Archive for the ‘medical research’ Category

Podcast #99 – Mary Roach (Packing for Mars)

Saturday, August 28th, 2010

We interview Mary Roach, author of the bestselling science-humor book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void.  She’s also the author of Stiff (about human cadavers), Spook (the scientific inquest on life after death), and Bonk (the science of human sexuality).    Packing for Mars is both educational and laugh-out-loud funny.  It’s available in hardcover, audiobook, and for Kindle.

If you can’t get enough of Mary Roach (and let’s face it, who can?), John interviewed her back in 2005 at SciFiDimensions.com, and reviewed both Stiff and Spook.

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Podcast #91 – IT’S ALIVE

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

We talk with Christina L. Graves, a biology student (and prebiotic chemistry researcher) at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  Christina walks us through the recent announcement by the J. Craig Venter Institute that they have created a self-replicating, synthetic cell.  We also discuss the reaction to Venter’s news from religious groups like the Catholic Church, Creation Ministries International, and even the Raelians.

Briefly mentioned: The new Adrien Brody/Sarah Polley film Splice, a sci-fi-horror shocker about genetic engineering gone very very wrong.

Glossary of terms:

Abiogenesis – the theory of how life on Earth could have arisen from inanimate matter.

Prebiotic Chemistry – the field of study involving the spontaneous chemical reactions which may have led to the formation of biomolecules and/or life on early Earth.

Stanley Miller (1930-2007) – an American chemist and biologist who is known for his studies into the origin of life, particularly the Miller-Urey experiment which demonstrated that organic compounds can be created by fairly simple physical processes from inorganic substances.

Atheopath – A neologism, coined by Creation Ministries International’s Jonathan Sarfati and used (as far as we can tell) by no one else, which combines the word “atheist” and the suffix “-path” (”one afflicted by a specified disorder”) to create a word meaning something like “one afflicted by atheism.”  Apparently it’s intended to echo scary words like sociopath and psychopath.  Perhaps we should coin the counter-term “theopath.”

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Podcast #80 – Simon Singh

Monday, February 8th, 2010

We interview science journalist Simon Singh, co-author (with Dr. Edzard Ernst) of Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine (which both John and David highly recommend).  For more about Simon visit SimonSingh.net.  Please also visit LibelReform.org, a website devoted to changing the United Kingdom’s disgraceful libel laws (Simon is currently in the midst of a court battle with the British Chiropractic Association over his reporting on chiropractic treatment of children in the UK’s Guardian newspaper.)

Trick or Treatment is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Continuing this episodes alternative medicine theme, we take a look at aromatherapy.  Can smells trigger the body’s healing ability, or do they offer only a temporary placebo?

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DVR Alert: Dawkins and Collins on Colbert

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

While it would have been super-cool to have Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins on The Colbert Report at the same time, we’ll have to settle for them one-at-a-time.  Dawkins (author of the new book The Greatest Show on Earth) will be on tonight at 11:30PM Eastern, while Francis “Three Waterfalls” Collins (the new head of the National Institutes of Health) will appear Thursday night.

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Gran Torino, MD

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

I think I’ve figured out how they could pull off a sequel to the recent film Gran Torino: as the new movie opens, Clint Eastwood’s  über-curmudgeon Walt Kowalski lies in intensive care, riddled with bullet holes but not dead.  Grimacing, he opens his eyes.  Standing at his bedside is a horde of his Hmong neighbors, looks of concern on their faces.  With them is a Hmong shaman, a large rooster tucked under one arm and a shit-eating grin on his face.

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Why should the health care debate be any different?

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

An analysis published by LiveScience shows that the “Health Care Debate Based on Lack of Logic.”  Should this be a surprise?  Nearly every political debate is rife with faulty logic: working backwards from conclusions, ad hominems, credulous acceptance of outrageous urban legends, emotional attachment to arguments that are demonstrably false, dismissing data that disproves an argument while crowing over data that supports it.  And the stupidity is spread on both sides of the political aisle; i.e. both Democrats and Republicans do it all the time.  It’s enough to drive me to despair.  I only hope that self-identified atheists/freethinkers/skeptics guard themselves against these errors and embrace rationalism across the board.

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Podcast #63 – Efficacy of Prayer

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

It’s the p-p-p-p-power of prayer!  Or not.  We look at several anecdotes that point toward the efficacy (or inefficacy) of intercessory prayer, including:

  • The tragic cases of two teenage girls (one in TN, one in KY), both of whom suffered terrible injuries.  One recovered (more or less), the other is maimed for life.  Both were the beneficiaries of  the prayers of hundreds.  Why did God heal one and snub the other???  We’ll give you a hint: the answer can be found at www.whywontgodhealamputees.com.
  • The Miracle of Colwich Man – A Kansas man was healed after thousands of parishioners prayed to the late Father Emil Kapaun, a Korean War hero who’s currently under “skeptical” investigation by the Vatican for possible sainthood.
  • The Case of the Shriveling Glacier – Faithful Catholics in the Swiss towns of Fiesch and Feischertal have prayed for centuries that God protect them from the wintertime advance of the Aletsch Glacier.  Now the Aletsch is rapidly receding due to global warming, so now the townsfolk are seeking the Pope’s permission to reverse the prayer.

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Peter Singer on healthcare rationing

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

I admit I’m not as read-up as I should be on the current healthcare controversy, but I’m always amused at people who cite the spectre of “rationing” in their opposition to any proposed public healthcare system.  It’s undeniable that any healthcare system (government-run or private-run) is going to have a ceiling on expenditures, which means somebody somewhere is going to be denied some kind of treatment at some point (otherwise healthcare would become a bottomless pit of spending as doctors and hospitals try to spend whatever it takes to keep every single patient alive for as long as possible).  It’s also undeniable that some bureaucrat (be she a civil servant or private sector pencil-pusher) is going to have a say in the “rationing” decision.  It’s already a reality, and adding the government as a player at the medical table won’t change the nature of that beast.

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The Strange Case of Francis Collins

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

The freethought bloggerati has been all atwitter for the last few weeks in response to President Obama’s appointment of Francis “Three Waterfalls” Collins to head the National Institutes of Health.  Conservative pundits say we’re crying foul only because Collins is a Christian.  Sam Harris, expanding on his recent New York Times essay, has just posted a more detailed explanation in “The Strange Case of Francis Collins” at his Reason Project website.

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Sam Harris on Francis Collins

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Sam Harris contributed an op-ed to the New York Times over the weekend, in which he expresses the concerns of the freethought community and science advocates over President Obama’s naming of Francis Collins as head of the National Institutes of Health.

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