Oh no! Someone told him about Emzymes!

The biomedical community is in biiiiig trouble now. Their secret is out. A "shaman" figured out why people age, die, feel old, and gradually get discoloured teeth. It's emzymes.



According to his theory, which I must stress is 100% true, the body has a finite emzyme resource. Eventually, you will run out of your precious bodily fluidsemzymes and begin to age. He says most people run out at 25, although some very lucky people run out in their 30s.

We're done. Science has been revealed as a shallow hoax to cover up our emzyme technology. Now that he has teh_truth, we might as well pack it in.

Cellphones and Cancer again?

There's a book out there by the name of "Disconnect" by Dr. Devra Davis, of U. Pittsburgh, that has been making rounds in the lay print due to the sensationalist claims it makes about cellphones and cancer. You've all probably heard about the alleged link between cellphones and cancer where people claim, on the thinnest of mechanistic argument, that cell phones can cause brain tumours. Various research groups have then been looking at whether or not there's a cancer risk primarily through observational studies, since it's very difficult to tell someone how much they should talk on their cellphone for the next x years, and the results have been the messy mix of results that you typically find if either there is no real effect, or if the effect is so subtle as to be nearly negligible.

Personally, I'm inclined to the "No Effect" camp a little more. Here's why: It's all about mechanism. It sounds dangerous when you hear about EM radiation and all that, but realize your toaster gives off EM radiation. So does the sun. And light bulbs. And... well, about everything in the office, these days. You, right now, are giving off radiation! But it really, really doesn't matter. The wavelength of the EM radiation needs to be the right length to excite chemical bonds and cause them to break, form, etc. We'd call such wavelengths "ionizing radiation," and cellphones do not give off ionizing radiation. The best they could do is make your head slightly warmer. This is in contrast with something we know gives off ionizing radiation - the Sun.

The Dr. Davis harps on how "Industry Knows," like there's some massive cover-up of the topic, and points to disclaimers in the fine print of cell phone manuals warning not to keep the phones too close. Ever heard of a CYA? The legal evidence of effect in a law suit is a far lower bar than the rigour demanded by scientist. Companies can be, and have been, sued for things that were later shown to be totally harmless upon actual study. All Nokia needs is to be sued for an ungodly amount by someone who has a brain tumour from another source to really ruin their day, and the fine print lets them say, "Well you didn't use the phone as we instructed."

One other thing I would like to note - the news stories are coming off making Dr. Davis look like some sort of cancer expert. This is interesting, because to the best of my google scholar abilities, as well as looking at her public CV, I can one peer reviewed paper on cell phones and cancer. It looks like she's spent most of her time recently tilting at aspartame (which to be honest, sends up a whole lot of red flags in my mind). Now, I won't begrudge her the right to write a book - I have zero publications on cell phones and cancer - but the Times and other journalists should know that one study does not an expert make.

Photo credit.

He's not anti-science. He's just anti-science.

Here's a gambit you might recognize:

"Just because you are anti-evolution doesn’t mean you are anti-science," [John May] said. "I deeply respect science [...]"

It's a similar gambit to the "I have tons of black friends" gambit, or sentences that go "I'm not a homophobe, but I'm about to say they sleep with Satan himself." Sure he deeply respects science... as long as you're not talking about palaeontology, biology, zoology, phylogeography, or any of the other fields that don't make a lick of sense without invoking evolution. Normally, it's easy enough to ignore a crank, or point out he is a crank - and John May is a crank - but the problem comes from the fact that he has backing from Ireland's science minister.

Well, there's a rub.

Mister Lenihan backed out after it came out that John May ran some torrid magazine at some point. To be honest, I have less problems with that than he was backing this vacuous crap to begin with. After all, politicians are always in some sex-scandal or another. But a Science Minister who endorses creationism is a bit like a pacifist general, or a minister for finance who never really could do the sums, and thinks poplar leaves are accepted as a form of currency. It's a sign you might have problems.

A newly old brand of crazy?

I was going to write about the big behav-ecol kerfluffle that's stemming from E.O. Wilson's decision to go off the deep end (gee, I wonder where Tuuk stands?), but time has conspired against me. I didn't have enough time to write it up today, and probably want to put it off so I have a chance to re-read the paper. It's familiar - I was there for a lecture previewing the arguments about 6 years ago (?) at the University of Utah.

