble with federal-government-funded preschooling is that we have 47 years of experience with...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Andrew J. Coulson Source Type: blogs

The Best Government Action on Climate Change Is No Government Action on Climate Change
Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger and Patrick J. Michaels Global Science Report is a weekly feature from the Center for the Study of Science, where we highlight one or two important new items in the scientific literature or the popular media. For broader and more technical perspectives, consult our monthly “Current Wisdom.” Many eyes will be on President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight watching to see how he follows his inauguration promise to “respond to the threat of climate change.” Rumors are flying that he will use his executive power to bypass Congress and further EPA efforts to regulate gr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Paul C. "Chip" Knappenberger, Patrick J. Michaels Source Type: blogs

Those Phantom Spending ‘Cuts’ from 2011
Tad DeHaven The Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold recently took a look at the $38 billion in spending cuts that Republicans and Democrats agreed to in 2011 in order to avoid a government shutdown. Fahrenthold estimates that $17 billion of those “cuts” were little more than budgetary gimmicks. For instance, $6 billion in authorized spending for the previous year’s decennial census were merely wiped off the books and counted as a “cut.” Fahrenthold’s piece is a good reminder of how unserious politicians from both parties are about cutting spending. But I want to make two additional points. First,...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Tad DeHaven Source Type: blogs

Not that the corporate media will notice . . .
or in any way change its conventional presentation of the "Tea Party" as a) a party of some kind and b) a grassroots movement of down home regular murkins who are fed up with big gummint because they believe in freedom, but it is of course a phony astroturf movement funded by the Koch brothers, which grew out of the phony smokers' rights movement with its associated science denialism funded by the tobacco industry.As I have said here many times, in the United States we do not have public political discourse organized around competing value systems, or competing analyses of facts in evidence. We have competing sets facts, c...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs

Google+ Hangout with ONC's Chief Scientist Doug Fridsma
ONC's Chief Scientist Doug Fridsma "hangs out" today at 12:30 p.m. EST ONC will host its first ever Google+ Hangout today at 12:30 EST. Doug Fridsma, ONC's Chief Science Officer and Director, Office of Science & Technology, will be chatting with healthcare IT thought leaders about ONC's interoperability strategy and the challenges the health IT community is facing. Make sure to tune in by selecting the following link! https://www.youtube.com/user/ONCHealthITHangouts
Source: Medicine and Technology by Dr. Joseph Kim - February 12, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Tags: google ONC health it Source Type: blogs

How Many People Participate In Medical Research?
This will probably not come as a shock, but just 11 percent of adults and only 5 percent of children in the US have ever participated in medical research, according to a recent survey. Yet, this is not due to ignorance – 64 percent of adults and 12 percent of parents of children younger than 18 years of age who have not participated in research reported they were, nonetheless, aware of research opportunities. Participation and awareness among adults were associated with higher income and education, older age, the presence of chronic conditions and living within 100 miles of four Clinical and Translational Science Aw...
Source: Pharmalot - February 12, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Ed Silverman Tags: Uncategorized Clinical Trials Medical Research Source Type: blogs

Why is it so Hard to Find Good Anti-aging Products?
Ktward’s question…Near as I can tell AHA and Retinol are still the anti-wrinkle standards. However, I’m seeing a lot of talk about peptides. And don’t get me wrong, I love love love Diane Keaton, but I don’t see any legit lit on whatever is the topical calcium she’s peddling. Should I also be incorporating some kind of peptide thing into my daily regimen? (Copper peptide looked promising, but Neutrogena has since discontinued that line so I guess it proved to be a dud – ?) I need some BB input; as a former marketing/advertising professional, I’m altogether predisposed to ig...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - February 12, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: thebeautybrains Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs

Internal Amplification Controls in Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction-Based Methods for Pathogen Detection
from Nigel Cook, Gabriel A de Ridder, Martin D'Agostino and Maureen B Taylor writing in Real-Time PCR in Food Science: Current Technology and Applications:Assays based on nucleic acid amplification are highly efficient, but they can be affected by the presence of matrix-derived substances which can interfere or prevent the reaction from performing correctly. Careful sample treatment must be applied/used to remove these inhibitory substances. However no sample treatment can be relied on completely, thus an amplification control should be employed to be able to verify that the assay has performed correctly. An internal ampli...
Source: Microbiology Blog: The weblog for microbiologists. - February 12, 2013 Category: Microbiology Source Type: blogs

