Journey through a Burning Mind

Greetings from Tokyo!

Stavros — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:22:41 +0000

Greetings to all of my (three) readers from Kawasaki, Tokyo! I am here on business with Fujitsu for a week, and it's proving a great experience thus far. This is a crazy, crazy city...

If you keep repeating it you might convince yourself… IDiot…

Stavros — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:08:15 +0000

Funny species, those Intelligent Design proponents (aka IDiots) are. They keep repeating the same vacuous arguments (well, not even arguments really, more like delusions) until they manage to convince themselves. Take for example this award winning quote from Casey Luskin.

Black hole creation attempts resumed at the LHC

Stavros — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:50:29 +0000

After last year's magnet problems which caused damage and significant delays at the experiments, LHC scientists have once again injected particle beams into the collider -thus officially resuming the operations to create a black hole that will mercilessly devour the whole planet.

Please MP Tredinnick say you are kidding: Medical Astronomy?!?

Stavros — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:27:04 +0000

It seems the battle to get rid of pseudo-scientific treatments from the public health and education arena (such as the NHS and various universities offering dubious "science" degrees) is never really going to end. There might have been some progress in fighting homeopathy out of some universities, and raising awareness of its absurdity, but now an MP (!) David Tredinnick calls for more research and public funding of... medical astronomy and remote healing!!

Greek left-wing party refuses parliamentary religious oath

Stavros — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:27:57 +0000

Following the recent elections in Greece, where the socialist party went back to power after a 7 year rule of the centre-right conservatists, the time had come for the newly elected members of the parliament to take their oaths. In this regard, the new parliamentary team of Syriza, a left-wing liberal party, decided not to take the Christian Orthodox oath, citing the freedom of religion passages in the Greek constitution.

Twin coin flipping “paradox” revisited

Stavros — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:46:56 +0000

Since lately my post on the twin coin flipping "paradox" has been gaining attraction, and there are still misconceptions about the outcome, I thought I should hack up a quick script to demonstrate. Experimenting is always the best way to verify an idea so let's do that.

Nobel prize in physiology or medicine 2009

Stavros — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:44:50 +0000

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Medicine has been awarded to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for the discovery of "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase". From the press release:...

October gigs in London

Stavros — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:59:14 +0000

A quick one to list up the interesting gigs I have spotted for October. As always, the period immediately after summer is very exciting in this respect, and this October is no exception. So here we go in date order:

MMR vaccine and autism: Still arguing about this?

Stavros — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:13:52 +0000

I was surprised last week to see a number of media reports on the apparent safety of the MMR vaccine and that, no, it doesn't cause autism after all... Loads of evidence have been gathered over the last decade that conclusively show that MMR has nothing to do with autism whatsoever, yet even nowadays some still argue about this!

God’s perfect creation (except that it was not)

Stavros — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:24:18 +0000

God’s gloriously perfect creation (except for the deliberate setup for failure and the presence of a supposedly evil serpent) was all wrecked because Adam chose to disobey God, choosing instead to listen to his only companion in the world and eat a bit of fruit.

Condoms, HIV, and the pope…

Stavros — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:29:07 +0000

Lately, many Catholic Christians ("journalists" or simple bloggers) have declared that: "science proves pope was right about condoms"... I find the use (or better, misuse) of the rules of logic by those people baffling. I also find the gross misdirection away from the actual problem with such statements baffling. Let me explain. Here are the facts of the case.

Recommended BMW services

Stavros — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:49:46 +0000

What with the low life form that decided to break my mirror, and with some all-around fixes, I had to get my BMW twice to a garage in the last 10 days. I also had to buy some parts online, since garages (and especially BMW dealers) seem to overcharge them. So after quite some research I have two recommendations to make.

Gordon Brown to Alan Turing: sorry, you deserved better…

Stavros — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:56:37 +0000

After much pressure in the form of a petition that received thousands of signatures, Gordon Brown released yesterday a statement apologizing for the inhumane treatment of Alan Turing.

Hmmm, tasty! Festival for vegans

Stavros — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:03:26 +0000

For some strange reason, I got a message on Facebook for an event I am not interested in, hosted by a group I am not interested in. (Brief irrelevant parenthesis: where is the privacy on Facebook?!? Closing brief irrelevant parenthesis). Nevertheless, I am grateful for the nice blogging material. Here is the description of the event's organizing group...

Science reporting…

Stavros — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:47:01 +0000

How science reporting works...

Bad Science: Homeopaths still misrepresenting the evidence

Stavros — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:49:14 +0000

Following the World Health Organization's (WHO) condemnation of homeopathy as a cure for all sorts of dangerous ailments, prominent homeopaths complained that the WHO did not take into consideration the "growing evidence-base" of their favorite pet "therapy"! Now, we are all well aware that the evidence base ranges from inconclusive meta-analyses, to damning systematic reviews, so how this is a "growing evidence-base" FOR homeopathy is beyond me...

The World Health Organization condemns homeopathy

Stavros — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:05:57 +0000

This was due a long time now: the World Health Organization (WHO) denounced homeopathy and labelled it ineffective and not suitable as a cure for ailments such as cancer, malaria, AIDS, and even diarrhoea -a favorite among homeopaths. As the BBC reported:...

Stuff from the Science Blogosphere

Stavros — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:17:29 +0000

Long time no see. The "Stuff from the Science Blogosphere" series returns for the new season, after a longer than average break. And this time we have the usual alternative medicine crap, ranging from homeopathy (our favorite) to Chinese herbs and natural remedies. University courses that really should be more in touch with reality. And some antivaccinationist propaganda to close off this instalment a bit more seriously. Here we go...

What’s the point?

Stavros — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:35:11 +0000

Back to reality. Back to London starting my post-summer rehabilitation. Was happy to find Rosalea still alive :-) and my car intact at the back of my house. But...

Teach the controversy

Stavros — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:31:28 +0000

[source: wearscience]