Instead, here's a brand of crazy I had no clue existed. There are people out there who dispute germ theory? Seriously? Are we going back to the witch based theory of disease?

Daily Mail takes a trip into National Enquirerer territory.

A woman in North London claims she is a living magnet, says the Daily Mail. Oh, so many things I could say to that. "She has a magnetic personality?" "I can't see what drew the reporter to write this story." "She's definitely got a large chunk of ferromagnetic material between her ears, that's for sure." See? The possibilities are endless.

Magnets don't work that way. Magnets are definitely not controlled by hormones. But we shouldn't expect better from the Daily Mail, I guess. As someone once quipped - "The Daily Mail - because throwing feces was outlawed as a form of journalism."

Daily Mail:

But you started out so well!

What colour is the colour for little girls? Well, if you were raised in a "Western" context, the answer is really simple. It's pink, duh. But if you think about it, there's no reason why pink should be for little girls per se, or why boys have blue. Why can't girls have brown, and boys have tangerine? It's just as logical as pink for girls, blue for boys. And I like the colour tangerine. And the fruit isn't half bad, either.

If the colours are arbirary, have they ever been different? Well, it turns out, yes, in fact they have:

The Sunday Sentinal, an American newspaper, in 1914 advised mothers: “If you like the color note on the little one’s garments, use pink for the boy and blue for the girl, if you are a follower of convention” (March 29, 1914).

Similarly, Ladies Home Journal informed: “There has been a great diversity of opinion on the subject, but the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl” (June, 1918).

Alas, no tangerine for boys, but Pink is definitely a manly colour. Who can argue with logic such as theirs? And note the dates: 1918 was not a very long time ago, in the grand scheme of things.

As you can probably guess, I'm quoting from a paper on the subject, which started out so great as it goes into the history, and the flip-flop somewhere in the early-mid 1900s. Oh, but it started out so great, ends in a great big wallow in Evolutionary Psychology. Evo-Psych can be a good tool for exploring behaviour, when employed properly, and in a comparative context. It tries to explain human behaviour in an evolutionary (often adaptive) context, bringing examples from our past.

But often, when it's implemented, it's vacuous nonsense. There's nothing to it. It's a lovely story that sounds great, but is ultimately untestable. They're sometimes called "Just So" stories, echoing a bit of the lack of rigour to them (and referencing a child's book). Why do humans sneeze when they go out into the light? Because it helped to clear our noses in our cave days. It's just so. This pseudoscience is rightly derrided. And Frassanito and Pettorini dive into it deep:

A recent argument proposes a biological basis, connected to evolved sex differences in specialized visual pathways that allows females to better discriminate red wavelengths. The hunter–gatherer theory proposes that female brains should be specialized for gathering-related tasks and is supported by studies of visual abilities [13]. Tricromacy and the second red–green system (L–M opponent channel) are “modern” adaptations in primate evolution thought to have evolved to facilitate the identification of ripe, yellow fruit or edible red leaves embedded in green foliage [12]. It is therefore plausible that, in specializing for gathering, the female brain honed the trichromatic adaptations (and developed more the P-cell pathway of vision), and these underpin the female preference for objects reddish. Research on foraging in contemporary nonhuman primates [5] supports this hypothesis. Whereas discrimination of red wavelengths appears to facilitate identification of plant food, a preference for red or pink appears to have an advantage for successful female reproduction. This preference for reddish-pink is thought to exist because infant faces compared to adult ones are reddish-pink, and red or pink may signal approach behaviors that enhance infant survival [7]

Where do I begin with that? First of all, it assumes a sexual segregation in hunting/gathering. Did women gather more than men? I'll dispute this in a moment, but let's assume for a moment that they did. So selection would favour females who had a red-preference. But. There is no down side to males inheriting this preference too. There's no reason for it to become sex-linked. This is good, because it may be highly difficult for such a behaviour to become sex linked! It would need to become tied to some sexually differentiated system, and this adds an additional layer of complexity. No one would deny that sex based differences in the male and female brains exist, but most of the big ones are older differences (such as mate preference).