FDA: Enrichment Strategies to Improve Efficiency of Drug Development
Conclusion Temple noted that there are some issues with predictive enrichment. One is that you always believe the characteristic you use to enrich predicts the good responders; it may not do this as well as you hope. So it’s very important to characterize the test that leads you to select those patients; then see whether it’s true that patients with the characteristic always (or most of the time) respond, and that patients without the characteristic don’t respond very much. An issue to consider in any enrichment design is how much you need to study the people who don’t have the enrichment characteristic...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 12, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs

Nice timing: Our paper on the Darwin's Finch genome is out today on Darwin's birthday
Birthday party for Darwin in 2009 Well, I assume this was on purpose from the folks at Biomed Central but not sure. Our paper on the genome of one of Darwin's Finches is out today in BMC Genomics: BMC Genomics | Abstract | Insights into the evolution of Darwin's finches from comparative analysis of the Geospiza magnirostris genome sequence. There is a long long long story behind this paper. Too long for me to write up right now. I wrote up some of the story for a Figshare posting of the genome data last year. “Darwin’s Finches” are a model system for the study of various aspects of evolut...
Source: The Tree of Life - February 12, 2013 Category: Medical Scientists Authors: Jonathan Eisen Source Type: blogs

Prof Montage 3 minute cardiology
The pleomorphic education revolution is upon us In the FOAMed age I am constantly amazed at the resourcefulness of medical educators globally to produce high quality, entertaining, thought-provoking, stimulating and controversial multimedia…for free. We are throwing off the shackles of peer review and boldly placing both feet in the anarchistic torrent of crowd-sourced education, feedback, commentary and response. As technology develops; broadband access to data improves and educators embrace the new medium – we will see an exponential growth in alternate teaching methods. Prof Montage is a cardiologist practi...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - February 11, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: Mike Cadogan Tags: Education eLearning Emergency Medicine Featured FOAMed Reviews Web Culture Website cardiac physiology Cardiology clinical epidemiology medical education Prof Montage ProfMontage Source Type: blogs

Galileo, Gopnik, and Liberalism
David Boaz Galileo was born 449 years ago, which is reason enough for the publication of several books about him in 2013. In the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik has a great review-essay about Galileo, his trial, and the new books. I’m intrigued by the argument he presents that Galileo could have avoided a lot of trouble if he’d been just a little less stubborn and impolitic. Gopnik defends “the originality of the scientific revolution.” He talks about Galileo’s authorship of “the most entertaining classic of science ever published.” He even throws in an apropos Milton Friedman reference. Perhaps mos...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - February 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: David Boaz Source Type: blogs

Driving Somewhere Beautiful
In 1973 the academic journal Science published an article called On Being Sane in Insane Places. It documented the findings of an experiment by psychologist David Rosenhan designed to test the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. The first part of Rosenhan’s study involved eight ‘sane’ people feigning auditory hallucinations to see if they could get committed into psychiatric institutions. What is interesting about the experiment is not the ease with which the participants successfully feigned mental illness, but the difficulty they had, once inside the system, of proving themselves sane. Although none of the participa...
Source: The Icarus Project - Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness - February 11, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Authors: Icarus Project Tags: Articles Source Type: blogs

The Problems with the U.S. Addiction Treatment System
Did you know that most addiction treatment specialists have little formal education or training in addiction? Fourteen states require only a high school diploma or a GED to become an addiction counselor; 10 require only an associate’s degree. But it gets worse — fully 20 states in the U.S. don’t require any degree, or don’t even require addictions counselors to be certified or licensed in any way. Is it any wonder then that many addiction or rehab programs still rely on an outdated model that’s directly dependent upon how long companies are typically reimbursed for treatment — 30 days? O...
Source: World of Psychology - February 11, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: John M. Grohol, PsyD Tags: Addiction General Research Treatment Addiction And Substance Abuse Addiction Center Addiction Counselor Addiction Treatment Addiction Treatment Centers Astronomical Prices Columbia University Counselors Discharge Patients Formal Source Type: blogs

Using Your Head: What is the Future of Brain Health? (Interview Part 1)
Much of healthcare delivery has traditionally been set-up to deal with a ‘brainless body’; yet we consistently complain that we cannot change patient and consumer behaviours and maintain adherence to treatment programmes. Healthcare systems are now recognising the limits of this model and that there are major benefits to better comprehending and engaging cognitive function: to better understand how we operate, why and how we make decisions, improve cognition so that people can better self-regulate, self-manage and take control, and finally that we need to do more to protect and maintain cognition in an increasingly ag...
Source: SharpBrains - February 11, 2013 Category: Neurologists Authors: David Coleiro Tags: Cognitive Neuroscience Health & Wellness Technology bio-medical Brain-Fitness Brain-health Brain-Training cognition cognitive-decline cognitive-function cognitive-performance Cognitive-Training dementia healthcare improve-cogni Source Type: blogs

