Archive for March, 2008
Recently, adverts for a service called NutriProfile sprang up through the press. Full page ads in national newspapers promised free “personalised nutrition and lifestyle recommendations” by simply by filling out a lengthy online questionnaire. Sounds great, except that NutriProfile is run by HealthSpan, a company that sells vitamins and nutritional supplements!
So, hands up who thinks that, no matter how you answer the questions, you’ll be recommended to buy some pills from HealthSpan? Being a lazy man, I forwarded the case to the reverent David Colquhoun at Improbable Science, who has done an excellent investigation of the scam. I thought David would especially like this case as the ‘nutritional experts’ who are behind the recommendations includes none other than Ann Walker, the woman who tried to shut down Improbable Science after an exposé of her dodgy herbal advice.
There’s no word yet on whether the Universities of Nottingham, Reading, and the London Metropolitan University know that they are being used as an implicit endorsement on NutriProfile’s marketing materials.
For a full and interesting tour of NutriProfile’s weird world of nutritional profiling, see David’s article here.
March 9th, 2008
Thanks to Brian for sending me a link to Hemmings Auto Blogs, who have up some fine pictures of this cracking (apparently) two-wheeled mine-clearing tank, known as the NK-101 Minenraumer to its German contemporaries.
See more information about the tank and its background here. If you’d like this, you’ll love Jake Layall’s Dr Doom-esque RIOT wheel.
March 7th, 2008
Live out your Mendelian fantasies with Seed, a neat little game from AddictingGames. Put in charge of several flowers, you can choose which to cross and which to plant out, with mutations occurring along the way. Starting with a fairly boring six-petalled pink flower, you can create any number of multi-hued wonder plants by a careful combination of cross-breeding and cloning.
Seriously, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. And if you are the hacking type, the interface allows you to inspect your plant’s ‘DNA’ - and by replacing the computer-calculated DNA with your own values, you can hardwire a plant for awesomeness.
Link
March 7th, 2008
This looks pretty tasty. I believe it’s produced by the Fermi National Accelerator Lab in the US.
Just wait until the Large Hadron Collider in Europe gets up and running - this’ll be their Pepsi to our Coke.
March 6th, 2008
Robert Johnston at the First Post has an excellent short piece debunking popular myths about organic food. Essential knowledge to deflate those self-righteous foodies in your life.
Interest groups claim that organic food is healthier and better for the environment, but many of such claims are myths.
• Myth No. 1: Organic food is healthier.
Actually, scientific studies show more health risks from organic food than conventional food. This month in California, for instance, Salmonella was found in organic fertilisers which could contaminate fruit and vegetables.
In 2003, Dutch scientists established that organic chickens and conventional birds had the same rate of infection with Salmonella even though many organic farmers vaccinate their chickens against the bug.
Link to the full article
Thanks, Aarathi!
March 5th, 2008
A warning to companies who sell their product on worthless clinical trials:
The company also said it had scientific evidence to support its marketing pitch. But the lawsuit that resulted in the settlement this week was sparked by an ABC News report last year saying that the clinical trial the company offered as proof of the product’s effectiveness was highly dubious:
Airborne said that a double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with “care and professionalism” by a company specializing in clinical trial management, GNG Pharmaceutical Services.
GNG is actually a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne study. There was no clinic, no scientists and no doctors. The man who ran things said he had lots of clinical trial experience. He added that he had a degree from Indiana University, but the school says he never graduated.
Read the full story at the New York Times
March 5th, 2008
The next item I’d like to add to my cabinet of scientific curiosities (currently housing a formicarium, solar mill and model skeleton) is definitely a few Dutch Tears - also known as Prince Rupert’s Drops. Allegedly introduced to the court of Charles I by their namesake, these are small tear-drop shaped lumps of glass with incredible properties. Produced by dripping molten glass into cold water, the drops are incredibly strong at the round end - strong enough to withstand being hit with a hammer. However, the slightest damage to the long tail will make the entire glass drop explode. What’s the secret? These drops are an example of tempered glass - the rapid cooling produces an outer layer under great tension, and an inner layer under great compression. One small crack is all it takes to release the energy.
The same principal allows you to shatter a car window with a tiny fragment of porcelain.
March 3rd, 2008
Here’s a delightful video illustrating just one example of the exciting menageire of organisms that set up residence within the human body (which, for example, contains more bacterial cells than human ones). This footage apparently shows a colony of Trichuris trichiura, or whipworms, that have infested some poor soul’s large intestine. I doubt the ‘fact’ at the beginning is accurate (especially as these worms aren’t in the stomach), but as small infestations are symptomless, it’s not impossible that you have some inside you right now.
Wikipedia’s advice on avoiding these worms? “Don’t eat dirt.”
March 2nd, 2008
Next Posts