And that assumes there was sexual segregation in labour! I had the good fortune of studying under Dennis Bramble for a short while, and he'd reported that in his studies of human adaptation to cursoriality (running), he found no sex differences for the middle percentiles. The elite athletes have a sex difference, but athletes are, by definition, weird. They're not normal. He reported to his class there was no sex difference human running energetics until some point deep into pregnancy (I don't recall the exact point, but it surprised me). As cursorial mammals, there is a minimum of sex-based differences. So much for evolved sexual segregation of labour!

It's worth nothing that [5] doesn't actually support their hypothesis AT ALL. There is no mention of sex based differences. At all. Anywhere. How does that support them? They might argue "Well, human (American) males don't show the preference! Ergo, there has been differentiation." Yes, but how many human males in America actively forage? The trait is superfluous, so if it is under cultural control, it could vanish without anyone being harmed. In fact, the sexual dimorphism in "Westerners" suggests that it is not an evolved characteristic, in light of our primate relatives!

So, where the heck is their evidence?

Frassanito, P., & Pettorini, B. (2008). Pink and blue: the color of gender Child's Nervous System, 24 (8), 881-882 DOI: 10.1007/s00381-007-0559-3

From the Wasted Money department

Austria has the same problems that every other country has - some roads are dangerous, and there are too many motor accidents on them. Most of the time, people send in civil engineers to think how they can rout traffic to minimize accidents, or change the roads to make accidents less likely (or more survivable). When I first moved into Fairbanks, I moved to the corner of Geist and University, one of the most accident prone intersections in the state, so I'm well familiar with the concept.

Well Austria isn't bound by such conventional thinking. Why send in civil engineers, they thought, when they could send in a team of crack druids to fix the problem. (Yes, Druids).

The team - which has secretly been working for Austrian authorities for two years - is said to have reduced fatal accidents at one notorious crash site to zero after restoring its "terrestrial radiation."

Chief engineer Harald Dirnbacher from Austria's motorway authority ASFINAG explained: ""We were really sceptical at first and certainly didn't want people to know what we were doing, so we kept it secret."

Good call on that. You wouldn't want anyone making fun of you for sending in Druids to move energy about, instead of taking a more practical approach. That would just be intolerable.

I especially love this bit:

But the druids warn that they could be fighting a losing battle as the biggest cause of radiation disruption is mobile phone masts.

I wonder if they ever met this guy.

Austria:

Rom's F/C shown not to work.

I suppose I'm one of those awful sceptics that people frown at. The serious sort who are no fun to be around. The ones that tell you there's no ghost, just some creaky plumbing and an old log house. Or that's how people often frame it. Truth be told, I wish there was magical cures, ESP, and all that. It sure would make life better, wouldn't it?

I have the same mixed feelings about the story of the Belgian who used Facilitated Communication to allegedly talk, after being in a coma for 23 years. Briefly, a doctor argued that he's not in a coma, but fully awake and aware based on fMRI findings (And we know what my opinion of fMRI is...). He then was paired with a Facilitated Communication therapist who moved his finger from key to key, allegedly allowing him to talk. However, when they tested it, the doctor found the patient couldn't tell him anything the FC therapist didn't know.

The Guardian would have you believe that people like me are crowing over this. I'm not. The family has been through a hell of a lot, and now they've been kicked yet again. It's entirely possible that the FC therapist thinks what she was doing was legitimate. They often do - it exploits subconscious effects, not unlike the Ouija board. She, too, has probably had the rug yanked out from under her.

The only moral of the story I can find here is that a slow, methodical approach, while unsatisfying to families, is the best way to go. I can't think of any silver lining for the family, who have obviously been through enough.

Corn Syrup ads?

Apparently, there's a series of ads out there by the Corn Syrup lobby, telling us all that there's absolutely nothing wrong with their product, no sir. Here's one of them.