NYU Longone Tries to Claw Back Market Share after the Sandy Debacle
Market share is a concept that all hospital executives understand very well. The long-term consequences of Sandy on some of the prestigious New York hospitals like NYU Longone are now becoming painfully clear (see: NYU Langone has reopened, but can it regain market share?). Here's an excerpt from a recent article about this topic: As of mid-January, most of NYU is up and running again, including the labor and delivery unit. But the question still looms whether NYU [Longone] will lose some of the patients and even doctors who sought refuge at NYU’s biggest competitors after the storm. If that happens, the storm...
Source: Lab Soft News - February 11, 2013 Category: Pathologists Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Hospital Executive Management Hospitals and Healthcare Delivery Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs

American Lung Association Protests Against the Promotion of Smoking Cessation; Why Does the ALA Want to Deny Smokers the Opportunity to Quit?
In an op-ed published in the Arizona Republic, the Southwest chapter of the American Lung Association has called for a federal ban on the television advertising of electronic cigarettes, protesting against an ad that appeared in the Phoenix area during the Super Bowl and urging the FDA to ban such ads in the future.The American Lung Association writes: "We were stunned to see that twice during the nation’s largest televised sporting events, the CBS affiliate in Phoenix aired a commercial that touted the use of e-cigarettes. ... Costs were not spared in the creation of this polished and professionally produced television ...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - February 11, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs

Finger wrinkles
You know that dramatically wrinkling that occurs when your fingers and and toes get wet?The classic explanation has been that such wrinkling is caused by osmosis. But if you think about it, why does it occur only on the palmar and plantar skin surfaces? My face doesn’t wrinkle when it’s wet. Well, OK, my face is always a bit wrinkled—wet or not.Some scientists are now thinking that this is not an osmotic effect but, instead, a nervous response to wetness. According to this latest theory, such a response helps us avoid slipping and injuring ourselves in wet conditions. It would also impro...
Source: The A and P Professor - February 11, 2013 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: Kevin Patton Tags: newtag Source Type: blogs

All Trials: working with the public to reform science
By Alice Bell A slightly surprising thing happened last weekend: an op-ed by Ben Goldacre on withholding clinical trial results became one of the most emailed pieces in the New York Times. Maybe it's not that much of a surprise: these are life-and-death issues even if they look like bureaucracy. But they are life-and-death issues that have traditionally been kept at some distance from the public. It's esoteric stuff, even for a skilled writer like Goldacre. And that's one of the most interesting things about Goldcare's latest book (just out in America) and the subsequent All Trials campaign: it takes what has previously ...
Source: PharmaGossip - February 11, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs

Why are doctors afraid to say we do not know ?
All the doctors will accept the fact that medicine is an imperfect science and that there are lots of gray zone areas in medicine . Most patients will not come to the doctor with the symptoms and signs the textbooks say they should ! There are lots of variations , and sometimes it is hard to be sure about what the diagnosis is - or what the right treatment is . If doctors are unsure, the honest course of action would be to share this uncertainty with patients - to let them know that there are areas of ignorance in medicine, but that based on our practical experience of many years and our collective wisdom, we can sti...
Source: The Patient's Doctor - February 10, 2013 Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Source Type: blogs

BAD Science or BAD Science Journalism? – A Response to Daniel Lakens
Two weeks ago there was a hot debate among Dutch Tweeps on “bad science, bad science journalism and bad science communication“. This debate was started and fueled by different Dutch blog posts on this topic.[1,4-6] A controversial post, with both fierce proponents and fierce opposition was the post by Daniel Lakens [1], an assistant professor [...]
Source: Laika's MedLibLog - February 10, 2013 Category: Medical Librarians Authors: laikaspoetnik Tags: Research Researchblogs Science Academic publishing applied cognitive psychology Delinquency Journals media Music News Media Peer review Press release Science communication Science journalism science journalist Social sciences Source Type: blogs

Fake Science: Protecting the Panda

Source: bjoern.brembs.net - a neuroscientist's blog : RSS feed of bjoern.brembs.net - February 10, 2013 Category: Neurologists Authors: bjoern Tags: news Source Type: blogs

