Articles tagged with "cell"

I went to the Go Green Expo in Wellington on the 2nd of November, along with Mark, Bronwyn and my two tiny sidekicks. Mia had a great time having her own little disco on the power company's display, and they both enjoyed all the free samples. However I had to steer them clear of the booze, and there was a surprising amount of that. That and mushrooms. I think I must have missed a memo somewhere – when did mushrooms become a thing?

In February it was announced by researchers that non-verified cell lines and misidentified nucleotide sequences were cited in hundreds of papers. This got picked up by the media in May:

Back in November last year, I wrote a critique of a Safe ICT questionnaire I picked up at the Go Green expo. We recently received a copy of Safe ICT's most recent newsletter where they responded to my criticisms. I'm not going to rebut their rebuttal, as this kind of to and fro rarely ends up being productive, but suffice it to say that Safe ICT's overly cautious advice for people using technology is not in alignment with our understanding of the science, and is not based on any scientific evidence of harm.

I've written about MMS - the "Miracle Mineral Supplement" - several times beforeA (here and here, for example). I guess it's a useful thing to hold up to show how something can clearly be woo - eg claims that it kills/cures practically everythingB under the sun - and yet people still buy the stuff. Buy it, and potentially do real harm using it. Because MMS is essentially bleach: 28% sodium chlorite in distilled water. Those using it typically 'activate' it by mixing it with lemon or orange juice, which gives the strong bleach, chlorine dioxide. And then they drink it, or - even worse - feed it to their children...

The Plausibility of Life-resolving Darwin's dilemma, by Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart. Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-300-10865-6. Reviewed by Louette McInnes.

Now that Terri Schiavo has been allowed to die peacefully there is an opportunity to reflect on the matter free from the hysteria and religious arguments advanced as an excuse to maintain her in a vegetative state. When discussing the ethics of the situation with a local surgeon he commented that the main problem was that the feeding tube should never have been inserted in the first place. A feeding tube is surgically inserted into the stomach through a hole in the abdominal wall. Once such medical interventions have been made it is very hard to reverse them. In this case the debate appears to have been hijacked by Catholic pressure groups.