Well, let me fill in what the other lady couldn't. I'm not an expert, but I worked with an expert who was conducting a study when I was back in Utah. I did a lot of lurn'n. To begin with, I was sceptical - I'm just a sceptical guy, in general. But gradually, the guy doing the study won me over with evidence.
So, here we go: What's wrong with HFCS? High Fructose Corn Syrup engages different metabolic pathways than other, more complex carbohydrates. It's metabolized differently, and has been linked to lower general health in mouse experiments. In human studies, there is evidence suggesting that linking comparable amounts of HFCS and other carbohydrates, people are more prone to obesity on the HFCS diets. Is HFCS the sole source of the obesity epidemic? No one claims that. However, it may be a large contributing factor. Complex carbohydrates are better for you.

And the idea that HFCS is 100% natural is absurd. It's refined. And even if it wasn't refined, being natural is no great boon. Ebola virus is natural, but you don't see people advocating contracting it.

About this ad campaign, I say this:

Two hypotheses

First hypothesis - there is some evil terrorist or Muslim evangelist targeting little girls through patterns in baby babble, because we all know young girls love to repeat baby babble to themselves. There is a conspiracy by Nintendo to cover up this ebil do-er's doings. This one, brave woman is standing up to the system. Standing up to The Man.

Second hypothesis - Pareidolia strikes again. Both the doll and the computer game bought stock sound tapes from the same company - you notice this all the time, when you start to listen for it in movies (there seems to be only a few different variants of `shell casings bouncing` recorded). The woman is an overprotective wackaloon.

Occam's razor says we should go with the hypothesis that makes the least undemonstrated assumptions. One hypothesis is full of unfounded assumptions. The other full of stuff we see everywhere else. I'll let you pick which is which.

Repost: What the heck is up with Luna Bars?

Here's an old post I dug up from my previous blog, that I think a couple of you folks would find interesting. It also gets me off the hook for writing a post for a whole day. Score!

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I should be getting my notebook up to snuff, so I can hand it over for a data review tomorrow. Instead, I'm answering that age old (okay, 3 years old) question that's plagued many a backacker: What the hell is up with Luna bars?

They market them as the energy bar for women, but as far as anyone can tell with a casual inspection, there's squat all different between them and normal energy bars. An inspection of their literature reveals that Luna bars are "Specifically formulated to provide women with the nutrients that are often harder for them to get." Further review reveals that they include, in this list, folic acid, soy protein, calcium, and 'vitamins and minerals' (How nebulous does that get?). While I'm not a nutritionist - I never had the required lobotomy performed - I feel it's safe to categorically say that Soy Protein is not a required nutrient by any stretch. And I should strongly question as to whether soy protein is more bio-available specifically for women, thought an attempt at a search on this subject through the usual databases showed no scientific articles suggesting or disproving this (I would argue that this, however, is not lack of evidence, but evidence of lack).

What of folic acid? While the amount of folic acid in Luna bars is higher than several flavours of traditional Clif Bars (used for comparison, as they have a related manufacturer), the crux of the problem becomes the fact folic acid requirements for adults over 19 are, according Suitor and Bailey (Dietary folate equivalents: interpretation and application. J Am Diet Assoc. 2000 Jan;100(1): pp.88-94), identical, unless one is currently pregnant or nursing, at which there's an increased need. Therefore, while there is less folic acid in select flavours of Clif Bars, both genders are at a loss.

The difference in Calcium between most energy bars and Luna bars is similarly barely worth noting. In fact, while Clif Bars seemed to contain slightly less, on average, several groups of Power Bars contained significantly (assuming 33% variance for either, p=.05) greater dosages of calcium (Not to mention I rather like the PowerBar Harvest Toffee Chocolate Chip flavour :d).

Compared to Clif Bars, the largest difference between them and Luna are 1) caloric density (2.7 cal/gram wt. vs. 3.9 cal/gram) and 2) more vitamins overall. This difference, however, disappears when one compares Luna to other brands. It is my firm opinion, barring the inclusion of additional information currently not in my possession, that there is no additional benefit for women by eating Luna bars over other energy bars on the market.

And to the men: Yes, they're safe to eat (And a couple of the blends are nice!). If anyone questions why you're eating a 'women's' energy bar, point out it's pretty much the exact same thing as a Boulder Bar, except with more pastels on the wrapper.

You're kidding me, right?

I promise to do some science posts soon. This is natural-resources related, so I feel it's kosher. ;)

My favourite moonbats, PETA, have engaged in another campaing more to show what absolute idiots they are compared to a ward full of decapitation victims. They're engaged in a campaign to rename Fish 'Sea Kittens.'