TWiV 219: Fauci pharmacy
On episode #219 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent and Rich meet up with Anthony S. Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. You can find TWiV #219 at www.twiv.tv.
Source: virology blog - February 10, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: This Week in Virology AIDS Anthony S. Fauci hepatitis C virus HIV influenza niaid NIH SARS viral Source Type: blogs

Ideology, Purity, and Environment
From UC Berkeley Press: When it comes to climate change, deforestation and toxic waste, the assumption has been that conservative views on these topics are intractable. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests that such viewpoints can be changed after all, when the messages about the need to be better stewards of the land are couched in terms of fending off threats to the “purity” and “sanctity” of Earth and our bodies. A UC Berkeley study has found that while people who identified themselves as conservatives tend to be less concerned about the environment than their liberal counterpar...
Source: The Situationist - February 10, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: The Situationist Staff Tags: Environment Ideology Source Type: blogs

New Eyelash Growth Ingredients
Naturalista asks…Are these lash growth products a waste of money, or do they really work, and if so, what is the best product to buy? The Beauty Brains respond: Right now your options are very limited. We’ve blogged before about Latisse as an approved drug for enhancing eyelash growth (It’s based on a bimatoprost derivative.) However, the product does have the potential side effect of permanently increasing the brown coloration of your eye. As of right now, Latisse is the sole product approved by the FDA. However, I found an interesting study published by Shiseido that indicates a couple of other natur...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - February 10, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: thebeautybrains Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 11th 2013
Discussion - Latest Headlines from Fight Aging! - An Interview With Judith Campisi - Parkinson's Disease as Localized Garbage Catastrophe - An Actuarial Overview on Human Longevity and Mortality - A Popular Science Article on the Study of the Axolotl - Telomere Length as Biomarker of Somatic Redundancy - Being Overweight is Harmful at All Ages, In No Way Protective - Chromatin and Transposons in Senescent Cells - Gene Copy Number Vari...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 10, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

7 Things You Should Know about the Raw Food Diet
When I first transitioned to a raw food diet, I loved the results. I dropped more than twenty pounds of excess body fat. My skin cleared. I slept better, and my energy level skyrocketed. But I couldn’t stick with it. I had a lot of misconceptions about what a raw food diet should look like. I thought it had to be done at its most extreme to get the results I wanted. It took me a while, but I learned a few things that make eating raw in the real world a lot easier. 1. You don’t have to eat 100% raw to benefit from a raw food diet. Most raw food enthusiasts also include cooked veggies and cooked grains, like high-protei...
Source: PickTheBrain | Motivation and Self Improvement - February 9, 2013 Category: Life Coaches Authors: Candice Davis Tags: diet health and fitness self improvement pickthebrain raw food vegan vegetarian Source Type: blogs

Now #reading … (experiencing?)
Silent History This is not just a book — audio and pictures as well. I have only just downloaded it, so am still exploring. It is a medical thriller / science fiction story that takes place thirty or so years in the future, and documents a growing number of young children who are born starting around 2011 and grow up never speaking. Looks good so far. Filed under: books Tagged: book, reading, Silent History
Source: white pebble - February 9, 2013 Category: Cancer Authors: Patti Niehoff Tags: books reading Silent History Source Type: blogs

Does the Oil in Garnier Fructis Triple Nutrition Shampoo Do Anything?
Miss Monet must know…I was looking for a good conditioning and found Garnier Triple Nutrition shampoo. Why is oil is put in shampoo when its going to go down the drain because sulfates get rid of dirt and oil? The Beauty Brains respond: Garnier’s Fructis line (made my L’Oreal) was originally based on fruit acids. Over time they’ve expanded their product line to include new products like this Triple Nutrition shampoo. According to their website it’s based on “Fortified Fruit Science” which consists of “3 Nutritive Fruit Weightless Oils” Olive, Avocado and Shea. Nut...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - February 9, 2013 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: thebeautybrains Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs

A Common Ancestor Linking Humans With All Other Mammals
I'm not competent to evaluate the science behind the following, but it's an interesting story. Humankind’s common ancestor with other mammals may have been a roughly rat-size animal that weighed no more than a half a pound, had a long furry tail and lived on insects. In a comprehensive six-year study of the mammalian family tree, scientists have identified and reconstructed what they say is the most likely common ancestor of the many species on the most abundant and diverse...
Source: Dr. X's Free Associations - February 8, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: DrX Tags: Front Page Source Type: blogs