Pardon me, but were you born a flaming idiot, or did you have to work hard to become this stupid?

Peta writes,

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You've done enough damage, buddy. We've got it from here. And we're going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it's time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?

The stupid. It burns.
Why stop there, I wonder? I mean, if you're goign to be absurd, go all out! Let's rename Cows `your daughter's puppies.` Who would possibly want to eat their daughter's puppies? And milking them, dear god, that just sounds wrong! But we can go further, folks! Let's rename asparagus `Human Babies!` No one in their right mind could eat a plate full of deep fried, beer battered Human Babies! We must stop the slaughter at once!

For the record? I don't advocate fishing for people's pet fish, just like I don't advocate killing people's kittens. If you release your fish into the stream out back, or let your kitten run free in the wild, all bets are off - it becomes an imparitive to capture that animal, to control an invasive species. But in your aquarium or livingroom floor, either are safe.

Well, actually, if you have a kitten in an aquarium, the cat has some breathing problems.

What's so ironic about this bit of bilge from these Domestic Terrorist jerkwads, is that PETA is for total animal liberation. They don't want you to own pets, period. They oppose the very institution of animal ownership. So, while we're talking about kittens, now might be a nice time to mention how PETA wants to prevent you from ever owning a Kitten in the first place.
I'll throw out the usual bit of PETA hypocracy here, about how PETA kills animals while lecturing us about how killing fish is wrong.

PETA - now with 90% more lying

In New Jersey, PETA has unveiled an ad campaign telling parents of Autistic kids that they are to blame for their child's autism (great conversation starter right there!) by... wait for it... employing cruelty to animals. Bamn! You didn't see that coming! The campaign posits that parents who give their children milk are to blame. Which would be terrible, given how big dairy is in the US, except that it's entirely not true.

PETA continues to boldly show that they won't let trifle things like facts get in the way of their goal - total animal `liberation.` And here you thought only the Anti-Vaccination disease mongers could appeal to a disease to try and push through their luddite views on health technology.

Hucksterism in Alaska is alive and well

Articles like this worry me. They take a load of evidence-less, pseudo-scientific bilk from someone, and proceed to vomit it up on command. When we take conventional medicine, we demand it pass a level of evidence that proves, within a shadow of a doubt, that it does what it claims it does. Sure, there are occasional problems, like Vioxx, but the speed with which that was corrected demonstrates how powerfully self-correcting medicine is. When's the last time you heard of a herb was pulled from use because it wasn't effective? And believe me, it's not for an abundance of effectivity.

This one bit they let pass without even a blink.

It hasn’t always been the case. Often traditional healing was confused with shamanism and frowned upon by the Western medical world. Mala draws a clear distinction between the two, the former being a less supernatural version of healing that uses plants, spirituality, sweat baths, touch and story telling to treat people.

Emphasis my own. OH. I see, it's not supernatural, it's merely spiritual. I see the difference. If it's spiritual, it's not supernatural. That makes perfect sense. It's not dark, it's just very devoid of light.

Forgive me if I'd rather get more physicians assistants and dentists out into the bush; New York and California can keep their snake oil salesmen. These people are doing it right, helping people continue eating subsistence foods even when stricken by cancer. That's how you bridge, not hucksterism.

Could we get at least a little incredulity from the Daily Minor News? Or is that too much to ask?

The state of Yeti Research!

There's some good news for bigfoot researchers, despite yesterday's blow to the field. The evidence for bigfoot is still overwhelming, and thanks to Dave Coltman, that evidence has been brought to peer-reviewed journals for scrutiny by the scientific world at large.

Dave Coltman is a researcher in UA: Edmonton, who specializes in Bighorn Sheep and other closely mountain ungulates. His research on the effects of full curl hunting was amazing and revelatory. In my niche of the research community, I'd recognize him as a good scientist - so when he published a molecular study of a hairyman, I took note!

In this study, they took possession of hairs collected from a big-foot researcher in The Yukon (Teslin, YT). There's a possibility that there was cross contamination, as the hairs were sent to a technician for the Yukon Department of Environment, before it arrived in the author's possession. Coltman and Davis then extracted DNA from the hair much like you would with any other hair - Qiagen has a popular DNA extraction kit, and that's exactly what they used. Then, using PCR, they amplified a region of the Mitocondrial Genome known as the D-Loop - it's a region of DNA that shows good diversity, and makes a great tool for analysis. They took this small region and compared it to other species. They then took those sequences closest to it, and compared them to decide who's closely related to whom.

This process is called phylogenetics. Molecular phylogenetics itself is complex, but its roots are very simple. It's driven by the idea that you can reconstruct relationships by tracking mutations. Say you start with a sequence back in time:

ACGACGT

Now this Pika that has the sequence has a lot of similar baby Pikas with identical sequences, except one, who has a miiiiinor mutation. So now you have

ACGACGT (Group1) ACGTCGT (group2)

Now both groups of Pikas grow up to be big, strong Pikas (except for the ones that get turned into parkas. :p) and they have baby Pikas of their own. Both groups have mutations with a small number.

ACGACGT (Group1) ACGTCGT (group2)
ACGACCT (Group3) TCGTCGT (group4)

Now a wildlife biologist goes through and samples all the Pikas. By comparing the sequences, you can tell which groups begat who by looking for a variety of things. One popular approach is to make a tree that has a minimum number of changes. Similar things end up getting lumped with similar things.

That's a phylogram. By the branching pattern, you can see who's closely related to who - group 4 and 2; groups 1 and 3. It's impossible to tell who is the most 'basal,' or earliest, group on this one, but often you can. And that's the basics of doing phylogenetics! Isn't that easy? Sure, there's complexities, and it can get real ugly, but the basis of the field is really nice and easy - anyone could get into it! Just replace `generations of pikas` with larger periods of time - usually hunderds of generations for useful mutations to acrue - and you've got it.

Now! That little bit of explanation out of the way, what did Coltman and Davis find? Why, they found this!
There's only one sane explanation for this data, of course: Bigfoot is a highly evolved, upright, bipedal bison. Obviously, the hairs couldn't have come from anything other than an honest to goodness Sasquatch, because they were collected by expert witnesses! The identification is 100%. All this time thinking that Sasquatch was a primate, we were way off the mark. Truely, this finding will rock the world!

Alas, Coltman disagrees with me. He writes,

There are several possible explanations for these results. First, as suggested from molecular analysis of hair from a suspected Yeti [1], the Sasquatch might be a highly elusive ungulate that exhibits surprising morpho- logical convergence with primates. Alternately, the hair might have originated from a real bison and be unrelated to the Sasquatch. Parsimony would favor the second interpretation, in which case, the identity and taxonomy of this enigmatic and elusive creature remains a mystery.

What foolishness is this? He, alas, is Moses. He has brought us to the promised land of Yeti research, but he is unable to see it for what it is: An obvious sign that there are hyper-evolved bison wandering around. One day, I hope he sees the error of his ways, and joins the winning team.

A whole herd of Yeti, grazing in the Yukon Territory.
Picture of these placid giants by yours truely.

Coltman, D., and Davis, C. (2006). Molecular cryptozoology meets the Sasquatch. Trends in Ecology and Evolution (21):2. pp 60-61.

Bigfoot made of unusual proteins.

A week or two ago, when the story broke, it was trumpeted to the high heavens: Bigfoot was found! All the bigfoot hunters were swaggering around like that one pirate from that Disney Pirates movie they made all the rotten sequels for. "Ha!"so many of them went. "Look who's red faced now!"

So when it turned out that the hairyman/sasquatch they found was a rubber gorilla suit? They got unusually quiet. Strangely, the newspapers aren't covering it quite as much, either. I guess `AP and NYT got taken in by two guys and a 20 dollar costume` doesn't make a good headline. But in true sasquatch researcher style, they should have concluded that sasquatch is actually hollow, and closely related to the rubber tree! Parsimony demands nothing less as a conclusion!

Will hairyman ever be found? Maybe! I give it a probability of p less than 1x10^-7! I'm generous, though, and I'm willing to give the bigfoot researchers much better odds with other things: p greater than .95 that they'll go and make fools of themselves again in the future. O:)